In an interview touching on class in England and America, sex (the jolly kind) and luck, both good and bad, Emily Mortimer tells John Esther she's nothing at all like her character in Woody Allen's Match Point.

And if you're just catching up after the holidays, here are a couple of other recent articles you may have missed:

"This isn't just for bird lovers," we emphasize in our "50 Best Documentaries" list. To those who haven't seen The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, it's a little difficult to explain our enthusiasm for a film that's also about how our lives can take radical, unexpected turns. Heather Johnson spoke with director Judy Irving and the other subject of the film, Mark Bittner.

In "Munich and Masada, Vengeance and Myth," David D'Arcy addresses both Steven Spielberg's Munich and critical reaction to it, and then talks with Avi Mograbi, whose documentary, Avenge But One of My Two Eyes, takes in through a single lens the ancient Jewish story of Masada and the recent Palestinian intifadas.

One of our New Year's resolutions to ourselves, and to you, was to update our beloved film primers, as many films have come to DVD since some of those were first published. We'll be adding more hyperlinks and new text to the primers when applicable; we've already updated Film Noir, French New Wave, Anime, German Expressionism and New Asian Horror. Another resolution was to get more primers coming your way again, and we've got several cool ones lined up already, including Wuxia. Look for 'em on the site soon.

Make time to catch up with our blog, GreenCine Daily, too, where Craig Phillips annotates his list of the Top 15 Films of 2005, and Hannah Eaves files the first entry in a series on Iraq in Fragments. Also, more lists, of course, and David Thomson on Jean Renoir.

And while we're on the subject, why not tell us your own picks for the best films you saw in 2005.

Video-on-Demand: Hope, Gloves & Redemption (1999).

Parisians-turned-New Yorkers Jules and Gédéon Naudet were unfortunately in that city for the September 11, 2001 attacks, but fortunately they were able to turn their cameras on it for the riveting documentary 9/11. The film they made before that one was Hope, Gloves & Redemption: The Story of Mickey and Negra Rosario, which told the story of an ex-gang member from Spanish Harlem and his wife, who turned their lives around and set up a community boxing studio to keep neighborhood kids off of the streets. Hope was the winner of a Grand Jury Prize for Documentary and Best Cinematography at the 2001 New York International Independent Film and Video Festival. You can watch this rewarding doc now or any time you wish via GreenCine's rapidly expanding Video-on-Demand service.

GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: Jesus of Montreal (1989).

Something about the film Jesus of Montreal seems just right for ushering in the New Year. Maybe it's the elegantly wintry color tones, or that the the film's a variation on the Gospel of St. Mark and a satire on the way Christ's life has been depicted by modern society. No matter; Denys Arcand's deliciously rich film should not scare off the anti-theologians, or the reverent, among you. The film does well not to force... go here to read the rest of the review.

This week's new DVD releases are a small batch before the year really gets rolling, but there are a few gems to point out:

"Broken Flowers is [Jim] Jarmusch's most conventionally entertaining film, but it's still visually rigorous, swimming in pregnant silences, and un-filled-in in a way that's tantalizing," writes David Edelstein at Slate. Part of what makes for conventional entertainment is an outstanding cast, including Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone ("impossibly delightful," writes Edelstein), Julie Delpy, Tilda Swinton, Jessica Lange, and of course, the main attraction: "This is the crowning performance in what I call Bill Murray's Loneliness Trilogy, which consists of Broken Flowers, Lost in Translation, and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. In his melancholy, he's funny; in his funniness, he's at sea: The ironic hipster clown has become God's loneliest man."

A Great Day in Harlem (1995). Special edition of a wonderful doc "ostensibly about the shooting of a famous photograph for the January 1959 issue of Esquire magazine," wrote Stephen Holden in the New York Times when it appeared. "But it is really a loving remembrance of a loosely knit community of musicians, the majority of whom are now dead, who cherished one another and created a body of music that will live forever."

Also out this week: Wedding Crashers ("that rare contemporary mainstream comedy that seems to have been made without parental supervision. The jokes sizzle and fly, with reckless disregard for propriety or for what the audience will 'get.'" - Salon); My Date with Drew (as in Barrymore); Chicken Tikka Masala (as in "mmmm... chicken tikka masala...oooohhhh...").

New Anime:

Tokyo Underground Volume 6: Return (2005). Now that Rumina Asagi has discovered his magical powers - mastery of the wind! - what will he do with them?

Kyo Kara Maoh! God (?) Save Our King! Volume 5 (2005). "I admit it, I absolutely loved this anime," wrote Battie after catching the first volume. "It really stomped along the line between shounen-ai and regular anime, and was so slashy, I giggled myself silly through half of it."

As always, if you want to see a complete, more detailed list of all this week's new releases, do drop by our new releases page.

Suggestion for a New Year's resolution: Keep your queue well-stocked. We recommend having at least ten times the number of slots your plan has - i.e., forty movies for the four-out plan - to keep your queue happy. For some ideas: look through our coming soon pages, 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. And don't forget about our vast Video-on-Demand offerings.

(See our FAQ for more answers to all the questions you're wondering about.)

We'll announce more lucky winners of recent GreenCine trivia contests in this space next week, and on that same day we'll also launch our first trivia contest of the new year; the prizes for that will be a real treat.

The member list of the week: Postmod's We ♥ Alien Parasites list. ("A look at a few alien parasites of the silver screen (and their taglines) that we've known and loved over the years.")

GreenCine's next screening at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts will be on February 1, as we proudly present the criminally under-seen caper classic, Le Clan des Siciliens (1969). The film is the only motion picture to feature all three heavyweights from French tough-guy cinema -- Jean Gabin, Alain Delon and Lino Ventura.

The Sicilian Clan, by Henri Verneuil (118 min., 16mm, French with English subtitles)
Wednesday, February 1, 7:30pm.
$7/$5 GreenCine and YBCA Members, Students, Seniors.