Can it really be September already? Time flies when you're having... summer. At any rate, we hope you had a fine Labor Day weekend and if you're heading back to school, may it be a good year for you.

Meanwhile, mentioned here last time but, unfortunately, remaining just as relevant this week: in the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, here once again is the link to the Red Cross. We also want to let any of our members out there in the Gulf Coast who miraculously are able to read this: you're in our thoughts. (We're also recalling Crescent City movies and other memories on our discussion boards.)

Now then, back to the escapist world of film... This week's Dispatch doesn't have to labor too hard to give you the 411 on DVD and VOD releases, new and old, renowned and obscure.

John Pierson, a major mover and shaker at the dawn of the American independent film movement of the mid-80s to mid-90s, author of Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes and host of the IFC series, Split Screen, got it in his head to take his family to Fiji, run a theater there and show movies for free. Jonathan Marlow talks to John, Janet, Georgia and Wyatt Pierson about their adventure and the film that captures their story, Reel Paradise.

And speaking of which: In these days of penguins and politics, it's easy to forget that documentaries were once an extreme rarity in theaters. With Hoop Dreams, Steve James helped prove audiences would turn out for a great story, regardless of genre. Marlow talks with James about how the aforementioned Reel Paradise, his latest, is unlike any film he's worked on before.

The GreenCine Daily rarely takes a day off and this week's no exception; enjoy our numerous dispatches from the Venice International Film Festival, in addition to the usual array of shorts.

Video-on-Demand: Hijacking Agatha (1993).

If there's such a thing as a Polish cult film, Hijacking Agatha is it. Described as that country's answer to our Fast Times at Ridgemont High because of its keen sense of modern teenage angst, and told with both humor and a cool music score (by Polish rock star S. Krajewski). But Agatha is also a thoughtful study of adolescent romance during Poland's cultural upheaval of the early 1990's, and the (mis)use of psychiatric care to repress natural desire. "Includes several elements I've found in many Polish films," wrote one Amazon.com reviewer, "it is unpredictable, quite serious, and not as happy a story as many might prefer. I enjoyed this movie's many twists and turns that kept me guessing, the action kept me on my toes, and its [underlying] messages are more complicated and thought-provoking than the naive themes I find in many American films." Marka Piwowski's Hijacking Agatha is available to watch now or any time you like, via GreenCine's constantly expanding Video-on-Demand service.

GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928).

Danish director Carl Dreyer was arguably one of the most artistically important film directors of the 20th century, yet he remains relatively unremembered outside of film critic and scholar circles. His expressionistic silent masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc was given a sparkling restoration by Criterion, and the haunting film is made all the more so by Richard Einhorn's "Voices of Light," the original accompanying orchestral work performed by renowned choral ensemble Anonymous 4, the Nederlands Radio Choir and the Nederlands Radio Philharmonic, which works perfectly with the film's imagery, and quite well on its own, too. Dreyer's assured visual style was very much ahead of its time, modern even, with his (and the great cinematographer Rudolph Mate's) use of low angles, a moving camera and of extreme close ups - and not a single establishing shot, contributing to the story's feeling of oppression. Dreyer based the script on actual transcripts of Joan's legendary trial in which the war hero was charged with heresy; he would return again to the theme of religious persecution in later sound-era works (Ordet, Day of Wrath), and Joan foreshadows his final masterpiece Gertrud as a study of a woman in search of inner peace. But all analysis aside, the watching of the film itself is a truly unique, even visceral, experience that cannot be properly described in words, and the face of Parisian actress Maria Falconetti as Joan will likely be forever etched in your brain. She's remarkable, even more so when you consider it was her only cinematic performance. Profound and moving, The Passion of Joan of Arc is essential viewing. -- Craig Phillips

This week's new DVD releases are a veritable windfall of eagerly anticipated releases from film and television, new and old, so we better cut to the chase:

Crash (2005). To the surprise of more than a few, one of the most talked about films of this year so far - besides the one with the penguins, of course - has been Crash, written and directed by Paul Haggis, the screenwriter behind last year's winner of the Oscar for Best Picture, Million Dollar Baby. Months after its release in theaters, the Los Angeles Times noted that it was still fodder for watercooler talk. Of course, the film is set in Los Angeles, but what Haggis is up to here - and he certainly doesn't bother being subtle about it - is tossing together "ciphers in an allegorical scheme," as A.O. Scott put it in the New York Times. In other words, this is post-9/11 America, as Haggis sees it. It's split critics in unpredictable ways, too. Scott, ultimately, doesn't buy it. But the LA Weekly's Ella Taylor has decided it's "not just one of the best Hollywood movies about race, but, along with Collateral, one of the finest portrayals of contemporary Los Angeles life period."

Save the Green Planet. (2003). "A rollercoaster ride of emotions eliciting absurd disbelief at one moment to deep pathos the next," writes markhl in his excellent list, The "New" Korean Cinema. "Shin Ha Kyun shows that his wonderful acting in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance was not a fluke with this delicate role. Unexpectedly unforgettable." "Snazzy, playful, somewhat gory, often hilarious," adds J. Hoberman in the Village Voice. "What's most remarkable about this lurid, wildly busy spectacle is how serious it can be - that is, how poignant and poetic."

3-Iron (2004). Once again, markhl: "Simpler is quite often better. And this latest offering from Kim Ki Duk is a refreshing piece which doesn't rely on provacative subject matter nor excessive violence to entertain. A simple message... beautifully delivered." And don't miss Jonathan Marlow's interview with the director.

The Holy Girl (2004)."This is a movie that does not give away its own ending, but that rather arrives at a final vantage point, which reveals the startling and intricate shape of everything that had come before," wrote A.O. Scott in the New York Times. "At the last possible moment, [Lucrecia] Martel's sympathetic inquiry into the varieties of human imperfection coalesces into something perfect. The Holy Girl is a film that defies categorization, but I'm tempted to call it a miracle."

Fear and Trembling (2003). Sylvie Testud plays a young Belgian woman who takes a low-level job at a Japanese company in Alain Corneau's adaptation of Amélie Nothomb's autobiographical novel. "A mindboggling view into the heart of Japan, Fear and Trembling includes some of the incongruous hilarity of Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation and the monstrous (if ceremonially correct) barbarity of Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, but it's also new and different," writes Janos Gereben at CultureVulture.net. "It will make you laugh, cringe, learn, and refuse to accept what appears obvious to those on the screen."

At long last, Paris is Burning (1991) is on DVD. "They call themselves the Children," writes PopcornQ. "As black and hispanic gay men, the Children inhabit two worlds - an everyday world of discrimination and poverty, and the world of 'Realness,' where through costume and competition, dance and inspired performance, they imitate and transcend the powerful fantasy media that excludes them." Introducing an interview with director Jennie Livingston at indieWIRE, Eugene Hernandez wrote, "When I first saw Paris Is Burning in Los Angeles in 1991 it blew me away.... [I] have always admired Jennie Livingston for creating such an incredible look inside a world that my friends and I found eye-opening. Listening to Cheryl Lynn's 'Got To Be Real' today still takes me back to the first time I saw the film."

"There is something to startle you in [Mike] Leigh's crooked, bittersweet little comedy Career Girls," wrote David Edelstein in Slate back in 1997. "It's called Katrin Cartlidge, and every director should have one - and build an altar to it." Few would disagree, which made losing her in 2002 to something as insultingly mundane as pneumonia all the more painful (she was only 41). As for the film, "It's more a morsel than a meal," wrote Laura Miller in Salon, also in '97, "not as substantial and cathartic as last year's Oscar-nominated Secrets and Lies, but anything at all by Leigh reminds us that movies can be about what it means to be alive in this world, right now, surrounded by real people - not just offer fantasy thrill rides through celebrityland."

This week sees a deluge of riches in the form of nine films starring Greta Garbo. For years, we had nothing at all on DVD, then The Grand Hotel - and now, nine! Chronologically, starting with an amazing collection of three silent features, made not long after she arrived in Hollywood:

TCM Archives: Garbo Silents (1926 and 1928). The Temptress (1926, featured on Disc 2) "is crammed full of melodramatic action, much of it preposterous," writes Silents are Golden, but "Greta Garbo makes the proceedings not only believable but compelling.... She is beautiful, she flashes and scintillates with a singular appeal. The Temptress is all Greta Garbo. Nothing else matters."; "Greta Garbo was merely an immigrant actress of considerable promise when she began Flesh and the Devil (1926, Disc 1) at MGM," writes TCM, "but when the film was finished, she emerged as the divine Garbo, one of the most mysterious, glamorous stars of the American screen, a distinction she maintained well into the 1930s."; "The Mysterious Lady (1928, Disc 2) exhibits Garbo's uncanny ability to anchor a film through the sheer power of her presence," writes the Cinematheque Ontario. "Garbo statuesquely presides over all the genre-bending turns and comedic flourishes of this at times majestically overwrought romantic thriller (Disc 2); And with Anna Christie (1930), audiences could hear Garbo for the first time. No other tagline was needed: "Garbo Talks!" The UK's Channel 4 sums up the critical consensus: "Shades of melodrama throughout, but Garbo is as watchable as ever." "Worth seeing, for the Presence most of all," adds the Chicago Reader; Mata Hari (1932) was one of Garbo's biggest box office hits; in Queen Christina (1933), "Garbo gives the drag performance of her career," proclaims PopcornQ. "Swaggering about castle and countryside in male attire, the Swedish queen is as butch as they come and then some.... And an early scene in the film features one of the nicest girl-girl kisses in Hollywood history" and in its 5-out-of-5-star review, TV Guide calls the film a "revelation, wrung from the usual MGM bio identikit, but given shape by [director Rouben] Mamoulian's painterly eye, and immortality by Garbo's ability to transcend."

Last but definitely not least: "Anna Karenina (1935) is considered to be the most cinematic of Tolstoy's great novels," notes Brian Koller at filmsgraded.com. "The best version is still one of the first.... And such a cast!" And get out your handkerchiefs for Camille (1936). "The great Garbo at her radiant peak, and certainly among the top five most romantic movies ever made," declares TV Guide. "[Director George] Cukor's renowned 'rapport' with actresses is unfailing here. MGM's glamour shows unmistakable care."

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944). TV Guide calls it Preston Sturges's "miraculously mad masterpiece. The marvel of The Miracle of Morgan's Creek is how the film ever got made in the first place. This onslaught against American morals in small towns, against the wartime romances of servicemen, against just about everything that the country held sacred during WWII was reckless, exaggerated, and very funny."

The Complete Ripping Yarns (1976). Once Monty Python's Flying Circus had run its course, each of the members of the original troupe, some on their own and some pairing off, ran off to follow fresh pursuits, most of them comedic. Michael Palin and Terry Jones's first post-Circus television program, Ripping Yarns, was "deliberately built around Jones's fascination with historical fiction, and Palin's versatility as a performer and his penchant for all things silly," as Stuart Galbraith IV writes at DVD Talk.

New Anime:

Gunslinger Girl. Volume 3: Il Silenzio Delle Stelle (2005). "Is Gunslinger Girl deplorably exploitive in the way it turns little girls into brainwashed, heavily conditioned cyborg killers, or is it an emotional and tragic tale?" asks Theron "Key" Martin at the Anime News Network. Well, GreenCiners seem to like it. A lot.

For a complete list of all of this week's new releases, go here.

Queues are most effective when they are filled with a large number of discs; we suggest a minimum of ten times the number of slots you have, i.e., forty if you're on the four-out plan. There are plenty of ways to populate your queue, including looking at our lists of titles coming soon, member lists (which you can look at chronologically, alphabetically or by average rating) and editorial top lists, by browsing through primers and our active discussion boards, among other ways, so queue away! And if you need to watch something right now, take a gander at our rapidly expanding Video-on-Demand offerings.

Congratulations to the winners of the Eric Idle's Personal Best/Michael Palin's Personal Best trivia contest: linkadvitch, dryerase, nonniebaloney, philomel17 and AACEVEDO (the answer was "...of Ulm"). We'll announce more contest winners in this space next week. Meanwhile, turn down the lights for our next trivia contest giveaway up this Friday: The Seduction of Misty Mundae.

The member list of the week is kdebonair's "Satire and the World of Tomorrow": "This isn't the world of Blade Runner. These dystopian futures give us a *wink*, but they feel oh-so true."

Tomorrow night! GreenCine proudly presents Finger Man (1955), a little-seen noir by Harold Schuster, better known for his TV work on The Twilight Zone. For folks who like their noir hardboiled, we've gladly tracked down this neglected thriller. Schuster expertly guides the story, pitting government agents against a crime syndicate - undercover reformed hood Casey Martin (the underrated Frank Lovejoy) versus his nemesis, the sadistic Lou Terpe (played to perfection by the exceptional Timothy Carey). Based on a story by John Lardner, brother of Ring Lardner, Jr. Wednesday, September 7, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco. 7:30pm.