Torino Winter Olympics 2006

I've now traveled from Berlin to Torino, so for updates on the Olympic experience, see http://torinotraveler.blogspot.com

B for Berlin

I'm sitting in a bar in Berlin on my laptop, readying to attend my final screening of the Berlinale and head to Torino tomorrow. I'm feeling sad that the filmfest experience is about to end, even though I'm really looking forward to the Olympics.

I started out this morning at a screening of "Dave Chappelle's Block Party," a documentary about a concert Chappelle staged in Brooklyn that included Kanye West, Mos Def, The Fugees, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott and other rap/R&B performers. That's not my normal music, and the film makes an effort to reach out to people like me by showing others who are obviously unfamiliar with the music attending the concert, and I ended up really enjoying it. Chappelle is truly a funny guy, but there are glimpses of the "sad clown" that hint at his later experience with a mini-breakdown. He makes some interesting points about the juxtaposition between music and comedy. The film was extremely sparsely attended - I guess it wasn't highbrow enough for the Euro audience.

Afterward I met a Wake Forest film prof for an interview that I hope will be in Arts or Arts/Living or whatever the heck we're calling it this weekend. Then I managed to meet my friend Craig from Duke for lunch - he's all the way across Berlin and I'm getting mighty tired of hoofing my laptop to so many train platforms, an experience that will probably only get worse in Torino. Carrying it makes my shoulders so sore I have to do yoga stretches every morning just to get out of bed.

I made it back in time for a screening of "V for Vendetta," which opens in the U.S. soon. It stars Natalie Portman and a guy in a goofy-looking mask he never takes off (actually the baddie agent from "The Matrix.") It's a near-future sci-fi movie that sounds a loud warning about the threats to civil liberties our current anti-terrorism regime poses. I have a feeling the U.S. critics won't be kind and it may not make much money, but I'd recommend seeing it. I found it entertaining and thought-provoking in the vein of "Day After Tomorrow," which combined an environmental message with really cool special effects, only this one is more serious and more well-done. Then I headed to the press conference afterward, where I caught Portman and the rest of the cast from the front row (she shaves her head in the movie and still has really short hair, and just like Lindsey Lohan she faced questions about her hairstyle - she says she's always wanted to shave her head. Hmmm.)

Tonight I finally get to see Lohan's movie (oh yeah, Meryl Streep's in it too). I hope blog access remains predictable in Torino!

Starring Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson and Lindsey Lohan's hair

Another good day today. My friend Robert from the Burns fellowship came in from Bremen to spend part of the day with me. We had lunch, took a long walk through the city (the sun was finally starting to peek out) and ended up with coffee back where the Berlinale is being held. After he had to head back home, I went into the Filmmuseum and took in the exhibit on the history of German film - the most interesting part was the Marlene Dietrich collection, which downplayed her lesbianism (presumably because European audiences care about it so much less than Americans).

My only screening of the day was "Quinceanera," which won two of the grand prizes at Sundance last month. Given its award history, I had high expectations but was a bit disappointed. The script was great, and it was a wonderful non-stereotypical window into the lives of Los Angeles Latino teens, but the problem was the acting of the lead girl - I found it gratingly bad. Still, the script had me feeling warm fuzzies and fighting back tears by the end.

Afterward I made my way to the press conference for Robert Altman's new film, "Prairie Home Companion." Altman was there along with Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson and Lindsey Lohan. The photographers were the most obnoxious I've seen them here, even worse than they were for George Clooney, testament to Lohan's status as papparazzi bait (though they seemed fairly taken with Streep and Altman as well).

One of Lohan's deepest questions was about her hair, which resembles an Elvira fright wig at the moment - "I colored it" was her profound answer. A reporter put Streep on the spot by asking her to sing, as she evidently does in the movie, but she backed out. Harrelson said maybe two words, but gave no evidence of being stoned. I'm hoping to see that one tomorrow, my last full day before heading on to Torino.

Berlinale day 2

I feel I've got a much better grasp of the Berlinale now. This morning I started the day with a documentary called "Wide Awake" which was actually the filmmaker's study of his own insomnia - it had premiered last month at Sundance, and had a feel similar to "Super Size Me." It was an appropriate subject matter because my jetlag kept me up the night before. I caught the director in the lobby afterward and chitchatted - yes, he still has insomnia, and no, he hadn't slept the night before. The film was well-done and I believe it may have been picked up by HBO, so it's worth catching when it airs.

Then I caught a German premiere, "Elementary Particles," which features the stars of one of my faves, "Run Lola Run." I wasn't that crazy about the movie - it was about the deviant sex lives of two brothers with mommy issues, overlaid with a bunch of overblown philosophical thoughts. But the German audience loved it, and the press treated its stars as reverently as U.S. media would fawn over Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Directly after that press conference was another presser with Sir Ian McKellan, a.k.a. Gandalf from Lord of the Rings and Magneto from X-men, and, oh yeah, the guy nominated for the Oscar for Gods and Monsters. I felt badly for him because most of the media cleared out after the German movie stars left and it was a paltry crowd asking him questions, but he put on a charming show.

I had a few hours to kill so I tried unsuccessfully to fix a problem with my mobile phone - I've fried my charger on German voltage so I'm in danger of being out of touch during my upcoming days in Torino. Then I caught a quick meal at a uniquely German snack stand - all they served was potatoes, in various incarnations (I had a potato pancake with sour cream and applesauce).

Next I had my first interviews of the festival: with Janusz Kaminski, the cinematographer who has worked on Steven Spielberg's last 10 films (he won Oscars for Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List), and with Charlotte Rampling, a Brit actress who's a familiar face despite not many big-name films (one of her most recent was "Swimming Pool," and she's going to be in the upcoming "Basic Instinct 2" opposite Sharon Stone - I hope that one doesn't suck too bad). Both interviews went well - at one point a publicist interrupted my conversation with Kaminski and asked if he wanted to wrap it up, and he said he wanted to continue the interview because he was enjoying it. Hoping those will turn into freelance pieces.

And I wrapped up the evening with my hosts Christina and Peter, who joined me to watch an Israeli documentary called "News from Home," which tracked the former owners and subsequent occupants of a house in Israel that was seized in 1948 from a Palestinian family - overall interesting but a flawed film because the director put his own agenda into it too heavily. My hosts then took me to a classic German beer garden for a late supper.

A note on the people I've encountered: though the Germans persist in describing themselves as unfriendly, my experience has generally been the opposite. A random guy in the airport gave me a free day pass for the subway after spotting me with a confused look on my face in front of the fare machine, and all strangers I've asked have been unfailingly helpful in giving me directions. But this morning I had an exception to the positive experience - a group of four or five people ranging from late teens to early 20s surrounded me as I was walking to the S-bahn (train) early this morning with my laptop hanging over my shoulder. I thought I overheard them calling me a "computer clown" so I ignored them and just kept walking. Christina clued me in that in fact they were saying they wanted to steal my computer - "computer klauen" - so it was a blessing I didn't understand them because they were most likely just trying to provoke a reaction. But they grew bored with me quickly, and Christina reminds me that Berlin is generally a safe city and street thefts are rare.

Clooney in; Swedish transvestite out

It's taking me a little time to get acclimated to the Berlinale. At least the movie theaters sell beer here. The publicists are not very friendly - apparently all of the U.S. media folks have to get in line behind the Europeans, and there are thousands of their media outlets here. Screenings are harder to get into than my Sundance experience - my attempt to watch an obscure Swedish film about a transgendered girl (boy?) was thwarted this evening, and I saw others employing what I'm certain were back-door tricks to get in. I'll have to work on figuring those out. Oh, and even the gift shop kind of stinks - not many cool filmfest souvenirs.

I only managed to see one film today, and I'm embarrassed to admit it was "Syriana," which I of course could've seen at home - but haven't yet. I wanted to go because there was a press conference with George Clooney and others afterward and I figured I should've seen it for that. (The film played at the festival as a way of generating publicity for its European release). The Euro audience gave the film's anti-American sentiments a very warm reception.

And I learned that international media ask questions just as dumb as U.S. media - they asked George how he lost the weight he had gained for the part (lots of cocaine, he said)and whether Julia Roberts was really surprised to see him in a scene in Ocean's 12 or if she was just acting (yes, the question was really that stupid). Jeffrey Wright who played the corrupt investigator and Alexander Siddig who played the ill-fated prince were also there, along with director Stephen Gaghan who won the Oscar for "Traffic." Asked about his politics, George said he's proud to be an American because we lose our minds every 30 years or so, but we're really good at fixing our problems. He also predicted he will lose all three of his Oscar nominations to "Brokeback Mountain."

Hope I'll get into more screenings tomorrow.

Back in Berlin for the Berlinale

A grueling 18 hours of traveling, including several unexpected hours of layover due to a delayed connection in Frankfurt, brought me to Berlin yesterday. It was my first return since the fellowship, to attend the Berlinale film festival.

It's cold but not brutally so - the bigger problem is the snow, which is extremely wet, gray and gloomy. Berlin is a bit more complicated to navigate than Frankfurt, I'm finding. The Berlinale is being held at Potsdamer Platz, a glittering city square filled with brand-new high rises. (It's on a site that was formerly the "no man's land" between the walls separating east and west Berlin). I found my way to the press center but was too tired to stay for the opening screening of Sigourney Weaver's latest, "Snow Cake," or try to catch sight of the red carpet arrivals. Everyone was dressed up in evening dresses for the premiere - a big difference from Sundance, where people show up at screenings still dressed in whatever they went skiing in that day.

I'm staying in a lovely, enormous apartment on the eastern side of Berlin in an up-and-coming area filled with new restaurants of every imaginable variety - we went for Thai last night (I felt truly international while trying to decipher a Thai menu written in German). My hosts are Christina and Peter, who I met through one of the people I was on the Burns fellowship with. Christina works for the German Foreign Service as a diplomat in the cultural affairs area. Peter works for SAP and has been away on business so I haven't seen him yet.

I'm off now to catch my first screenings of the day!