Actors Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo are already set to tear apart city blocks together as members of The Avengers this summer, so why shouldn’t they be in a love story together as well? Sounds like the logical next step. To that end they’ve both joined Once writer/director John Carney’s next film, Can a Song Save Your Life? Why the ridiculous title? Well, because, like Once, this movie is also about musicians falling in love. This time the story is set in New York City, where Johansson will be playing a plucky young singer trying to start a career in the music business after getting dumped by her stupid boyfriend. While there she meets a charming though mumble-mouthed record producer (Ruffalo) who’s been down on his lucky lately (you know, because he’s a record producer), and the two start up a fling that manages to turn both of their lives around.

Early on in the documentary The Swell Season, its subjects sit on the floor of their tour bus and stare at a familiar movie poster, a tweaked one-sheet for the Oscar-winning Once, which cast Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard as modified versions of their real life selves. It’s the same poster that appears throughout the documentary in various forms – on CD covers, on sheets of paper, on signs announcing their tour – yet in this quiet moment, Hansard and Irglova appearing to finally be getting their first good look at it. They kneel over it for a beat, gazing, and then they start listing all of the things that have been changed from the original photograph – Hansard and Irglova’s legs have been lengthened, Hansard’s hat has been removed and his hair has been added on, the colors of their jackets have been changed, the two have been made to look as if they may be holding hands, but Hansard is most struck by a change he can’t quite but his finger on – “they” somehow made him “more handsome.” On the most basic level, The Swell Season is about the difficulty in dealing with a sudden rise to fame, and the strange alienation and disconnect that comes with that – what happens when “they” make you “more handsome.” But as the film charts that sudden rise, it also tracks a converse reaction that relies so much on that first ascent as to be nearly mathematical. That’s a fancy [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Irish films generally fall into a few limited categories. There’s the dark and dour movies that explore their troubled history with the IRA (Bloody Sunday), films that focus on abuses at the hands of misguided and violent authority figures (The Magdalene Sisters), movies where people sing bad songs poorly (Once), and then there’s the whimsical fantasies about seal people attempting to enslave humanity (The Secret of Roan Inish). That’s it really. But now a fifth category can be added to the official Irish film canon… zany comedy!

Marketa Irglova’s acceptance speech, Javier Bardem’s tribute to dear ole mom or Marion Cotillard freaking out. What was your favorite moment?

The Academy’s music branch executive committee has met and endorsed the validity of “Falling Slowly” as a nominated achievement.

Take a look at the following video, which is a pitch-perfect encapsulation of the year that was in cinema.

Forget about all the blockbusters of summer, here are ten films that hit DVD shelves in 2007 that you should be discovering.

Looking back on the year that was 2007, what scenes or moments from films will live on? What will people be quoting a year from now — McLovin or Dewey Cox?

Two strangers find love through music — will we find love through DVD?

In a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Zach Braff and Lisa Kudrow helped deliver the nominees for the 2008 Independent Spirit Awards. Have a look at the nominees.