The News: Did Harvey Buy the Berlinale?

This is not a picture of Harvey Weinstein at the Berlin Film Festival (Photo illustration: D. Fith)

By S.T. VanAirsdale

Some of today's movie news of note from around New York:

--We've clearly got it all backwards around Reeler HQ, where we wound up away from the office all day Friday only to return bright and early to regale you on President's Day -- when you're probably looking out your window wondering why the weather won't cooperate with your day off. At least we can take comfort in knowing Harvey Weinstein never rests, at least not according to Filmbrain's hypothesis from the Berlinale, where The Weinstein Company's "repugnant, ugly" and "bordering on fascist" Brazilian crime thriller Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad) won the fest's Golden Bear. "Did Harvey in any way influence this win?" he writes. "We'll never know for sure, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to believe this was the result of an honest vote." Now this is the swagger I was talking about last month when I craved a Harvey revival. Next up: Sicko, your 2007 Best Documentary Oscar winner, brought to you by TWC. Don't think it's out of the question.

--Also in Berlin, Dennis Lim didn't sound too thrilled about Elite Squad's win either, but at least he got a trip to Paris and a rare audience with Jacques Rivette out of it.

--Lou Lumenick reports (via Cinema Treasures) that Clearview is handing off its twinner at Chelsea West to the School of Visual Arts in a tentative partnership with Queens' soon-to-be-remodeled Museum of the Moving Image. The museum has hosted numerous special screenings and Q&A's there over the last year, and I've covered no fewer than 50 premieres there since 2005. And just like that, two more screens are gone from the landscape.

--Since we're on the displeasure tip, why not bring it on home with MaryAnn Johanson, writing about the forthcoming Sex and the City movie at The Film Experience: "I can't freakin' stand Sex and the City. I hate those women, I don't know any women like them, and I desperately want to smack them all. ... I think real women can be more than just 'moderately interesting' without being gay men in disguise."

Posted at February 18, 2008 6:16 AM