By Alex Deleon   <filmfestivals.com>

Bill Murray on stage at the opening gala presentation of the Grand Budapest Hotel at Berlin.

Greetings from Berlin ~. Friday February 7, 2014

The opening ceremonies last night were great fun, a fab piece of entertainment on its own, with perfectly bilingual German personality, Comedienne, presenter Anke Engelke doing the introductory honors on the gala stage of the cavernous Berlin Palace Theater. Very funny and charming lady -- a show by herself and a master of introducing ceremonies with a host of dignitaries and celebrities in both a humorous and appreciative way.

Kudos for Anke who made the hour long preface to the opening film, GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL more fun than the picture itself ~ which is not to say that the picture was not fun -- it was! She makes Jay Leno look like an amateur. The oscars would do well to enlist her talents for the Academy Awards instead of the serial klunker comedians they tend to give the job to.

So much for that. The pic itself was far more fun than I expected it to be from certain mixed opinions that have come my way. I would play it as a double feature with Kubrick's "The Shining" for the contrastive use of an old Grand Hotel settings for opposite  cinematic purposes ---  fear and fun. And then throw in the old Greta Garbo Grand Hotel itself... 

Director Wes Anderson who is no newcomer to the Berlinale, has marshaled every visual technique in the book to come up with a piece of Visual Vaudeville that is really lots of fun if not exactly too coherent -- but then why should an all-star Variety Show-- which is exactly what Budapest Hoteĺ is -- be anything but flippy and fun?

Part of the fun is trying to identify extremely well known actors in makeup and disguises so extravagant that it makes them well nigh unrecognizable: Harvey Keitel with a shaved head and naked torso covered with funny little tatoos, Jeff Goldbloom dressed up in a wig and high collar tweeds totally away from his usual mage -- only the voice gives him away --Polanski's Pianist Oscar laureate Adrien Brody so disguised that even his prominent proboscis goes unnoticed -- on and on to the point where the viewer keeps asking him-her-who-self;  "Hey - wait a second -- wasn't that .... ?? -- altogether an hilarious off-season Halloween party and an easy sit through if not quite the most coherent motion picture of all time. 

On stage introducing the pic tall comedian Bill Murray in a long black coat topped off with some kind of boxy black hat, and a regular presence in Wes Anderson pictures, told the Friedrich Palast audience categorically, in patented Murrayesque manner, "This is the best picture Wes has ever made. Don't even bother looking at the other competition Pictures -- This one is it!"

Wes Anderson's "Grand Budapest Hotel" is indeed one of the 23 entries competing for the prestigious Berlin Golden Bear award at the end of the fully packed ten days coming up. Whether Mr. Murray's broad statement turns out to be a fulfilled prophecy is an open question -- but nobody can  deny that everybody had lots of fun tonight, and the Sixty-Fourth Berlin Film Festival is off and running ~~ Fasten y0ur seat belts and enjoooooy! -- or else!

Anke Engelke, Comedian: Anke Christina Fischer is a German comedian, actress and voice-over actress born in Montréal, Quebec, Canada. Her name means "little angel" and she brightened the opening ceremony up to divine rib-tickling proportions.