Did you know that GreenCine ships on Saturdays? In fact, we're the only major DVD rental service that does so. Our dutiful shippers work on Saturdays as just one more way to cut down on USPS delays. And, as we all know, the USPS works in mysterious ways. (But of course, we don't.) And open not just on Saturdays, but 24/7: GreenCine's Video-on-Demand service.

We sift through this week's new DVD releases, so you don't have to:

Pulse [Kairo] (2001). "Kiyoshi Kurosawa's films vary greatly," writes alexqsub, "and this particular one is a dark movie about (without giving things away) ghosts, computers, death, loneliness, love, and fear. The atmosphere of this film - the sound effects, lighting, and pacing - do an incredible job of building up the suspense." In March 2004, Jonathan Marlow interviewed the director.

Separate Lies (2005). Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson star in the directorial debut of Julian Fellowes, who wrote Gosford Park and knows his upper and upper middle British classes. "A continually surprising film in its ethical and emotional insights," wrote Philip French in the Observer, "and it rings constantly true, with three superb performances, Rupert Everett's being a version of the role he played as Ruth Ellis's callous lover in Dance With a Stranger."

Short film compilations: Shorts! Volume 3, features some of the best shorts seen at the Aspen ShortsFest and the illustrious festivals in Cannes, Clermont-Ferrand, Sundance, Denver, Telluride, Tribeca and more, with each short including one or two Film Festival Collection exclusive audio commentaries by the filmmakers; and if you're interested in what the future of cinema will look like, whether you'll be watching it on your iPod or on the side of a building, some of the short works collected on onedotzero_select dvd4 from around the world may point the way.

Also out this week: 

Of The Memory of a Killer (2003), Manohla Dargis, writing in the New York Times: "an amnesiac killer is an inherently rich conceit, and it's no surprise that an American movie company has already snapped up remake rights"; The Weather Man (2005); Rent (2005) is due today, and a couple of exteriors from it were filmed right around the corner from GreenCine HQ; Left of the Dial (2005), a doc on the turbulent rise of America's first all-liberal radio network; the snowboarding doc First Descent (2005).

New to GreenCine: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress; Torremolinos '73 (and more on that one below).

New Anime:

Ultramanic Volume 6: Magical Love (2003). "From the creator of Marmalade Boy, notes EmpressStephanie, "a cute and angsty magical girl anime. Very cute character designs. Awesome ending."

A complete list of this week's New Releases | Coming Soon | New Releases Archive | Your Queue  

Polish director Andrzej Wajda (already a recipient of an honorary Oscar) was just honored at the Berlin International Film Festival with a Golden Bear Award for Lifetime Achievement. Some of his films are available via Criterion editions (more on them below), but you can also download a few of Wajda's classics via GreenCine's Video-on-Demand (VOD) service for your streaming and downloading pleasure: Revenge (Zemsta); Promised Land; and Pan Tadeusz. The latter is based on an epic poem of love for Poland by the great poet Adam Mickiewicz and is "an ironic, yet warm portrayal of people, which, by the way, would not be so if not for the excellent actors," says Central Europe Review.  Revenge stars filmmaker Roman Polanski and sees the director working in a more humorous vein, while the earlier work Promised Land is "a wry, incisive, and elegantly realized Dickensian tale of greed, human cruelty, exploitation, and betrayal" (Strictly Film School).

 "Pablo Berger's Torremolinos '73 is one of the funniest and slyest satires ever to come out of Spain," writes Sean Axmaker, who talks with the director about the political, cultural and sexual repression under Franco - and how his characters find ways to indulge ravenously anyway.

Carlos Reygadas was in San Francisco this past weekend for a screening of his first feature, Japón, and of his second, Battle in Heaven (Batalla en el cielo, 2005), which also just opened in Los Angeles and New York, and then elsewhere in the weeks that follow. Jonathan Marlow spoke with the controversial director at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

Coming soon: Take a short trip with our road movies primer. Look for it next week! 

After nearly round the clock coverage of the Berlinale, the GreenCine Daily blog returns to covering the rest of the film world - including a rather disturbing news bite about the harassment of actors in The Road to Guantánamo after its premiere in Berlin, a wrap-up of the Baftas, and plenty o'shorts.

And you can jump into a running conversation on our boards about Criterion and other boutique labels, too. 

Coming Next Month! GreenCine presents: Marlow's Cabinet of Curiosities (1903-1968, approx. 90 min, 16mm & digital video).

The beguiling and the surreal, the forbidden and profane - these are the treasures hidden in the Cabinetic archives. Join curator Jonathan Marlow as he leads a one-time-only display of rare, fantastical works by Yuri Norstein, Ladislas Starewicz, Georges Méliès, Jirí Trnka and other legendary filmmakers, including Jan Svankmajer's early short Rakvickarna (1966) and Karel Zeman's stunning Inspiration (1949).

Wednesday, March 1, 7:30 pm.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco.
$7 regular/$6 GreenCine members, students, seniors & YBCA members.