(Editor's Note: Rajo has embarked on a 1 month tour of his ancestral homeland, the East of Europe, where the real homeboys dwell well. We're making him send us letters back about the different movie stuff he sees because we took his cat hostage.)
Wow, Berlin is pretty damn cool.
Each building you walk by is either right outta a WW2 movie or failing that ruthlessly, elegantly and efficiently modern. The people here are nice enough when they realize they need to switch to English in order to accomodate you, but rude enough to insist on a game of chicken when approached on a crowded sidewalk - no one seems to want to dance the Canadian national 'You first,' 'No you, I insist.' jig (in fact I'm pretty sure that there's no German equivalent to 'excuse me'). Beyond that, the people are attractive and fun to be around (especially if their country wins a World Cup game), and the food is pretty awesome too, but the absolute best part of Berlin has to be, shock of all shocks, the beer. It's everywhere, it's cheap, and it's deeeeeelicious. And did I mention that it's everywhere? I'm drinking one right now as I write this.
Yesterday on our very modern, very efficient electric train from Frankfurt I walked down to the dining car (and the fact that their trains have dining cars is just too much. Shame on you, VIA rail) to order myself a beer because it had only been about an hour since I had one at the train station cafeteria, and I was due, as I was and am on a holiday.
As I walked by a bunch of attractive, friendly beer drinkers sitting in their seats with their laptops and iPods and futuristic cellphones I couldn't help but notice an older gentlemen watching a movie on his laptop. Being myself a dude who loves movies, I tried to surreptitiously suss out what it was. Immediately, I recognized Christoph Waltz sitting at a table with creepy Josef Goebbels and that French lady that plays his translator - ding - Inglourious Basterds.
Here's the weird part: no subtitles. So this guy must have been German, watching a recent, internationally celebrated movie about villainous Nazi Germans on a German train. I dunno, it just struck me as odd, and I kinda felt weirdly sorry for this guy, and for all the people around me. How weird must it be for them... Hollywood, entertainment provider to the world, almost never makes a film about Germans in which they aren't Nazis. Oh well. I had a beer to purchase, so I continued along the aisle.
That experience helped inspire me to convince my lady friend to go watch a movie in a theatre here in Berlin, which we managed after a few false starts. The first: Germans don't want to watch their films subtitled, so almost every single American film released in Germany is presented dubbed in German by specifically trained voice actors or 'synchronsprecher'. In fact, many famous American actors have synchronsprecher counterparts that are used each time they have a film released so as to make the whole movie going experience even more authentic for the German people. But dude, I don't sprechen zie Deutch and neither does my lady, so we had to go all the way to Potsdamer Platz to the only theatre in Berlin which plays American films in their original form. Talk about inconvenient, Germany. Sheesh.
As we approached the Cine Star theatre at the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz we grabbed a beer because it was warm out and we were thirsty and it appeared as if Germany had won a world cup game because everybody at Potsdamer Platz was going literally, eye-rolling-back insane. I love saying Potsdamer Platz.
At the Cine Star ticket counter we asked for 2 tickets to see Splice, the newest American release they had (among SITC2 and Prince of Persia) and were given an odd choice; front or back? 'Uh, what's the difference?'
'Back costs 1 Euro more.'
'Uh, ok, the last row of the front, please.'
'Total for 2 tickets is... 14 Euros.'
Assigned seating at the movie theatre, and for such an affordable price. I love Berlin, and beer.
We downed our beers and headed down to the theatres. Stopping at the snack bar to grab some popcorn we were given yet another odd choice: sweet or salty?
'Uh… both? Oh, and some M&Ms in a fancy M&M cup, if you please.'
'Anything to drink? Coca Cola, water, beer...?'
'… beer.'
We walked into the near-empty theatre and I looked around for row g. Some kid laughed at me and said 'dude, pick any seat' but hell no, I paid good money and I wanted MY seat. When I found it, of course, some American guy was already sitting in it with no intention of moving. Oh well, we clinked pint glasses and settled in to our impossibly comfortable seats to watch Splice, of which I only saw about 15 minutes before completely passing out.
Next: Prague
(Editors Note: We here in the motherland saw Splice sober and loved it.)
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