You know how there's often this "rift" between film critics and general moviegoers? Like when something like Meet the Fockers scores only 38% from The Tomatometer -- yet goes on to gross well over $279 million domestically and $237 million overseas? Yeah, that kind of thing happens a lot. (koff-NORBIT-koff) And it looks like it might be happening with Zack Snyder's 300 at the Berlin Film Festival.

A few days back our Erik Davis informed us that during and after the press screening for 300, a small-yet-vocal contingent of the audience was, well, let's just say they were unimpressed. And since it's a European Film Festival (where "cineastes" often behave like childish jerks), their disdain devolved into a round of scattered jeers and boos. Frankly I don't think it's that big a deal. (I remember a press screening of The Two Towers in which a few people booed. Those people were morons.)

But now comes word that Snyder's mega-sweaty 300 was not only well-received during its "ticket-holder" screening; the folks absolutely devoured the thing and greeted the end credits with a big fat standing ovation. (Two things that seem pretty prevalent at European film festivals: booings and standing ovations.) According to Bloody-Disgusting.com, the flick elicited big waves of applause throughout and people really seemed to like it. So I guess the moral of this story (and the Marie Antoinette story and the Clerks 2 story and the Southland Tales story and the Fountain story) is that you shouldn't judge a film's quality by the pleasant/nasty reaction it receives at swanky film festivals. Better to either stick with your favorite and most-trusted film critics -- or, heck, just drop the nine bucks and see the flick for yourself. (300 opens on March 9.)

I want to immediately buy a plane ticket to Berlin, to attend the 57th Berlin International Film Festival. Organizers just announced that they will be screening -- for the first time ever -- a restored and color corrected version of the 1921 film version of Hamlet. I can't imagine what it would look like in color -- somewhat jarring I bet, since silent film goes hand in hand with black and white. Hamlet stars the silent film diva Asta Nielsen who I just learned from IMDB created her own production company to make this film. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the restoration project is part of the Berlin Festival's Retrospective program, honoring of the women of the silent film era.

If you love film, you have to watch the purveyors of this art form. It is literally watching cinematic history unfold itself and ... you get entertained at the same time! I've spent much time idolizing Clara Bow and Buster Keaton and I still don't understand why Wings has not been put on DVD yet -- it was only the first Academy Award winning film after all! But if you do have the opportunity to see these stars and filmmakers projected in a movie house -- with a live pianist accompanying preferably -- then you simply have to do it. Let Berlin be your start if you are anywhere in the area starting on February 8. Hamlet will premiere on February 10. Go forth! Enjoy for me!

I just bought a ticket to Berlin. Actually, no, I didn't, but if money and time weren't an issue I'd be there in a heartbeat to see the world premiere of La Vie en Rose. This Edith Piaf biopic will open the Berlin International Film Festival on February 8.

La Vie en Rose is titled after one of Piaf's most famous songs -- a song so famed, it's part of the Grammy's Hall of Fame. Edith Piaf was an extraordinary talent; by far one of my favorites singers of all time, her life was as interesting as her voice. She spent four years of her childhood blind and touring with her father in the circus. She performed in nightclubs, then became a French icon right before one of the world's most tumultuous times in history, World War II. She found herself in the middle of murder investigations, helped prisoners of war escape during the French Resistance and wrote the haunting, unforgettable lyrics for her still-sung ballads. Her talent and life experiences are all ingredients that could make for an incredible script.

Biopics can be difficult to make, though. What do you cut out of a lifetime? Martin Scorsese could have found a few things to get rid of while making his Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator -- he might have shaved off an hour from the three hour epic. Even Walk the Line, Johnny Cash's biopic -- and, like Piaf, an internationally respected musician -- was a little over two. Between the music, lovers, heroism and fame I'm not sure what Olivier Dahan will choose to omit. But no matter what he does, as long as "La Vie en Rose" and "La Via, L'Amour" and -- okay, I'll stop -- play throughout the film, I will be content.

Director Arthur Penn is probably always going to be remembered for Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, but Penn had a few films under his belt before his ultimate in "glamorized gangsters". The 84-year-old director was working in films up until the late 80's and has served as an executive producer for the TV series Law & Order.

The Hollywood Reporter announced that Penn has been selected to receive the prestigious Golden Bear at this year's Berlin Film Festival. The director will be in attendance at a gala on the 15th of February to receive the lifetime achievement award. The festival is showing 10 films in total during a retrospective program at the Deutsche Kinemathek -- Museum for Film and Television that will end with the gala. Director of The Berlin Festival, Dieter Kosslick said, "Arthur Penn's films of the 1960s and early 1970s reanimated the crises-ridden American cinema. He is a great director, who deeply influenced the American cinema d'auteur". The retrospective of the director's work includes the Penn's first film The Left-Handed Gun; the film re-tells the legend of Billy the Kid as a sexually confused and psychologically tortured youth. The part was originally intended for James Dean but went to Paul Newman after Dean had passed away.

You have to admire a director who dared to present one of America's greatest folk icons as a sexually ambiguous neurotic, and in 1958 no less. For that alone the man probably deserves an award.

Swedish auteur Lukas Moodysson burst onto the scene a few years ago with the one-two punch of Lilja-4-Ever and Together, but then hit something of a snag with last year's A Hole in My Heart, which most dismissed as a yawn-inducing gross-out lacking the subtelty of most amateur porn (don't take my word for it – I flipped a coin at SXSW and instead ended up at a screening of Mutual Appreciation and haven't looked back since). Now, two new stills have surfaced from his latest, Container, although due to some kind of glitch, I can't seem to view them. But the official synopsis claims that Moodyson himself describes it as "a black and white silent movie with sound", which is pretty much good enough for me. Check out more at Twitch, or see Container for yourself at Berlinale in February.