We did have a round of Berlin Alexanderplatz screening and post-screening drinking and talking last night, and it was fun! I’m a little bit hoping we’ll hijack the SFMOMA blog for a JUNE ALEXANDERPLATZ extravaganza all month long, but of course there’s this whole FRIDA KAHLO thing happening you might want to hear something about along the way… Meanwhile: In a few hours we’ll have our roundtable up and started, everyone’s still waking up and thinking up all the smart things they want to think up about it.

I’ll say here just for a moment though a couple of the things I DID NOT EXPECT to see last night, but that I got! I didn’t expect the MELODRAMA; I didn’t quite expect the miniseries to feel just so much like a miniseries, with hourly cliffhangers and what looked to me a lot like televisual staging; I wasn’t expecting all that SEX (why not I have no idea); and I was expecting so MUCH MORE VIOLENCE. Which is not to say those last two weren’t present in almost equal parts and usually indistinguishable. Also, honestly, I never expected it would be this much FUN. It’s an addictive drama, good-looking, curious, weird, engaging, funny. And of course only just starting. As a friend said at the end of the night, like many good novels, the first hundred pages are just the set-up, and even kind of lousy. After four hours, I’d say we’re about 100 pages in. Which is to also say, it’s probably just now getting good.

More detail in just a bit—-