Today....

It's been a while since I've posted here, so I figure the first day of my 40 th year (yes, folks, I turned 39 yesterday) is a good a time as any for resolutions. So, I am resolving to write more criticism/film/book stuff here, and then just blah on my other blog. Blogs a-poppin'.

So, since I'm one of the smackdowners over at Stinkylulu this month, this would be a good time to write about those performances. If I had seen them. So tonight's a double feature, and I will have watched all by this Saturday, lord willing and the crick don't rise.

Meanwhile--finished off the Armistead Maupin latest. It's like a new Tales in the City, but focused on Michael and his new, much younger boyfriend (just like the one Maupin has...hmmm..who is adorable, by the way). It's a little bent on trying to wring poignant moments about death and life out of the narrative, but somehow he works for me best when he's just inenting fun characters and plotting them. There is some plot summary of the earlier tales in this book, and you just long for how exciting and silly those were. I do like the ease with which he writes about sex, which has always been one of his strengths, as well as his writing about San Francisco. It's nice to revisit the characters, but I don't feel like it reaches the poignancy it's aspiring to.

And I did like La Vie en Rose, the new bio pic about Edith Piaf with a knockout performance by Marion Cotillard (that should be nominated for an Oscar). The perf is somewhat stagy, but it works beautifully for a woman who performed a great deal of her life. You always feel it's Piaf performing it, and I have no idea who this actress really is, besides great. I am most interested, though, that no one in the movie smokes. They are in France and New York from 1920 - 1960 and no one smokes. They drink, they fight, they visit prostitutes, but no cigarettes. Hmmmm.....so much for historical realism. They may think it's glamorizing smoking, but watching La Vie en Rose didn't make me want to drink or prostitue myself. Anyhow...the only mis-step is Piaf's first concert, where suddenly we are not hearing her sing anymore, only montaged gesticulations of singing while some instrumental overly orchestrated plays. Why? Other than that, go to watch her.

That's all for now. And tonight, it's California Suite