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.