Welcome to Camp GreenCine, where instead of wallet-making, archery and canoeing, you'll learn Giallo 101, list-making, and on-demand viewing. We're a camp for film geeks, and darned proud of it. Speaking of geeky things, herein we announce some nifty new little site features and tweaks we think you'll like. See below for more.

The film Ushpizin, screening as part of this summer's San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, has been something of a phenomenon in Israel, a film about Hasidim, starring Hasidim - who rarely, if ever, see movies themselves. David D'Arcy, no stranger to controversy himself, talks to self-taught director Gidi Dar about how his seemingly impossible film got made.

More articles and primers are on their way, so keep checking our home page for the latest.

The GreenCine Daily, our award-winning web log for cinephiles worldwide, continues its series of "summer reading" snippets, perfect for July's short attention spans. We'll return to our regular expansive coverage of the world of cinema by the week's end.

Video-on-Demand: Fed Up! (2002).

Didn't think it was possible to examine issues around genetic engineering, the Green Revolution, genetic pollution and modern pesticides in the food industry in an entertaining fashion? You need look no further than Fed Up! Angelo Sacerdote's film uses often hilarious, and downright creepy, archival footage ("a man isn't safe, even at his own dinner table!" one man prophetically warns in an old educational film), balanced by interviews with farmers, scientists, activists and government officials, to tell the story of our often whacked-out food production system. The film also introduces us to organic farmers, presenting community supported agriculture and small-scale organic farming as real alternatives to agribusiness and industrial food. "An eye-opening, provocative video," declared Eating Well Magazine, while the San Francisco Bay Guardian wrote the film "shows why - and how - small producers and everyday consumers should take back control of their food." Get Fed Up! any time of the day via GreenCine's rapidly expanding Video-on-Demand service.

GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: The Train (1965).

John Frankenheimer is probably most renowned for the original Manchurian Candidate but his long filmography is filled with other terrific thrillers, and 1965's WWII actioner The Train shows the director at the peak of his craft. The film is set in 1944, as Paris is about to be liberated and the Germans are in panic mode while fleeing: a German colonel loads a train with French art treasures to send back to Germany, and the Resistance must stop it without damaging the cargo. Burt Lancaster plays a French (just go with it, okay?) railway inspector more concerned with destroying German weapons than saving a pile of paintings, but who slowly begins to understand, with some convincing from a young Jeanne Moreau among other local citizenry, their importance to France's cultural heritage (which, the film reveals, must sometimes be weighed against the value of human life). But where The Train really excels is the action elements, building like a slow burning fuse on a stick of dynamite towards the pulse-pounding second half. That it looks meticulously authentic - it was shot on location in France, using real trains - further adds to the tension, especially in an awe-inspiring collision sequence. And the intelligent plotting which goes beyond the usual "cat and mouse," involving the hero's problem-solving abilities using the train system as a giant chessboard, refuses to pander to the audience. They don't make 'em like this any more.
-- Craig Phillips

You've heard the term "slow news day"? Well, today is a slow releasing day. This week's slate of new DVD releases is a brief 'un:

Constantine (2005). Tilda Swinton with wings. For some, that'll be the main attraction; for others, it'll be Keanu Reeves once again oozing between parallel worlds. And then there are those who'll see Rachel Weisz in anything. Okay, but what about the movie? "It's basically just got to suck, right?" asked Andrew O'Hehir in Salon. "But here's the thing: Constantine pretty much rocks. It doesn't rock in the sense of 'Dude, I just saw the best action movie ever,' the way you probably felt when you walked out of the original Matrix back in '99. It's a more relative kind of rocking, the rocking that indicates, 'Land o'Goshen, that was much better than I had any reason to expect.' Keanu Reeves is - let me just get this off my chest - very good. And we find out that hell bears a strong resemblance to bad traffic in Los Angeles; who can be surprised by that?"

Sleepless Town (1998). The "Skinny" from Love HK Film: "Set in Japan, this entertaining crime thriller from former UFO director Lee Chi-Ngai makes good use of its gorgeous location and star Takeshi Kaneshiro."

Wishing Stairs (2003). The third in a series of Korean horror films set in all-girl schools, following Whispering Corridors and Memento Mori. "The rookie director Yun Jae-yeon, recruited to the series on the strength of her award-winning short film Psycho Drama (2000), shows a sure hand over the psychological dynamics of the trio of main characters," wrote Kyu Hyun Kim at Koreanfilm.org. "The newcomers cast in these difficult roles rise to the challenge with gusto."

New Anime:

Gungrave Volume 7: To the Grave (2003). Hints of things to come in the synopsis bode well for the many fans here of this fast-moving series: "As Harry flees from the bloody chaos of his imploding organization, he puts himself on a collision course with Grave and their bittersweet past!"

DNangel Volume 6: Ice and Darkness (2005). Your fellow GCers are rating previous volumes on average well above 7 out of 10. "A creative series with both loveable and mysteriously compelling characters who you can't help but laugh and cry with," wrote Anime Obsession. "The story, laid out in 26 episodes is unique and the art is gorgeous. A must see for anime fans!"

Slow releasing week or no, it's always good to keep an eye on your queue to make sure the films you most want to see are at the top. We also recommend having a minimum of ten times the number of slots you have, i.e., forty if you're on the four-out plan. If you're having trouble thinking of titles to rent, here are a few ideas: check out member lists (which you can look at chronologically, alphabetically or by average rating) and editorial top lists, browse through primers and our active discussion boards, look at our lists of titles coming soon, among other ideas. So queue away! And if you need to watch something right now, take a gander at our rapidly expanding Video-on-Demand offerings. And for ease of browsing, you can look at our currently available VOD titles by genre; go to the main page for a list of all genres.

But really, why stop there? We've also just optimized the way your queue loads so it will do so much faster, especially noticeable for those of you with fairly large queues.

But wait! There's more. We've improved the message boards, too, so you can sort the most active discussion threads alphabetically by topic, by topic author, by date posted, by most recent replies, by last post, and by most views. Enjoy!

Congratulations to the winners of the Freaked trivia contest: RCrook and FancyLad (the answer was Hideous Mutant Freekz). We hope to announce more winners for a couple of pending contests here next week (our distributor is a little behind in sending those discs to us). Meanwhile, look for our next giveaway up on the home page this coming Friday, for the underrated little comedy Manna From Heaven.

GreenCine has not one but two film screenings booked for next month: On August 3 at the Yerba Buena Center, we'll present exploitation queen Doris Wishman's first film, Hideout in the Sun, which was shot at a Florida nudist colony. The screening will be introduced by Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of "Adults Only" Cinema author (and creator of our film noir primer) Eddie Muller. A week later, on August 10: the winner of the GreenCine Online Film Festival's Narrative Grand Prize, Red Cockroaches, scurries into SF's Balboa Theater.