A new film by John Michael McDonagh (The Guard, Calvary) demands attention, and there’s no disputing the fact that War Against Everyone did well when it premiered last February in Berlin. “Imagine if Quentin Tarantino directed Starsky and Hutch and didn’t mess it up with his whole malignant misanthropic, misogynistic look-at-me thing. The result would be McDonagh’s snort-milk-out-your-nose-funny buddy cop comedy. Michael Peña and Alexander Skarsgard play Bob and Terry, co-dependent corrupt Albuquerque pigs snorting and shooting their way to tumble a supercilious English Lord (Divergent‘s Theo James) into horseracing, heists, and kiddy porn.” — from a non-bylined Vanity Fair review filed from Berlin.

You can’t glide your way through the Berlin Film Festival. Cannes is a breeze compared to this place. You have to put on your learning cap, screw down your focus and study the paperwork and submit to a lot of crowding and lines and trying to figure out how the fuck this and that works. The wifi around the Berlin Hyatt, which is only a block from the Berlinale Palast, is so overburdened that you learn quickly to just put your phone away and not even try. There were two midday press screenings today for The Grand Budapest Hotel, and I for one felt like a steer in an over-packed stockyard. In Cannes those with a pink badge with a yellow pastille can just slip right in, and even those with lesser badges wait in well-organized lines. There wasn’t even a line to get into Budapest this morning. It was a mob scene. At least I learned how things work around here.

Best Film (Golden Bear) — Child’s Pose, d: Calin Peter Netzer (Romania); Jury Grand Prix (Silver Bear) — An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker, d: Danis Tanovic (Bosnia); Best Director (Silver Bear) — David Gordon Green for Prince Avalanche; Best Actress (Silver Bear) — Paulina Garcia, Gloria; Best Actor (Silver Bear) — Nazif Mujic, An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker (Bosnia); Best screenplay (Silver Bear) — Jafar Panahi and Kamboziya Partovi, Closed Curtain; Outstanding artistic contribution (Silver Bear) — Kazakh cameraman Aziz Zhambakiyev, Harmony Lessons; Alfred Bauer Prize (honoring innovation) — Vic + Flo Saw a Bear, d: Denis Cote (Canada).

D. Strauss’s EXBERLINER Berlinale blog continues on this, the first day of the festival. I’ve gotten a general impression over the years that more drinking happens at the Berlin Film Festival than at any other, in large part (I assume) because Berlin is perhaps the most extreme party-animal town in the world.

As I scan the early ‘25 cinema horizon, there is nothing that even comes close to depressing me as much as my inevitable submission to Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17 (Warner Bros., 3.7). I hate this sight-unseen film so much that dark green ooze is seeping out of my ears.

On the plus side, there’s no film I’m more excited about seeing right now than Michel Franco’s Dreams, which recently premiered at the Berlinale. I knew it would be a must-see when the woked-up Jessica Chastain said she was uncomfortable about playing the wealthy but conflicted lead character.

No distributor has been announced, and I’ve been unable to find a press-screening link.

From David Rooney’s THR Berlinale review of Michel Franco‘s Dreams, which costars Jessica Chastain and Isaac Hernández:

“Franco’s story could easily have been the skeleton for a lurid erotic thriller about a possessive rich American woman claiming ownership of a Mexican boy toy a decade or more younger than her. But the director and his actors play it with neither sensationalism nor melodrama. Instead, it’s a laser-focused study of the shifting calibrations in an uneven power dynamic, in which Jennifer is unwilling to concede the upper hand, ultimately becoming ruthless when the tables are turned.

“When Fernando’s talent gets him a foot in the door at the prestigious San Francisco Ballet without her help, she’s rankled. Though not so much that she doesn’t resume the relationship and set him up as a teacher at the new studio. The desire between them is palpable when he returns to her home and is welcomed back with a steamy session on the stairs. But when first Jake and then her father figure out what’s going on, Jennifer takes steps to protect her position in both the family and the well-heeled arts community.

“The strict boundaries put in place by wealthy benefactors are evident in Michael’s cautionary chat with his daughter, carefully worded to address what he views as a distasteful situation: ‘I’m happy that you help immigrants. But there are limits. You know what I’m trying to say.’

“Dramatic events abruptly end Fernando’s ascent at SFB, landing him back in Mexico City, where a still intoxicated Jennifer soon follows. But the harmony between them is broken, notably after an eye-opening revelation that prompts Fernando to take drastic steps. That in turn leads to decisive retaliation from Jennifer, who does not respond well to humiliation.

“The escalating tension of that final act is as shocking and violent and viciously cold as anything in Franco’s filmography, which has seldom shied away from stark depictions of human cruelty — whether intimate in scale, like After Lucia, or encompassing explosive societal conflict, like New Order.

“As terrific as Chastain was in Memory, she’s arguably even better here playing a manipulative woman whose passion for Fernando is genuine — unbridled on the physical side and probably even sincere on a deeper emotional level, albeit with guardrails in place. It’s easy to see why the actress was eager to work with Franco again.

“She makes Jennifer’s impulsive final decision as startling as an execution sentence, though it strikes a blow that will cause more lasting pain. Her cut-glass cheekbones could draw blood.

“As an embodiment of a white person cushioned by money and privilege putting an upstart in his place, she’s chilling, even if she’s clearly also hurting herself.”

Chalamet in Berlin: “I’m very proud right now…Bones and All, A Complete Unknown and Marty Supreme…and no one knows what Marty Supreme is yet.”

Marty Supreme (A24, 12.25.25) is a fictionalized biopic about the late Marty Reisman (1930-20120), a seriously professional ping-pong player who won tons of medals at the World Table Tennis Championships between the late ’40s and ’60s. Produced, directed and co-written by “crazy” Josh Safdie. Pic was co-produced by Chalamet, in addition to playing Reisman. Longtime Safdie collaborator Ronald Bronstein co-wrote the script.

Why in the world would Martin Scorsese want to make another Jesus film? 35 years ago he delivered his magnum opus with The Last Temptation of Christ…he did it, nailed it, nothing left to prove. Especially with Terrence Malick‘s The Way of the Wind, a parable-driven Jesus flick he’s been editing for somewhere between four and five years, possibly debuting later this year. On top of which belief in Christian dogma has been plummeting for decades, and especially this century.

At a Berlinale press conference earlier today Scorsese said he’s still “contemplating” the approach to his Jesus film.

“What kind of film I’m not quite sure, but I want to make something unique and different that could be thought-provoking and I hope also entertaining. I’m not quite sure yet how to go about it. But once we finish our rounds here of promoting [Killers of the Flower Moon], maybe I’ll get some sleep and then wake up and I’ll have this fresh idea on how to do it.”

HE suggestion: Forget the Nazarene and do another gangster flick, only faster-moving this time. Faster and less contemplative and no old guys. As John Ford was to the western, Martin Scorsese is to northeastern-region goombah crime flicks.

HE is pre-approving Tina Satter‘s Reality (HBO Max, 5.23). Directed by Satter from a screenplay she co-wrote with James Paul Dallas and adapted from the FBI interrogation transcript of American intelligence whistleblower Reality Winner, pic premiered with glowing reviews during last February’s Berlinale. Sydney Sweeney, Marchánt Davis and Josh Hamilton on top.

“Reality transcends staginess as a strikingly well-realized piece of filmmaking, using judicious sound design and expressive lighting to gain a surreally vivid edge.” — from Tim Robey’s Telegraph review.
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