WEEKEND REWIND

• After a lively weekend that included a strange, but very fun, theme party on Friday night, and another fun get-together Saturday night, I spent the day on Sunday recuperating and watching movies over at my favorite couple’s house.

We watched “ONCE,” and “YEAR OF THE DOG.”

“Once,” which landed on a number of Best of 2007 lists — both as a film and as a soundtrack — features nonactors Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova as a “boy” and “girl” who meet on a Dublin street corner and develop a friendship through the music they make together.
It took a while for the slow-moving story to hook me, but by the end, I was moved by the boy and girl’s deep, but awkwardly fragile, relationship.

And “Year of the Dog,” stars SNL alum Molly Shannon as Peggy, the socially-awkward secretary (sense a theme here?) whose life slowly spins out-of-control after the death of her beloved beagle, Pencil.
Written and directed by Mike White (“School of Rock,” “The Good Girl”) this movie is not a comedy, it’s dark at some points and melancholy throughout, and sometimes it’s hard to watch Peggy make — although with good intentions — one poor decision after another.

SPOTTED: For some reason, the prior mentioned couple and I have a strange love/fascination/obsession with Peter Sarsgaard, who also stars in “Year of the Dog.”

* Kim Nowacki *