April 12, 2006

Dispatch #128

Happy Easter and Passover from GreenCine!

#128 | April 11, 2006
 
"Even businessmen, who rob and cheat and steal from people everyday, even they have to pay taxes." -- It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

DVDs skipping on you or getting stuck? We've added to our FAQ a bit of helpful information on cleaning discs. You might even want to clip n' save it for future reference.

Before his international arthouse hit The Draughtsman's Contract, Peter Greenaway made a series of extremely inventive and witty short films that are thankfully now encapsulated on two DVDs in Greenaway: The Early Films. Perhaps most memorable is the pseudo-doc The Falls, and a journey to the afterlife in A Walk Through H (on Shorts). All these films serve as a great intro to Greenaway's cinematic artistry.

Our low price: $25.51.

Scott Coffey's Ellie Parker is a tour de force for Naomi Watts, and also likely a more realistic depiction of life in Los Angeles than Crash. If nothing else, it's certainly funnier. Watts gives the role all she's got and is the main reason to see the film; she's bare, raw, funny, pathetic, lovable, self-centered, and a little bit mad - in short, perfectly... read the rest here.

(Or buy for $21.95.)

With the alternate history mockumentary The CSA now making the rounds nationally, it's a good time to revisit another similar film, available on GreenCine via Video-on-Demand. Sean Meredith's In Smog and Thunder chronicles a fictional war between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The San Jose Mercury News called the film "Hilarious...A dead-on send-up of historical documentary a la Ken Burns."

 

More like this: Lumiere & Company | The Pillow Book More like this: Mulholland Dr | The Big Picture More like this: The Wicksboro Incident | Nothing So Strange

This week's new releases are all over the map (including two from down under), with something for every taste:

Little Fish (2005; $17.76). "An Aussie addiction drama with a splash of crime thriller thrown in, Little Fish boasts strong performances from the Southern Continent's acting A-list," wrote Leo Goldsmith in the Village Voice just this February. "Cate Blanchett is characteristically mesmerizing as Tracy, a thirtysomething video store clerk trying to escape her junkie rap sheet and a lousy credit rating." Also featuring Hugo Weaving, superb as usual, and Sam Neill, in a change of pace.

"Wolf Creek (2005; $21.76) is a swaggeringly nasty, self-assured piece of ordeal horror set in the Australian outback," writes Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian. "With nods to Duel and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, first- time writer-director Greg McLean shows the neo-goreheads from the US and UK how it ought to be done."

Lasse Hallström's An Unfinished Life (2005; $21.76) may be a little hokey, but after Pray (also out this week) and Wolf Creek, you might find that comforting. With Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Lopez.

The Fantastic World of M.C. Escher (2000; $14.00). "I could fill an entire second life with working on my prints," M.C. Escher once said. And some of us could spend just as long getting lost in them. This doc includes interviews with his friends and with mathematicians, computer animated recreations of his work, and a look at his sources of inspiration in Italy and Spain.

Also out this week: Fun With Dick and Jane (2005; $21.95), the dark yet funny remake of the playful original; Deep Blue (2003; $21.76); 18 Fingers of Death! (2004; $21.76).

New Anime:
Tenjo Tenge Round 06 (2005; $16.99) After watching Round 03, Carlos Santos for the Anime News Network wrote, "Make no mistake: the series is still very much about eye-candy fights and eye-candy fanservice, but unlike other anime of its kind, it's got a serious story to tell."

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

 While covering the New Directors/New Films series for GreenCine Daily, David D'Arcy nabbed a chance to talk with Michael Cuesta about his new film, Twelve and Holding, his debut feature, L.I.E., and his work for television, which includes an upcoming series about a serial killer who only kills other serial killers.

Coming soon: We take a look at some of the best movie box sets out there.

If this Dispatch isn't enough for you, our award-winning film blog, GreenCine Daily, is full of dispatches from festivals across the world - from Hong Kong, Seoul, Durham and Portland.

Our genre of the week: Music Documentaries, where you can get your fix of rockin' docs like Wilco: I am Trying to Break Your Heart, Dig! and Edgeplay: A Film About the Runaways, and then go further back for films on The Beatles and Klaus Nomi. And there's something for every taste here, gospel, blues, jazz, rock, hip-hop, country, folk and classical. So tune in, turn on, and drop in to the Music doc section for explorations of the people who make beautiful music.

 

The GreenCine member list of the week: The Post Modern Musical Film, by terryogara. Look at this week's home page for more musical suggestions.

Congrats to the lucky winners of our 2005 World Series Collector's Edition trivia contest: Dftpnk, DGray and Dougallc (the answer was Jermaine Dye). The winners of our Beastie Boys trivia contest will be announced next week.

Thanks to all who came to our screening of Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf last week at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. We'll announce more screenings soon, although we'll take a bit of a break in May (so as to not conflict with the San Francisco International Film Festival).
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Posted by cphillips at April 12, 2006 11:07 AM