This week's fine batch of new releases feature some mighty high profile titles, and a couple that deserve a wider audience:

First, take a look at these awards. Pretty impressive, isn't it. And yet, as we all know, Brokeback Mountain didn't receive the one accolade just about anyone would have bet their boots it'd get. But never mind the Academy. That the film was able to pierce through its reductive reputation as the "gay cowboy movie" and find its widely ranging audiences throughout the country is a testament to its universal emotional power. (By the way, we're selling this film for only $20.95!)

Speaking of which: A new Director's Cut for Crash is out today as well. Might be worth a watch if you're still not decided which side of the fence you fall on.

The President's Last Bang (2005). From Im Sang-soo comes "one of the most controversial films out of South Korea in some time," notes Filmbrain, "a political satire that easily ranks among the best of the genre [and] an unabashedly leftist take on a dark period in Korea's history."

Also out this week: Ushpizin, a film about Hasidim, starring Hasidim - who rarely, if ever, see movies themselves (It is also, as David D'Arcy wrote last summer in the introduction to his interview with director Gidi Dar, "an age-old melodrama no less compelling for its faithfulness to a well-worn formula"); The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Bee Season; The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968); and, because we all need a cathartic laugh, Patton Oswalt: No Reason to Complain.

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

 What the heck is "pre-code" film, is a question we're often asked here. Now we have a great way of answering it: a new primer on Pre-Code Hollywood by Mick LaSalle, author of the books "Complicated Women: Sex and Power in pre-Code Hollywood" and "Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man." (He was also the Associate Producer and a co-author of TCM's "Complicated Women" documentary.)

40 years since his first short, just over 30 since his first feature, Shivers, David Cronenberg is still subverting expectations. In a wide-ranging conversation, David D'Arcy asks him about his latest, A History of Violence, his Canadian origins, the Crash controversy, going to Tangiers with William S. Burroughs, the Dead Ringers TV series... for starters.

Our award-winning film blog, GreenCine Daily, is up and at 'em, with hearty collections of interviews, arts coverage, festival coverage and plenty o'shorts (no relation to Plenty O'Toole). And fresh today: a review of Caveh Zahedi's new film, I Am a Sex Addict, and a dispatch from Hong Kong.

Also: What are your "desert island discs"?

The GreenCine member list of the week: Play ball, with CPurvis's Baseball Films on DVD. A good scorecard to review between innings. And speaking of baseball, stop by our home page to check out our latest trivia contest, as we're giving away a set of the 2005 Series World Series Collector's Edition. Enter now for your chance to win!

Tomorrow night at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts: GreenCine proudly unleashes Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf. The film is by notorious Japanese director Teruo Ishii, known in some circles as the "King of Cult Movies," who single-handedly crafted some of the strangest motion pictures ever released. Blind Beast is based loosely on the writings of Edogawa Rampo. Wednesday April 5, 7:30 pm. 701 Mission Street, San Francisco. $8, $5 GreenCine members, students, seniors & teachers, $5 YBCA Members.