Strauss lagging on "La Mome"

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Is EXBERLINER Berlinale blogger D. Strass behind the curve and/or missing the boat on La Mome/Vie en Rose? He could certainly file a bit faster, since La Mome is the first seemingly hot thing to emerge from the Berlin Film Festival, with Marion Cotillard allegedly giving the first '07 performance with a shot at becoming a Best Actress contender.

"Film choices are minimal today," he wrote yesterday. The press screenings kicked off with a French prestige production (which is to say, it was almost three hours long): Olivier Dahan's La Mome, a biopic about Edith Piaf. [I've been] assured that this film will be worthwhile, though films of this size and nature tend to be more worthy than worthwhile if you see what I’m saying.

"The French still create the sort of gigantic historical epics that passed from favor in the U.S. 40 years ago, and with a sprinkling of politically muddled exceptions. And very few of these French Fanfares have much to offer other than some finely lit soot and, again, with a few exceptions. I notch this up to a pervasive nostalgia and melancholia that continues to flow through French culture – the same sort that enable their love of Edith Piaf."