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October 29, 2009
Dispatch #310: Melancholy, Monsoon, Von Trier, Goats = Happy Halloween.
In This Dispatch:
Lars von Trier's already notorious new film Antichrist is the subject of a new podcast discussion.
Plus:
* What's New: Il Divo, Medicine for Melancholy, and more.
* What We're Watching: Monsoon Wedding, Fear(s) of the Dark, Dr. Bronner's.
* Explore: 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T + Wild Things.
* Contests: Men Who Stare at Goats.
Read the GreenCine Newsletter #310 >>
Note: If you want to see the Dispatch right when it comes out on Tuesdays, sign up for GreenCine.com DVD rental membership.
Posted by cphillips at 6:13 PM
October 22, 2009
Dispatch #309: Comes within 100 feet (and 10 days) from Halloween.
In This Dispatch:
Eric Red's return to filmmaking, with 100 Feet.
Plus:
* What's New: Fados, Cheri, and more.
* What We're Watching: Objectified, Adoration, Woodpecker.
* Explore: Sitges '09: Film Fest of the Dead.
Read the GreenCine Newsletter #309 >>
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Posted by cphillips at 5:59 PM
October 15, 2009
GreenCine Best of the Bay 2009 Winner: San Francisco Magazine
Well we're just both surprised (since this happened over the summer, but better late than never!) and tickled to death that San Francisco Magazine has kindly chosen us for their Best of the Bay list.
Stay-at-home film school
In the five years since we first picked GreenCine, this San Francisco online-rental company has gone from good idea to local institution. Think of it as Netflix mashed up with your local independent video store. It offers the wide selection of obscure genres and art films that cinephiles crave, along with the helpful advice you’d normally get from the person behind the counter. Intrigued by film noir but embarrassed because you don’t really know what that means? GreenCine explains the genre and recommends its favorites. Instead of a list of popular rom-coms, the site offers the Top 10 Environmental Documentaries That Don’t Rhyme with a Schminconvenient Schmuth, plus interviews with hot new indie filmmakers and discussions about the best cult vampire films. greencine.com
Posted by cphillips at 4:12 PM
October 13, 2009
Dispatch #308 is dragged to hell, adored, and Solondzed.
In This Dispatch:
Todd Solondz's Life During Wartime, the subject of a new podcast.
Plus:
* What's New: Drag Me to Hell, Adoration, and more.
* What We're Watching: Trick r' Treat, The Gate, Hardware.
* Explore: Zulawski & Raimi: The Hell They Dragged Us Into.
Read the GreenCine Newsletter #308 >>
Note: If you want to see the Dispatch right when it comes out on Tuesdays, sign up for GreenCine.com DVD rental membership.
The GreenCine Dispatch #308 | Oct 13, 2009
"The tie's a multi purpose accessory--y'know, belt, school boy, Rambo."-- [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295057]The Mighty Boosh
View Email as Webpage: http://pravda.greencine.com/newsletter308.html
[http://daily.greencine.com/archives/007612.html]Is [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=5129]Welcome to the Dollhouse auteur [http://www.greencine.com/character?pid=9082]Todd Solondz a misanthrope, or a humanist whose characters just happen to engage in ugly, perverse, cruel behavior? For Aaron Hillis, the answer has been made clear with the new film [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808526/]Life During Wartime, Solondz's quasi-sequel to 1998's [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=6765]Happiness, in which all of the characters are now played by different actors. For a new[http://daily.greencine.com/archives/007612.html] podcast, Aaron chats with [http://www.filmbrain.com]Andrew Grant and New York Press chief film critic and [http://www.nyfcc.com/]New York Film Critics Circle chairman [http://www.nypress.com/flex-10-armond-white.html]Armond White, about Life During Wartime. [http://daily.greencine.com/archives/007612.html]Read article >>
In This Dispatch:
* What's New: Drag Me to Hell, Adoration, and more.
* What We're Watching: Trick r' Treat, The Gate, Hardware.
* Explore: Zulawski & Raimi: The Hell They Dragged Us Into.
What's New
[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295766]Drag Me to Hell [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295766]Rent [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295766]
[http://www.greencine.com/character?pid=8244]Sam Raimi returns to his horror roots with this gleefully scary funhouse ride about a young woman trying to escape a gypsy curse. "Unlike so much contemporary horror, it's devoid of sadism and mean-spiritedness," writes Stephanie Zacharek in Salon. "The looseness Raimi allows himself here results in an especially joyous kind of filmmaking." Writes Scott Tobias, Raimi "wants viewers to jump out of their chairs, to laugh and scream and cheer, and to nudge each other over the transcendent ridiculousness of what they’re witnessing. This is junk filmmaking at its finest." It is "manna from hell," adds David Edelstein.
[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295756]Adoration [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295756]Rent [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295756]
"A profound and provocative exploration of cultural inheritance, communications technology and the roots and morality of terrorism, the Canadian filmmaker [http://www.greencine.com/character?pid=12460]Atom Egoyan nimbly wades into an ideological minefield without detonating an explosion," writes Stephen Holden in the[http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/movies/08ador.html] NY Times. Adds [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090520/REVIEWS/905209985]Roger Ebert: "Some viewers may find the film confusing; I found it absorbing." "Egoyan's most affecting film since [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=6052]The Sweet Hereafter," writes [http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/movies/20090522_A_troubled_youth_s_essay_and_its_effects.html]Carrie Rickey. See more here in our [https://www.greencine.com/central/egoyanadoration]interview with Egoyan.
Also out today: [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295057]The Mighty Boosh (Seasons 1-3; fans of Flight of the Conchords will particularly enjoy this British show); Dusan Makavejev: Free Radical (Eclipse Series): [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295869]Man is Not a Bird, [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295871]Innocence Unprotected, [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295870]Love Affair... [more on this very cool set from [http://www.theauteurs.com/notebook/posts/937]David Hudson >>]; [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295755]Land of the Lost; [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295868]The Proposal; [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295872]Left Bank [Dutch horror film is "unsettling and remarkably effective and it ends with a warp that you won’t see coming" says [http://www.seanax.com/2009/10/13/dvds-for-10-13-09-macaroni-combat-rollercoast-horror-and-ozsploitation/]Sean Axmaker]; [www.greencine.com/webCatalog?prodid=171888]Sex & Zen; [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295873]Infestation; [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295874]Killing Room; [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295875]Skin in the '70s Grindhouse Collection; [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295886]American Violet; [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=28999]Hardware [see below].
New and Coming Releases lists | Your Queue | Discuss! | GreenCine's review blog: Guru | GC [http://www.greencine.com/reviewList]Member Reviews and [http://www.greencine.com/list?action=viewMain&page=1&inc=20&sort=rating]Lists | New[http://www.greencine.com/central/taxonomy/term/43] DVD Spotlight
What We're Watching
[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295754]Trick 'r Treat Rent Read
[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295882]Trick r' Treat goes the comic book route, complete with animated credits, primary color palette and terrific, juicy cinematography (by Glen MacPherson) – with performances to match. You may remember, more than a year ago, theatrical previews for Trick ‘r Treat appearing on various DVDs and, I believe, in theatres, too. Yet the film was never released. Rather than being the bomb some might have expected from that, the movie is quite entertaining, as it links separate stories of townspeople in a small hamlet that, yearly, celebrates Halloween...[http://guru.greencine.com/archives/2009/10/seasonal_scares_1.html]read review >>
More like this [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=281961]Walled In | [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=1065]Halloween
[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=26175]The Gate Rent Read
Don't you hate it when your parents go away for the weekend and you accidentally open up a portal to hell in the backyard? But it's always good when your best friend has a special heavy metal album (imported from Europe, of course), complete with liner notes filled with helpful information and spells. And when all else fails, it's good to have a model rocket to launch at the bad guys. If only [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=26175]The Gate knew how silly it...[http://guru.greencine.com/archives/2009/10/the_gate.html]read review >>
More like this [hhttp://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=19775]Curse of the Demon | [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=4686]The Prophecy
[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=28999]Hardware Rent Read
Aaron Hillis' pick for DVD of the Week: Falsely but understandably advertised as "[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=2396&element=the+terminator]The Terminator for the nineties" and loosely based on the 2000 A.D. comics (making it a precursor to Judge Dredd), South African-born auteur Richard Stanley's cult-beloved feature debut had only a fraction of the resources James Cameron did for his Ahnuld-pocalypse. But even in its meager limitations, [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=28999]Hardware is both more cynical and conscious of human indignities as a horrific cyberpunk..[http://daily.greencine.com/archives/007614.html]read review >>
More like this [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=324]A Boy and His Dog | [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=4930]Screamers
Explore
Sam Raimi’s [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=812]Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (1987) and Andrzej Zulawski’s [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=1867]Possession (1981) are two sides of the same cursed coin, producing in the viewer an identical effect—sheer giddiness at their audacious, divinely, demonically, deliriously inventive visual play. In honor of Raimi's [http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=295766]Drag Me to Hell being dragged to DVD this week, we're republishing Steven Boone's excellent essay, [https://www.greencine.com/central/node/1071]Zulawski & Raimi: The Hell They Dragged Us Into [http://daily.greencine.com/archives/007604.html>>]
Braaaaains!
[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=134344]Land of the Dead
[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=273067]Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead
[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=247637]Night of the Living Dead
[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=245821]Living Dead at Machester Morgue
[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=125758]I Walked With a Zombie/ Body Snatcher
[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=32396]Dead & Buried
[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=133377]Undead
[http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=205958]Night of the Living Dorks
[https://www.greencine.com/central/guide/zombies]GC Zombie Primer >>
[http://www.twitter.com/GreenCine]GreenCine Twitter
Updates >>
GreenCine channel on [http://www.youtube.com/user/greencinevideo]YouTube!
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Posted by cphillips at 5:10 PM
October 12, 2009
Dispatch #307 gets Serious.
In This Dispatch:
Michael Stuhlbarg: A Serious Man
Plus:
* What's New:Anvil!, Not Quite Hollywood, and more.
* What We're Watching: Away We Go, The Window, Clackamas.
* Explore: Fantastic Fest, Harmony Korine podcast.
Read the GreenCine Newsletter #307 >>
Note: If you want to see the Dispatch right when it comes out on Tuesdays, sign up for GreenCine.com DVD rental membership.
Posted by cphillips at 9:30 AM
October 5, 2009
Dispatch #306: Away we go, to the NYFF and beyond.
In This Dispatch:
New York Film Festival up the wazoo.
Plus:
* What's New: Away We Go, Girlfriend Experience, and more.
* What We're Watching: O'Horten, Mum & Dad, Good Dick.
* Explore: San Sebastian Film Festival report.
Read the GreenCine Newsletter #306 >>
Note: If you want to see the Dispatch right when it comes out on Tuesdays, sign up for GreenCine.com DVD rental membership.
Posted by cphillips at 9:06 PM