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#140 | July 5, 2006
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"You look like the Fourth of July! Makes me want a hot dog real bad!" -- Jennifer Coolidge in Legally Blonde 2
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A big part of the GreenCine member community is member reviews. The more of you reviewing films on our site the better, as it helps to reflect the diverse cross-section of folks we have using the service and can make for some interesting "dialogues" on the perceived success or failure of each title. For some tips on reviewing movies on GreenCine, peruse through our FAQ on the subject.
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July Rhapsody stars the late pop singer and talented actress Anita Mui, in a mesmerizing love story that puts a Hong Kong spin on the mid-life crisis story. Jacky Cheung (As Tears Go By) plays a teacher coming to terms with his mortality and the student who falls for him; Cheung is excellent here, while Mui is simply radiant. A relatively quiet film, Ann Hui's July Rhapsody is ultimately quite touching, with a very rewarding ending.
Only $7.45.
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With Jean Pierre Melville's brilliant 1969 film about the French Resistance, Army of Shadows, finally seeing an American release, now would be a good time to visit some of his other masterpieces already on DVD. Criterion has blessed us with three of them: the cool crime yarn Le Cercle Rouge (two discs, $29.96), the incisive character noir Le Samourai ($22.46), and the superior, entertaining gangster film Bob le Flambeur ($22.46). The latter found Melville working in a slightly lighter mood than the others - but all the films are enthralling on a purely cinematic level. See them all to visit with one of cinema's more underrated auteurs.
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Voices of Dissent: Activism & American Democracy uses theatre, music, satire, and interviews with many well-known personalities to remind Americans of our roots and the importance of protecting authentic democracy. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Terry Sanders called Voices of Dissent "an excellent, very professional and effective piece. It moves swiftly and entertainingly and has an amazing cast of characters." You can watch Voices via GreenCine's Video-on-Demand any time you wish.
$3.99 a pop.
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More like this: The Heroic Trio | Happy End
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More like this: Le Corbeau | Rififi
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More like this: Fed Up | Wake Up
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A small batch of new releases during this Independence week, but a few interesting titles nonetheless:
The Libertine (2004; $21.04). "The interestingly degenerate real-life reprobate John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester (1647-80), gallant soldier, poet, satirist and wit, the most notorious of Restoration rakes, is the subject of John Malkovich's intriguing The Libertine," wrote the Observer's Philip French late last year, noting that the film "features a performance of considerable power by Johnny Depp, who's in virtually every scene.... Malkovich himself, sporting a false nose, is impressively sardonic as King Charles, Samantha Morton is touching as Lizzie Barry, the actress whom Rochester coaches into a new authenticity, and Tom Hollander is suitably suave as the playwright George Etherege."
The Matador (2005; $22.87). Speaking of libertines. "Playing a near-sociopathic deadeye dick in Richard Shepard's new dependie, The Matador, Pierce Brosnan is a creepy wonder - the Bondian sangfroid is visible in mid-curdle, the gears of his Don Juan-istic bravado are rusting to a dead stop," writes Michael Atkinson in the Village Voice. "Shepard gets all of his laughs if not the ironic heart-tugs, and his cast is perfectly in tune. ([Hope] Davis in comedic-observant mode is funnier than most American actresses in fifth gear.)" Features, too, of course, Greg Kinnear.
Stoned (2005; $15.45). "You don't have to have been alive or conscious in the summer of 1969 to care about Brian Jones," writes Andrew O'Hehir in Salon. Jones was, he adds, "the first and in many ways the purest of rock gods [and] pretty much the guy who invented rock-star flamboyance and decadence, as well as rock's first true guitar hero." As for Stoned, Stephen Woolley's biopic, O'Hehir's fellow Salon reviewer Stephanie Zacharek writes: "The movie's vision of rock-star glamour may be cartoony, but it's the kind of cartoon we can't resist."
Also out this week: Doctor Who: Season 1 (five discs; $74.95).
New anime: Kyo Kara Maoh! God (?) Save Our King! Volume 8 ($19.45). "I admit it, I absolutely loved this anime," writes Battie of one of the most highly rated series around here. "It really stomped along the line between shounen-ai and regular anime, and was so slashy, I giggled myself silly through half of it.... I spent a large portion of this anime with, 'Oh my lord,' coming out of my mouth, followed by wild snickering. I'd definitely recommend it to fangirls."
A complete list of this week's new releases and all titles coming soon is available here | New Releases Archive | Your Queue
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  How to Talk to Strangers With Candy? Andy Spletzer knows how. He spoke with Strangers With Candy director Paul Dinello, along with Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert, last year at Sundance while studios scrambled for the rights to distribute their comedy. A year-and-a-half and a few bumps in the road later, he met with Dinello again, just as the film hits theaters.
On hand to help open AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion, an exhibition at the Metropolitan in New York open though September 4, John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten's got an opinion on just about any subject you care to raise - as David D'Arcy found out in a wide-ranging conversation about British and American politics, the origins of punk, fashion, soccer, and of course, movies.
GreenCine Daily takes a peek at some of the fests and events happening around the world, as well as a ton of short snippets of film news. Find out why the Wall Street Journal called our blog "indispensable."
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GreenCine's Most Valuable Indies list doesn't just focus on the period many call the "heyday" of American Independent cinema - the 80s - but also reaches way back to some of the most important early forebears of films made outside of the studio system; films like Sam Fuller's The Naked Kiss, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and John Cassavetes' Shadows. All of these directors made these movies on their own terms and if some of them have since mainstreamed a bit (we're talking to you Spike and Robert), many others continued to be mavericks artistically for years after their debuts, people like John Sayles, Steven Soderbergh, Todd Haynes, as well as less heralded filmmakers like David Gordon Green and Jim McKay. Celebrate American Independence with true independents, this week on GreenCine.
The member list of the week is also by one of our own, as Dwoodwoo secretly captured a bunch of GreenCine staff members' guilty pleasures while sitting around the lunch table. Now you can laugh at our cheesy confessions, but, hey, we all have some cinematic skeletons in our closet now, don't we?
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Tonight! Please join us for a special screening at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, as we proudly present the exceptional noir-ish rarity Une si jolie petite plage (Such a Pretty Little Beach/Riptide). Yves Allégret's work is unjustifiably little-known in America, yet the director can be seen as a clear bridge between the pre-war Gallic filmmakers and the celebrated nouvelle vague. Such a Pretty Little Beach is a masterpiece of crime cinema, full of atmospheric tension, terror and tribulation.
Wednesday, July 5, 7:30pm
Une si jolie petite plage by Yves Allégret (1949, 105 min., 16mm, in French with English subtitles)
$7/$5 GreenCine and YBCA Members, Students, Seniors
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