Power Ballad

From Betty:

I just saw the movie POWER BALLAD and I wanted to say a few words about writing a movie about a song or where the song is the theme.

Just stop. Don’t do it. Unless you are John Carney who wrote and directed the movie ONCE and owned the rights to the Oscar winning, Olivier winning, Grammy winning, and Tony winning song that was written by the stars of your film (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova), don’t do it.

Not realizing John Carney had done it “once” again, POWER BALLAD shows off his talents, 20 years later, by writing and directing another soon to be award winning (IMHO) movie about a song. When we see a busker singing the aforementioned “Falling Slowly” from the movie ONCE, it sends chills to those who know. This miniscule scene with the busker encapsulates the theme of the entire movie and reminds us that once upon a time, there was this unknown song in a tiny little film made for 150K that broke all records. But this time, he not only wrote and directed the movie, he also co-wrote the beautiful song.

Unfortunately for us, and him, we have to hear Nick Jonas sing the song all the way through and I genuinely hated the song until Paul Rudd sings it at the end. I was in tears when Rudd sang it. It just proved the theme of the movie: it has to be the right song, at the right time, by the right singer to deliver goosebumps.

It’s a great movie if you can get through listening to Nick Jonas sing (his acting was pretty good, considering it was type-casting).

So, if you want to have a specific song playing in your satirical comedy titled A.D., you don’t say, “Mary and Joseph start to do the nasty as Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’ plays.” Instead you mention in the description, “Joseph removes Mary’s cloak as a sexy song (think ‘Let’s Get It On’) plays.”

If you’re another Lin-Manuel Miranda (is that even possible?) and have written a musical, more power to you! Mention any and all of the songs that you personally wrote. If you don’t own the rights, don’t mention the song. Just tell the reader to “think” about the song you have in your head, and if you’re lucky, your movie gets made. If you hit the jackpot, the producer has the budget to use the song you were “thinking” about.