This Week’s Recommendations

~ Lincoln Spector

I know. I promise I’ll get back into seeing films and writing about them. Soon. Really. In the meantime, here are the few things coming up that I know enough to have an opinion about:La vie en rose, Rafael, opens Friday. Early in this Edith Piaf biopic, a hunched, aged-before-her-time Piaf walks up to a recording studio microphone. She looks bored and mildly annoyed. When she starts singing in that incredible voice, she still looks bored and annoyed, her facial expression contrasting sharply with her soaring vocals. I knew then that La Vie En Rose wasn’t going to be a happy film about the redemption of art. Marion Cotillard gives one of cinema’s great performances as Piaf, who’s short life–at least in writer/director Olivier Dahan’s view–was about as miserable as a life can get. Horrendous childhood, bad luck, and her own selfish and unpleasant personality hurt her at every turn. This isn’t an easy film to watch, but it is also impossible to ignore. Great songs, too.

Bringing Up Baby, Stanford, Friday through Sunday. How does one define a screwball comedy? You could say it’s a romantic comedy with glamorous movie stars behaving like broad, slapstick comedians. You could point out that screwballs are usually set amongst the excessively wealthy, and often explore class barriers. Or you could simply show Howard Hawks’ frivolous and hilarious tale about a mild-mannered paleontologist (Cary Grant), a ditzy heiress (Katharine Hepburn), and a tame leopard (a tame leopard). On a double-bill with The Solid Gold Cadillac as the Stanford’s Katharine Hepburn Centenary series continues.

From Russia With Love, Creek Park, San Anselmo, Friday, 8:30. The James Bond films never got better than the second entry in the long series. Low-budget and rough around the edges by later standards, From Russia with Love benefits from not feeling obliged to stick to formula. It’s simply an exceptionally well-made little espionage thriller about a British spy named James Bond. Warning: Like all Film Nights in the Park, this is a DVD presentation.

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Published by Lincoln Spector

Lincoln Spector writes about cinema, technology, and cinema technology. From 1986 through 2008, he wrote Gigglebytes, the first technology-oriented humor column. From 1977 through 2016, he wrote PC World's Answer Line column and blog.