I was all set to go see La Vie en Rose last weekend, but then I got distracted by all the nothing I was doing. So I still haven't seen it, but I can't wait — I'm hearing so many good things about the Edith Piaf biopic.

La Vie en Rose has a 76% positive rating at RottenTomatoes.com, and its star, Marion Cotillard, will receive the Hollywood Film Festival's Breakthrough Actress of the Year Award in October. AfterEllen.com users msgulp and jix1125 have also sung the movie's praises, and they're not terribly easy to impress. There's even some lesbianish content, according to jix1125: "I saw chicks making out for a second and a female bartender in a tux and mustache, along with a barely subtextual lesbian crush on Edith by her BFF. Also, Gerny's is a gay-ish club with drag queens." Now that's my kind of movie. … continue reading

On Sunday, The New York Times featured an article titled "Glorious Dissolution: Musicians on Film." It considers some forthcoming music biopics, whose subjects include Edith Piaf and Janis Joplin. The Piaf pic, La Vie en Rose (opening Friday in limited release) compares Piaf to her "spiritual double," Billie Holiday. I've never quite made that connection, but it's a fascinating one.

Director Olivier Dahan notes that Piaf and Holiday endured a fragility that was both boon and bane:

“I don’t believe that to be a great artist you have to be tormented,” Mr. Dahan said. But, he added, the very qualities that help musicians as artists may also render them vulnerable. “Maybe there is something about being fragile,” he said. “And to be fragile is to also be very receptive. You can’t be a great artist and not be fragile, so when you are fragile everything kind of hits you, the good and the bad for sure.”

That rings true, even if it does also make me frown. It's no fun when you know the person's going to self-destruct at the end. But thanks to some of the weird casting choices for upcoming biopics, the self-destruction is the least of my worries: … continue reading