La Vie en Rose
La Vie en Rose is the mirror image of August Rush. Telling the story Edid Piaf’s exotic life, the film easily feels real and authentic. For an ear that grew up on pop and classical music, it is difficult to connect to the French style of singing in the 1920s and 1930s. I could not hear what made Edid Piaf’s singing so extraordinary. By contrast, the first time August Rush touches a guitar to make music, it is apparent that this kid is a genius. You can see and hear it. I found La Vie en Rose to be in a similar league as Ray and Walk the Line. In regard to the superb acting, the most compelling scene takes place on the first date that Edith Piaf (Marion Cotillard) has with the boxer Marcel Cerdan (Jean-Pierre Martins). Cotillard task is to show in her face that Piaf, who grew up in a whorehouse and has had a long list of lovers, is smitten with Marcel in a way she had never felt before (a “coup de foudre” as the French would say). Cotillard deserved the Oscar this year for this scene alone.
August Rush
Enjoying music seems to be hardwired into our brains. The wild success of the iPod is strong testimony that everyone loves music. I have yet to meet someone who does not like to listen to melodic sounds. August Rush is a 10-year old boy stuck in an orphanage somewhere just outside of New York City. He deciphers music in the many regular sounds of everyday life. He also believes that he can hear musical messages from his parents. His fellow orphans think that August is just a freak. One day August decides to hitchhike to Manhattan to look for his parents. Within 24 hours August morphs into a child prodigy who would have given young Mozart a run for his money. For once I can give away how the story ends: happily. Repeatedly deus ex musica comes to aid the plot. All the stars align perfectly at every single juncture to bring the story to the one conclusion that was possible in a universe ruled by a micro-managing, all-powerful, music-loving God: August is reunited with his parents on the lawn of Central Park. While story in the film is ridiculous, the film’s music, mixing rock, folk and classical sounds, is wonderful.
Slate starts the Hillary Death Watch
If she wins the nomination after all, she will be true comeback kid.
The Next Surreal News Story from New York
One day into the Spitzer scandal I predicted that the governor would have announced his resignation within the next 24 hours. So it was. But did I see it coming that then new governor would hold a press conference about his extramarital curriculum with the first 24 hours of assuming power. Hell, no!
After reading this story, I invite you to ponder this question. How do blind men figure out what is a good looking woman? Can you detect just by touching someone’s face whether the person looks beautiful?
Gov. Paterson admits to sex with other woman for years (New York Daily News)
The thunderous applause was still ringing in his ears when the state’s new governor, David Paterson, told the Daily News that he and his wife had extramarital affairs. In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago. In the course of several interviews in the past few days, Paterson said he maintained a relationship for two or three years with “a woman other than my wife,” beginning in 1999.
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The Fall of Eliot Spitzer
Last week I was reminded again of the sage observations that real life generates stories that no fiction writer could ever imagine. Who would have thought that the prosecutor who went after prostitution rings would fall with lightening speed precisely because he was involved with the kind of ring in his previous role as attorney general of New York? To his credit he stepped down swiftly after his sky-high hypocrisy rendered him politically impotent. What made this sex scandal different the Lewinsky affair or senator Craig’s airport arrest was that from beginning to end it only took 48 hours. Spitzer in my mind was even more reckless than Clinton. Clinton only jeopardized being an effective president while the Republicans were trying to use Lewinsky affair to throw people out of office. Clinton stayed and continued to be a high popular elder statesman until he momentarily became the bulldog for his wife’s pre-presidential bid. But Spitzer threw-away his entire political career that might have led to the presidency for 22-year old hooker. Unlike many other politicians, he already had a beautiful wife. Why? Why are politicians often so reckless? N. R. Kleinfield of the NY Times provides some answers.
Stealing 11 days from history
It is a leap year again. I barely noticed it until I read this fascinating article.
A Great Leap Forward By CHRIS TURNEY
WHEN Frederic, the hero of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance,” learns that his Feb. 29 birthday means that he is not 21 years old but 5, he figures he’ll have to serve out his apprenticeship to the Pirate King for 60 more years, and swears to the love of his life that he will return in his 80s and marry her. Such are the tales that have always been told about today’s date. But now we’re in the 21st century, and time is measured according to oscillations of vaporized atoms of cesium-133. Why do we still need something as oddly quaint as leap year?
Continue ReadingMeet the Renaissance Man: Benjamin Franklin
I had no idea how prolific a writer Ben Franlin was. Here you can read a short biography of one American Founding fathers and learn how to educate yourself to be a great writer.
Benjamin Franklin
Continue ReadingCan Mrs. Clinton Lose?
By PEGGY NOONAN (WSJ)
If Hillary Clinton loses, does she know how to lose? What will that be, if she loses? Will she just say, “I concede” and go on vacation at a friend’s house on an island, and then go back to the Senate and wait? Is it possible she could be so normal? Politicians lose battles, it’s part of what they do, win and lose. But she does not know how to lose. Can she lose with grace? But she does grace the way George W. Bush does nuance.She often talks about how tough she is. She has fought “the Republican attack machine” that has tried to “stop” her, “end” her, and she knows “how to fight them.” She is preoccupied to an unusual degree with toughness. A man so preoccupied would seem weak. But a woman obsessed with how tough she is just may be lethal.
Confessions of a Young Hillary Supporter
This is the second story I read today about the primary that is funny.
By Alex Joseph in Slate
I’m a young male Democrat, and I support ... Hillary Clinton. I may be the loneliest man at Georgetown University, where I’m practically a social pariah. Supporting Hillary on a college campus this year is like being a Yankees fan at a Red Sox game, a Barry Manilow lover at a Radiohead concert. At Georgetown, the Obama supporters—devotees? cultists?—are everywhere. He’s the best thing to happen to college since campuses went co-ed. Red, white, and blue O’s line the windows of dorm rooms. It won’t take long for someone to invent a drinking game where you count the words change and hope in the senator’s stirring stump speech. (That would be 16 shots of headache, if his speech after the South Carolina primary was any indication.)
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The New York Times Editorial Board for the first time has second thoughts
As an Obama supporter, I was disappointed to read that the NY Times endorsed Hillary Clinton. Now one of editorial writers has gone to an Obama rally in California and is preparing himself for the defeat of Hillary.
EDITORIAL OBSERVER
Michelle, Maria, Caroline and Oprah on the Hustings in California
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL Los Angeles
Forty-eight hours before the closest thing America has ever had to a national primary, four extraordinary women put on the best campaign rally I’ve seen in 20 years of covering presidential politics. The pitch-perfect event in U.C.L.A.‘s basketball arena started like every other Barack Obama event—chants of “yes we can” and signs pitching the power of hope. Mr. Obama campaigned on the East Coast Sunday, but by the time this rally ended, Michelle Obama, Caroline Kennedy, Oprah Winfrey and Maria Shriver had crystallized the challenge Senator Hillary Clinton will face if she wins the Democratic nomination. She will have to figure out how to preserve the energy and excitement that Mr. Obama has stirred in his supporters, especially in once-alienated young voters.
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