Week of March 13 to March 19 (Mann)

What's on at the Tropic
by Phil Mann

It's another special-filled week, led by return screenings of the Edith Piaf biopic, LA VIE EN ROSE -- with the heart-wrenching singing voice of Jil Aigrot -- starting on Monday, March 16. This is a nice little cooperative venture with the Tennessee Williams fine Arts Center, which is bringing Mme. Aigrot for a live performance the following week. Members of the Film Society can even win a free pair of orchestra tickets to the live show by introducing a new Patron-level member for the Society.

For fishing enthusiasts, local fishing guide and filmmaker Will Benson presents the local premiere of the FLY FISHING FILM TOUR. It's fly fishing's answer to surfing's Endless Summer, taking you to incredible destinations around the world. That's Tuesday at 7:00pm

For balletomanes, the new Saturday matinee series offers PHAROH'S DAUGHTER performed by the Bolshoi, in hi def. The theme of this classic is the hallucinations of an Englishman tripping out on opium smoked in an Egyptian pyramid. Welcome to Key West.

Prefer opera instead? Wednesday evening brings Shostakovich's LADY MACBETH to the screen, direct from the Teatro del Maggio Musicale in Florence. Sung in Russian, but, as always, with English subtitles.

Want a classic film? Vittorio De Sica's MIRACLE IN MILAN. Made in 1951, the movie is appropriate to 2009, since it's the story of slumdogs (from Milan rather than Mumbai) and their fairy-tale triumph over narrow-minded capitalists. It won the Grand Prize at Cannes in its day.

Oh, regular movies. I almost forgot. Mickey Rourke continues to dazzle in THE WRESTLER and
Kate Winslet in THE READER. Both are stories of ways in which events take control of life. There are no fairy tales for either of these characters, who surely wish that they could have pushed the rewind button on reality. I sometimes carp at the Tropic for holding movies too long, but if it gives you a chance to see either of these, take advantage of it.

Another guy who could have benefitted from a career rewind was Che Guevara. In Part Two of CHE he moves on from triumph in Cuba to tragedy in Bolivia. Or maybe not. The Che we know is an icon, a photograph, a legend. Could he have survived as a bureaucrat in Cuba? Like Mickey Rourke's wrestler, he did what fate had created him for. If you missed Part One of CHE it's being rerun in the afternoon daily.

The big story at the Tropic this week is not on the screen but in the lobby, where you'll see a floor-to-ceiling wooden partition shutting off the Sussman Lounge from construction work next door. When it's all finished, by summer, you'll have a double-wide lobby and a fourth movie screen, raising the Tropic from a triplex to a quadplex. I'll have a fuller report on that soon, but in the meantime, be warned that some of the bike racks have been removed to accommodate a construction barrier. You've probably heard as well that the Post Office has started to crack down on evening parking, so allow a bit more time to locate a spot unless you're on foot.

Save the date, Saturday, April 4, for the Tropic's Fifth Birthday Gala. Free movies, groundbreaking ceremony for the new expansion, and general festivities, from noon to 8:00pm. Details to come.

More info and schedules at TropicCinema.com. Comments, please, to pmann99@gmail.com
[from Key West, the Newspaper - KWTN.com]