Berlinale Blues

My poor pal Filmbrain got so agitated at the Berlin Film Festival screening of 300 that he forgot to put a period at the end of the sentence wherein he compared it to Showgirls. Umm, good gawd, ya'll. Within said post he references a negative review of the film from Erik Davis—hey, is that Erik Davis, the one-time rock critic?—and says poor E.D. is taking a beating for said review.

Well. This is one of those times where being a responsible old media critic conflicts with one's obligations to the freeeeeeeee-dom of the blogosphere. I mean, what if one such as myself had himself happened to see a film not entirely physically or metaphysically dissimilar to a film screened in Berlin, and what if that one had found said film to be, while handsome and impressive and galvanizing on many cinematic and otherwise levels, to be pretty much the most overtly fascistic thing to come out of the North American movie industry since, oh, I dunno, Robocop 2? And what if said film were seen in a not-for-review context? I mean, one would probably feel, at this particular moment at least, obliged to keep one's mouth, cyber-space-animated and otherwise, pretty much shut, no?

But then again, one might also not be in any kind of hurry to beat up on Erik Davis, no matter how overheated a particular film has made the poor fellow.

Comments

[Filmbrain]

It was interesting to see how WB scrambled after Erik's spot-on review. They issued a press release claiming that the film received a standing ovation blah blah blah. I wasn't at the public premiere, but I question the validity of the story. (Dozens of bloggers published it sans question.) I've encountered enthusiastic applause at several premeiers here, but I've not seen a single standing ovation. Somehow I doubt 300 got the Berliners to their feet (except to get the hell out of there.)

I'm really looking forward to your take on the film, Glenn.

[sara]

You and I have already disagreed on 300, but I'm still amused to read the Davis review. (Is the movie really "long awaited"? The first I heard of it was when WB screened it for us a few months back.) Then again, I suppose I'm one of those "enthusiasts of greased, half-naked men fighting each other," so aside from the extremely silly bit with the Oracle, I enjoyed the whole damn thing.