Mome - Marion is spectacular but the film is needlessly melodramatic

I'm glad I went to see LA MOME, or LA VIE EN ROSE. I had a good time at the movies. After seeing it, I realized what a good life I have. But seriously, Marion Cotillard's performance is nothing short of spectacular. Even if her performance borders on caricature, I realized that whatever Cotillard and the director were attempting to do, it was worth it and that includes the borderline caricatural acting. The only thing I thought went overboard was the melodrama. Edith Piaf's life is filled with tragedy. We are well aware of this but the filmmaker didn't need to dwell on it ad nauseam. Practically every scene in LA VIE EN ROSE is taken from the big catalog of melodrama.

It's hard to believe Edith didn't have one happy moment during her days as either a kid or a young adult. After 45 minutes of non-stop sadness, the film was laying it pretty thick. The best example of this was when Edith and her friend were eating at a restaurant. It was the first time we saw Edith eating a meal in a restaurant as a young woman. Just showing her enjoying her meal and chatting with her friend would have been fun to see but then Edith's estranged mother walks in, begging for food and money from her daughter and well, here we go again, more melodrama. The film needed more quiet moments to balance out Edith's albeit tragic life. The constant melo was at times off putting. Edith's life is remarkable enough without having to rely on easy melodrama to tell it. The end effect was like the director wanted to impress young generations, who are unfamiliar with Edith, by showing her life as being more edgy than Courtney Love's life could ever be.

At the theater were I saw it, an old couple in front of me walked out halfway into the picture, not pleased with the bleak representation of the beloved chanteuse. The director was obviously in love with the concept that great art emerges from tragedy/pain/suffering but he carried this concept to an unfortunate level.

My other critique of LA VIE EN ROSE is that the script forgot major aspects about her life. Of course they couldn't cover every aspect of her legendary life but forgetting to mention that Edith was the one who discovered Yves Montand or that she played a major part of the French Resistance was inexcusable. I understand that they wanted to create a specific portrait of her life. Making a biography is not easy thing to do. It can easily fall into two categories: it can be an exact "academic" portrayal of her life, which many find tedious and dull or it could have been a wildly inaccurate portrayal, made with many dramatic licenses, in order to be more entertaining. But in either case, an accurate, truthful portrayal of anyone's life is an impossibility and the director of LA VIE EN ROSE is conscious of this and deliberately avoided some things about Edith which would have conflicted with this portrait he wanted to create but the fact that Yves Montand didn't even figure somewhere in this portrait was, imo, very bizarre.

This brings another point: the film is so focused on Edith that all other characters are pushed in the background and we hardly know who they are. Edith's star is so bright that she eclipses everyone around her. This part didn't bother me that much because I realized the director wanted to focus only on Edith but it would have been nice to have known who was who.

But even with these weak points, I still recommend LA VIE EN ROSE. It's the type of film we rarely see these days: big, showy and remarkably depressing. Marion Cotillard should win awards after awards for her stunning portrayal. It's truly something to witness and worth the price of admission. And the music, of course, is great.

7/10

Spider-man 3 - Could be better

This film had the hallmarkings of a great! After the first two films literally set the character scenes and the hopeful return of the goblin this film could have been fantastic!

Sadly however by slipping in some terrible and cheesy dialogue, an over-abundance of new characters and then trying to take on one of the greatest characters from the comics and cartoons the film comes out with an average marking!

Firstly I have to say I enjoyed this film, it was fun, the special effects were fantastic and the fight scenes therefore played out very well.

This film did however destroyed any character building made by the previous two and results in a serious lack of cohesion to the other two and because of this cannot be placed within the same league.

Sandmand and the new goblin both admirable foes and both shown well, however venom could have been so much more and came across far too weak as far as I am concerned and seemed to be slipped on the back of an average film to try and boost ratings. I am not one for cliffhangers in large franchises, I mean the only reason I didn't see the 3rd matrix film was because the cliffhanger was pointless and the second film killed off any point of a third, however a full venom film would have made sense due to its sheer fantastic reasoning and design, even introducing the character carnage would have been fantastic, but he seems rushed in this film, and thats not the way to win over die hard fans and new fans the like!

Anyway, I appear to be ranting, I would recommend you watch this film, its fun, its got great action and the Bruce Campbell cameo was fantastic, however do not watch this thinking you are going to get the same quality and attention to detail as the first two films, watch it like X-Men 3, as this is just what it is, a good trilogy spoilt by the lack of development and the need to force as many characters in at once. Oh and by the way, if you love over the top American patriotism, then this is definitely the film for you!

6/10