In the last couple of days, it's been difficult to watch anything other than the terrifying progress of Katrina as she's torn through Louisiana and Mississippi. We hate to open the GreenCine Dispatch on a downbeat, but it does give us an excuse to nudge you just a tad with a link to the Red Cross.

Ok. Let's talk about movies. You're going to need to freshen up those queues and stock up, after all, for the coming Labor Day weekend. But don't forget: We've got all your immediate viewing needs covered, too, in our rapidly expanding VOD selection.

After scoring raves and Oscar nominations for City of God, Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles was deluged with offers from Hollywood. He ultimately decided to go to Africa and make The Constant Gardener with Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. In our latest interview, Meirelles tells N.P. Thompson about shooting in Kenya and how a t-shirt can become a very, very big deal.

And watch that space for more interviews popping up soon: Documentarians Steve James and Albert Maysles; Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia and more.

You'd think there's already enough going on at our ridiculously fast-paced blog, GreenCine Daily, but as always, we want more, more, more. The fall film festival season is revving up and we've got eyes and ears strategically placed in the far-flung corners of the world, ready to send their first impressions of the films we'll be talking about in the months and years to come.

Video-on-Demand: Fragile Machine (2005).

Aoineko is a tight group of artists, designers and musicians who first caught discerning eyes in 2002 with their online project Superelectronic. Canon was so taken with it, the company incorporated its imagery in a national ad campaign. A sequel of sorts, Sentosa Mikano, lays the aesthetic and thematic groundwork for their 30-minute film, Fragile Machine. "Far from just homage to anime, the film is a well-styled piece of visual and audio cyberpunk, setting lessons learned from Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell and Metropolis to a beat," wrote fps Magazine recently. "It's a difficult task to make music and animation waltz together in a way that doesn't force one to dance the lead, but this short film pulls it off. The attention to detail and lush layering in Fragile Machine shows Aoineko is no ordinary purveyor of underground animation." Sample the trailer at the site and see if you don't agree that, even if you'd rather wrangle with the philosophical implications of the story some other day, this is some kind of sumptuous eye and ear candy.

GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: Nothing So Strange (2004)

Brian Flemming is not one to shy from controversy. He's recently been venturing into churches in the heart of Bush country to discuss his latest documentary, The God Who Wasn't There. While I personally suspect he's wrong about the historical Jesus (Flemming argues he never existed), he's proven on his popular blog to be such an alert and insightful voice that I know well enough to listen with respect. The first I'd heard of Brian Flemming was a few years ago at the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, where he screened an early version of Nothing So Strange, a brilliant, unique and highly entertaining examination of how, why and what we choose to believe. The event that gets the ball rolling may be sensational - the assassination of Bill Gates - but it's ultimately beside the point. We quickly latch onto a group of grassroots activists, the Citizens for Truth (yes, they have a website), who not only aren't buying the official version of what actually happened but also campaigning hard to replace it with their own. Flemming absolutely nails the frictional dynamics of a group of strong personalities all too loosely bound together by an all but hopeless cause. In case you haven't guessed by now, Flemming uses the conventions of doc filmmaking to tell a fictional story. But I wouldn't call it a "mockumentary"; there are laughs, but it's not a comedy, just as there are tears, though Nothing So Strange is not, strictly speaking, a tragedy, either. As tboot writes, "I'm not sure what the preferred term is these days - mock doc, fake doc, faux doc, whatever - but this is the best of them." -- David Hudson

This week's new releases offer action from Thailand, thrills from Hungary, historical drama from Germany and scares from Japan:

Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior (2003). "Action-movie stars have become geriatric lately," wrote Richard Corliss in Time back in January. "Arnold is Governor, Sly is about to become a reality-show host, Jean-Claude Van Damme toils in direct-to-video. Jackie Chan is almost a creaky 50, and Jet Li doesn't work much anymore. The genre needs another hero, and [Tony] Jaa (Thai name: Phanom Yeerum) is the fellow to fill the void. He's young - 28 - and good-looking, with a quiet élan to match his athletic skill. He's also a throwback to kung-fu film's early days, when stars and stunt men alike took a licking and kept on kicking. Ong Bak has no crouching, no hiding, no wires, no pixel-perfected stunts. Like Chan's early epics, it convinces you that the mayhem is real, that the star is enduring the pain for your pleasure." The result? Eric Campos at Film Threat: "I really can't think of anything that hasn't already been said about this, possibly the best martial arts movie ever. Just know that everything you've heard is true. If you like this kind of stuff then this Thai action film is now on your high priority of films to see."

Heimat: A Chronicle of Germany (1984). "Heimat is many things," writes Gary Couzens at DVD Times. "It's a portrait of German life and the way it changes through much of the twentieth century. It's an epic soap opera, which is not an insult in my book as it has the narrative drive and indelible characters of the best soaps.... All human life is here: tragedy, comedy, love and death, and those simple epiphanic moments of everyday life. Inevitably much of the story deals with the war years, and it's fascinating to see the way this develops. There are casual disparaging remarks against Jews and gypsies early on, talk of Hitler in Berlin as the sort of strong leader Germany needs... and before you know it, you see Nazi armbands everywhere you look. Watch this and ask yourself if this could ever happen again. It couldn't, could it...?"

MPD Psycho 2. (2000). "The greatest strength of Japanese cult auteur Takashi Miike is his seemingly endless ability to transcend genre, to overcome his budgetary and physical limitations, and to produce films that are endlessly surprising," writes Todd at Twitch. MPD Psycho, a six-part mini-series coming out on three DVDs, "is a taut, complex, well written thriller with psychological horror undertones. The complex characters and layers of meaning guarantee that there is lots of material to work with throughout the entire run and the series is chock full of Miike's trademark visual flair. With its combination of police procedural and supernatural overtones comparisons to Twin Peaks are inevitable and while I would neither confuse Miike with Lynch nor say this quite reaches the same heights as Lynch's classic work, it will absolutely have a great deal of appeal to those with a taste for the surreal imaginings of the subconscious mind."

Go Tell the Spartans (1978). Based on the novel, Incident at Muc Wa, Go Tell the Spartans looks back at the beginning of the war in Vietnam from the vantage point of just a few years after it ended. The message is clear: We should have seen then just how nasty this whole rotten affair was going to turn out. Contemporary relevance, anyone? As Major Asa Barker, Burt Lancaster "brings a nice subtlety to his character," noted Roger Ebert.

New Anime:

Human Crossing. Volume 4: Instructor's Rain (2004). "Where are the ninjas? The giant robots? The cute teenage schoolgirls? How do you cosplay for this show? You call this anime?" jokes Carlos Santos at the Anime News Network. "It's called honest, straightforward storytelling, and in an artform that often favors style over substance, it's definitely not a bad idea."

Member list of the week: "Groundbreaking Indies From The 50s & 60s," by ZenBones.

Seen The Brothers Grimm? Broken Flowers? Anything caught your fancy lately? Talk about it in our discussion forums.

GreenCine's next film screening will be on Wednesday, September 7, as we proudly present Finger Man (1955), a little-seen noir by Harold Schuster.

At the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco. 7:30pm.

The GreenCine Dispatch hereby vows to enjoy the remnants of summer, whether they be dog days or not. We hope this finds you enjoying yours. Enclosed in our latest newsletter, you'll find cool drink recipes, weather forecasts, travel tips, and summer reading. Er, no, actually you won't - but you will find a lot of helpful stuff about film: new and recommended DVD and VOD titles, articles, links and more. Enough to keep you cool for some time to come.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday, veteran documentarian D.A. Pennebaker looks back (and ahead). "The first time I ever held a camera with the intent of doing some real damage was on Daybreak Express." That was 1953. Bob Dylan eventually saw the five-minute short and agreed to have Pennebaker (seen at left with colleague Chris Hegedus) follow him around on his groundbreaking tour 12 years later. The result was Don't Look Back and the rest is film history. David D'Arcy talks to Pennebaker about his work and the future of documentaries in an age when nearly everyone has "a camera in their pocket."

It's summertime, which means things are a little quieter on the article front, but we'll be amping that up imminently.

The GreenCine Daily, our ever-busy film blog, plows ahead with more shorts, links, listening and viewing tips and commentary. We're currently featuring Screening the Past, plus debate over the film Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Drop on by! And if you have a hot tip for the Daily or GreenCine in general, feel free to drop a line to editor@greencine.com.

Video-on-Demand: Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001).

It may sound a little blasphemous to the more devoutly Christian among you, but Lee Gordon Demarbre's Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter is actually too silly to take seriously and since it sees Jesus as a sort of action hero, what's to complain about? Okay, he does battle with bloodsucking lesbians, which probably isn't in too many editions of the Bible, but it's all in good fun. It's also a "Kung-Fu/Action/Comedy/Horror/Musical." And it's, frankly, very cheaply made, seemingly shot for just a few Quadrans. But The Video Graveyard calls it a "professional looking independent effort that's competely tongue-in-cheek and makes you think of 1993's Cannibal! The Musical, only with a hint of blasphemy and only a mere one musical number... This could easily become a cult movie (and should be!) as it's wacky, strange and very entertaining." Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter is available to watch now or anytime you feel so inclined, via GreenCine's rapidly expanding Video-on-Demand service.

GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: The Man on the Train (2002)

Petrice Leconte's The Man on the Train (L'Homme du train) is simple, elegant and darn near perfect. While all of his films, and this one is clearly no exception, have an almost too-meticulous feel to them, Man on the Train also has a charmingly low-key, frayed, and warmer feel to it, all of which is brought home even further with the rich performances by veteran actor Jean Rochefort (no surprise) and (bigger surprise) rumpled, leather-clad French rock singer Johnny Halladay. (As Roger Ebert wrote in his review of the film, "In American terms, think of James Stewart and Johnny Cash.") Rocherfort plays a lonely, chattery retired schoolteacher due for a triple heart bypass, who intersects with Halladay's bank robber. They become friends over the course of a few days, and, of course, one sees how each could have easily become the other had certain things in their lives transpired differently. For what is essentially a simple two-character study, it's about as well-crafted as they come, with much heart, humor (there are even a few subtle nods to the French New Wave), and, ultimately, spiritual redemption. Man on the Train is also one of the few good, real films about male friendship in recent memory. -- Craig Phillips

This week's new releases include a batch of feisty, even bloody films, all of which make for memorable viewing:

Harakiri. (1963). "Brilliantly directed by Kobayashi Masaki, the plot is driven by a bloody mixture of ritual suicide, honor, and revenge," notes Allen White in our "Samurai" primer. "It is an exquisitely filmed widescreen masterpiece that serves as illustration of some of the core principles of samurai thought and of their conflict with the modernization of Japan."

Another gem from Criterion, which has spiced the disc with new video interviews with legendary star Tatsuya Nakadai and acclaimed screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto and an exclusive video introduction by Japanese-film historian Donald Richie." Bonus disc.

As noted in the introduction to Jonathan Marlow's interview with another controversial figure in contemporary Korean cinema, Kim Ki-duk, "When Park won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes last year for Oldboy, many cheered; some did not." Of the critics denouncing the enthusiasts, Elbert Ventura wrote for the New Republic, "Invoking the self-proclaimed geeks of post-Tarantino cinephilia and the Ain't It Cool News set doesn't just identify the movie's presumptive demographic - it diminishes the movie by association and gives critics an excuse not to engage Park's work seriously." Second, "That original grievances become obscured by the sadism isn't a failing of the movie: It's the point.... His surfaces are so dazzling that it may require effort to look past them."

We recommend you try just that.

Layer Cake. (2004). "Layer Cake is a tasty mix of stylistic and character driven plot with exceptional writing by J.J. Connolly and a welcome directorial debut from producer Matthew Vaughn (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch), wrote Melissa McGibbon in Film Threat, going on to call it "an unusual crime thriller that feeds us the dynamic, edgy, and cataclysmic storyline that we hunger for."

Weekend. (1967). You may or may not agree with Larry Gross's assessment of Jean-Luc Godard's later films in Movieline, but he does capture well the significance of Weekend in one of cinema's most significant oeuvres: "Godard tapped directly into the bloodstream of cinema twice in his career: his 1959 deput film Breathless, which announced that a generation of self-conscious cinephiles was preparing to redefine film history, and eight years later with Weekend, his final, disenchanted adieu to commercial narrative cinema. A film that attests to his brave but aesthetically fatal alliance with revolutionary Third World attacks on the culture of the West, Weekend marks the true end of Godard's period of stupefying, creative inspiration. As such, it is comparable to Picasso's farewell to the cubist period, or Dylan's Blonde on Blonde."

And of course, it's a quintessentially 60s-era film, one that will be fascinating to see again now. Will Godard's anger, here at its fiercest, strike a chord?

For Ever Mozart. (1996). For Fergus Daly, writing in Senses of Cinema, "For Ever Mozart is the key to what is new in Godard these last years... Godard drew on three distinct embryonic projects, namely, an homage to Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa; an idea borrowed from a newspaper article by Philippe Sollers about staging a play in Sarajevo; and a project whose point of departure would have been a Keith Jarrett concert. Godard set out knowing it would be the film in construction which would tie all of these elements together. By combining these preoccupations with his desire to express his disgust at the attitude of French intellectuals to the war in the ex-Yugoslavia... Godard, according to Serge Toubiana, managed to forge the most just and accurate political film of recent times."

The Flowers of St. Francis. (1950). "Shooting primarily in exterior spaces, using unobtrusive camerawork, and incorporating natural environment with a cast of non-professional actors (with monks from the Nocere Inferiore Monastery playing the roles of St. Francis and his disciples), Roberto Rossellini creates a sense of timelessness and contemporary relevance to the universal themes of humility, compassion, faith, sacrifice, and community in The Flowers of St. Francis," writes Acquarello at his site, Strictly Film School. "A remarkably lucid and accessible portrait of the interrelation between humanity and spiritual enlightenment."

Boudu Saved From Drowning. (1932). "Jean Renoir's effortless 1932 masterpiece is as informal, beguiling, and subversive as its eponymous hero, a tramp who is saved from suicide by a Parisian bookseller and ends up taking over his benefactor's home, wife, and mistress," wrote Dave Kehr in the Chicago Reader. If that plot sounds familiar, you may have seen Paul Mazursky's 1986 remake, Down and Out in Beverly Hills.

New Anime:

Scrapped Princess. Volume 3: Traveling Trouble (2005). "So many SF/fantasy anime shows start in an interesting fashion and then completely break down as the story becomes fragmented, unintelligible, and often self-contradictory," writes autarch of the first volume. "Scrapped Princess has an interesting story that it manages to hold together throughout the entire series." Adds drseid: "Very nice fantasy show that mixes an interesting premise with some likeable characters. This one should appeal to fans of shows like Fullmetal Alchemist."

The Memory of Oblivion. Volume 2: Monotone (2005). Your fellow GreenCiners are so far giving this new series quite respectable ratings indeed.

Mind your p's and queues: Try to have a minimum of ten titles for every slot you have, i.e., forty titles if you're on the four-out plan. If you're having trouble thinking of titles to rent, here are a few ideas: check out member lists (which you can look at chronologically, alphabetically or by average rating) and editorial top lists, browse through primers and our active discussion boards, look at our lists of titles coming soon, among other ideas. So queue away! And if you need to watch something right now, take a gander at our rapidly expanding Video-on-Demand offerings. And for ease of browsing, you can look at our currently available VOD titles by genre; go to the main page for a list of all genres.

Congratulations go out to winners of several recent GreenCine trivia contests: The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, In Old Chicago and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte trivia contest winners were: TOsborn, garymc and PHenry (the answer was "...tongue"); The Silent Star winners were lusyphur, bkurdali and snooper81 (the answer was First Spaceship on Venus). Meanwhile, Friday's trivia contest will be a two-fer, as we're giving away both The Transporter: Special Edition and Futurama: Monster Robot Maniac Fun Collection. Have at it!

Member list of the week: "Short but Well Worth Your Time," by antionedoinel. (See also: our short films section; it's under "Indie.")

Anybody know the name of this Asian film? (See our message boards.)

GreenCine's next film screening will be on Wednesday, September 7, as we proudly present Finger Man (1955), a little-seen noir by Harold Schuster, better known for his TV work on The Twilight Zone. For folks who like their noir hardboiled, we've gladly tracked down this neglected thriller. Schuster expertly guides the story, pitting government agents against a crime syndicate - undercover reformed hood Casey Martin (the under-rated Frank Lovejoy) versus his nemesis, the sadistic Lou Terpe (played to perfection by the exceptional Timothy Carey). Based on a story by John Lardner, brother of Ring Lardner, Jr. At the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco. 7:30pm.

GreenCine has no plans to rule the world, just our little corner of it, but this week we just plain rule, as we offer up a theatrical screening of the one-of-a-kind winner of our online film festival, sponsored by DivX; details below. Then there's more trivia giveaways, tips on favorite DVD and VOD titles, new and old, and a whole lot more. All this in a newsletter that would make Mr. Krabs happy - because it's free. (Well, sort of.)

Besides our Gus Van Sant interview, which you may have perused by now, we also talked to Penn Jillette about the film The Aristocrats, which he produced. Already a runaway hit, the film is currently pulling in more per screen than any other movie out there. Jillette discussed how he and director Paul Provenza (both pictured at left) came up with the idea and about the origins of the Penn & Teller partnership, his past movies, his radio show... and magic around the world.

The GreenCine Daily, our jam-packed film blog, runs full steam ahead this week, with a peak at the new issue of Canadian film mag Synoptique and UK film mag Firecracker, along with what other cinephiles are writing about.

Video-on-Demand: Dogtown (1997).

Director George Hickenlooper is better known for the original short that Sling Blade was based on and for his work in the documentary form (his Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse is still one of the most desired MIA DVDs), but his indie drama Dogtown is worth a look, too. Dogtown is Hickenlooper's own stab at a Last Picture Show and "is one of those rare American movies that dares to address the possibility that the quest for the American dream sometimes never gets very far," extolled Boxoffice Magazine. "A warm and sweet movie that nonetheless shuns the fantasy of Capra's America in favor of a realistic look at shattered dreams and broken hopes. Anchored by excellent performances from Karen Black, Rory Cochrane, Jon Favreau and Mary Stuart Masterson, Dogtown screams for a theatrical release that it never received." You can watch it now or any time via GreenCine's ever-expanding Video-on-Demand collection.

GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: The Knack... and How to Get It (1965).

Ah, the knack. "Some have it, some don't," posited the tagline for The Knack... and How to Get It, a very 60's, very British, and still very funny farce, full of "Mods and Rockers!" (as one elderly chap exclaims in disgust in the film). The Knack was director Richard Lester's follow-up to his Beatle-maniac classic A Hard Day's Night, and while less famous, it remains very much of a piece with the earlier film in its manic style, frenetic energy, plethora of jump cuts and one-liners. It also shares a lack of a plot, but what there is of one centers on shy schoolteacher Colin (played by future phantom Michael Crawford) whose new womanizing tenant (Ray Brooks) is out to show him a thing or two about the fairer sex. When doe-eyed Nancy (Rita Tushingham) catches Colin's fancy, he has to fend off the more cocky boarder. Make no mistake: as funny as The Knack is, it's also undeniably a little dated, especially in this Austin Powers era, and a bit sexist, too. But don't get your knickers in a twist: with Crawford surprisingly adept at physical comedy, the movie full of witty banter, and several ripping sight gags, The Knack has what it takes to give you a good time. -- Craig Phillips

It's a rather slow DVD releasing week so our highlights of today's new releases are a small group, while next week will be a bit busier. Some good stuff here, though:

Kung Fu Hustle (2004). Stephen Chow is a major favorite among GreenCiners on both sides of the envelope. See, for example, the staff raves and member reviews for The God of Cookery and Shaolin Soccer. As for Chow's latest, Marc Savlov writes in the Austin Chronicle, "This is as pure and downright fun a cinematic experience as you're likely to have all year: part chopsocky battle royale, part Chuck Jones-and-Buster Keaton-inspired gonzo romantic comedy, and part MGM musical run amok. It's all choreographed and art-directed to the nines, too, which makes it as pleasing to the eyes as it is to your pulse, which you'll find pounding relentlessly throughout."

Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1965). Robert Aldrich knew if he could get Bette Davis and Joan Crawford to do a sequel to the commercially successful What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, he'd be set. Long story short, Crawford was out, Olivia de Havilland was in and the result is "an even more outrageous exercise in Hollywood necrophilia," wrote Dave Kehr in the Chicago Reader. "It was camp before the term was coined, but it's somewhat better than that, too." (By the way, you've just got to read Mark A. Vieira telling the tale of the film's making in Bright Lights Film Journal.)

New Anime:

Inu Yasha Volume 32: Glow of the False Jewel (2000). "Inu Yasha is classic," proclaims CarpeNoctem. "It's got all the great elements of an awesome anime, moving plot without tons of filler anywhere... cool characters, smooth animation, a perverted monk, and killer villians... Definitely a must-watch for any anime fan."

Mind your p's and queues: Try to have a minimum of ten titles for every slot you have, i.e., forty titles if you're on the four-out plan. If you're having trouble thinking of titles to rent, here are a few ideas: check out member lists (which you can look at chronologically, alphabetically or by average rating) and editorial top lists, browse through primers and our active discussion boards, look at our lists of titles coming soon, among other ideas. So queue away! And if you need to watch something right now, take a gander at our rapidly expanding Video-on-Demand offerings. And for ease of browsing, you can look at our currently available VOD titles by genre; go to the main page for a list of all genres.

We have a ton of winners of recent GreenCine trivia contests to congratulate this week: Fox classics winners were MKing2, mahster and FOLIA (the answer was Mildred Pierce); Balseros winners were lgringo, hcourtais and FPatton (the answer was Lucrecia/Lucrecia Perez); Over There winners were duanehall, johnpalmer and hogisland (the answer was Mississippi Burning); and John Wayne contest winners were kbergstr, shilarny and ZLewis (the answer was Ernest K. Gann). We'll announce more winners in this space next week. Meanwhile, our next trivia contest giveaway features three more classic Fox dramas, the aforementioned The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and the supercreepy Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, along with In Old Chicago; look for it this Friday.

Member list of the week: JAuner's Subjective Guide to Something Weird Video. (An objective list of Something Weird titles can be found here.)

Tomorrow night! GreenCine Presents Red Cockroaches, the winner of the DivX Presents the GreenCine Online Film Festival's Narrative Grand Prize, at the Balboa Theater.

The Balboa Theater is located at 3630 Balboa Street in San Francisco. The movie screens at 8pm. Ticket prices are $8/$5 GreenCine Members, Students, Seniors.

With another Dispatch in front of you, something should tell you that something important is happening somewhere on GreenCine, and we think you should know about it. Well, nothing big, just a lot of nice little bits n' pieces. For more on the latest GC happenings - new articles, new video-on-demand titles and DVDs, upcoming events (including a screening tomorrow), and much more - just keep on scrollin'.

But before you do, one announcement: GreenCine on the radio tonight! For those of you in the Bay Area, tune into KGO 810 AM, at 10PM, as GreenCine's Jonathan Marlow chats with host Edie Sellers about movie distribution. If you're not in the area, you can listen on the Web. Tell your friends!

GreenCine è molto contento di presentare un nuovo primer (sorry if we mangled Italian): Neorealismo italiano. Where did the harsh, emotionally enthralling and highly influential masterworks by Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini and Luchino Visconti suddenly come from in postwar Italy? Bright Lights Film Journal associate editor Megan Ratner traces the origins and surveys the greatest films of the brief movement with the long shadow. Ciao!

Coming this week: A talk with the inimitable Gus Van Sant. With his new film Last Days, which may or may not be "about" Kurt Cobain's own real-life final days, out in theaters now and stirring up wildly disparate reviews, there's less disagreement about the uniqueness of the enigmatic Van Sant's style and filmography. Look for this interview on GreenCine soon.

A fine article went to "press" after the last newsletter so we'll point to it here: In the Mood for Leung. "I love to do different movies, different roles, but usually Wong Kar-wai's movies are the most challenging," Tony Leung Chiu Wai tells GreenCine's Jonathan Marlow in a conversation about his approach to roles in some of Hong Kong's most widely regarded and successful films.

The GreenCine Daily, our award-winning blog and a perfect supplement to GreenCine, this week gives you plenty o'links to reviews of new DVDs and theatrical releases, film commentary, and a pile of great online listening and viewing tips (including this one, d'oh).

Video-on-Demand: Hollywood Scarefest (2003).

How can you not love a DVD that includes a film entitled "Driving Miss Crazy"? Hollywood Scarefest is a collection of award winning horror, science-fiction and fantasy short films. FilmForce's Mike Bracken reported on the festival that inspired this assemblage: "Hollywood Scarefest is a celebration of this independent spirit and the young filmmakers who want to reclaim the genre. The brainchild of Jon Othar, the festival is an annual occurrence that seeks out some of the best horror, sci-fi, and fantasy shorts around. The films are displayed, voted on, and then the winners are placed on a DVD courtesy of Vanguard Cinema so that the shorts can reach a wider audience. Hollywood Scarefest is a celebration of the cinema of the fantastic – embracing films that utilize surreal imagery and technology to tell their tales. As with all anthology discs, the end result is a bit of a mishmash in terms of quality, but there's more good here than bad... These are low-budget labors of love and they have some rough edges. However, viewers who want to see talent in its rawest form will be pleased by the majority of the films on display. Hollywood's current crop of filmmakers may not have a clue what to do with the genre, but a few of these young mavericks certainly could revitalize it. Kudos to Vanguard for taking the risk in spotlighting these films and getting them out to a wider audience." You can watch it now or any time via GreenCine's ever-expanding Video-on-Demand collection.

GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: Take Care of My Cat (2001).

In its earnest and slightly romanticized treatment of teens, Take Care of My Cat may at first remind you of a Korean Say Anything, but delves even further into the question of what happens just after high school graduation - do you escape your home town, or start settling down there, follow your dreams or earn a living, stay in touch with your high school friends or let them go? The film's core is the shifting relationship between Hae-joo, determined to succeed in the business world of Seoul, Tae-hee, already at work for the family business, and Ji-young, a talented outsider who seems just about to slip through the cracks. Buoyed by some beautifully saturated photography and something of a happy ending, the film nevertheless keeps an eye on the social and economic realities the girls face (it also boasts one of the more poignant Dance Dance Revolution scenes you're likely to see on film). Winner of several festival awards and anchored by a terrific performance by Du-na Bae as Tae-hee, Take Care of My Cat is an undiscovered gem. -- Julie Newcomb

Our highlights of this week's new DVD releases includes one of the wittier series in cinema history, as well as tales of conquerors and dictators, and an unusual drama from Thailand:

Downfall (2004). Few films have sparked as much contentious debate in Germany in recent years as Downfall, the wrenching depiction of the last ten days of Adolf Hitler, his lover, Eva Braun, and more than a few top-level Nazis and their families in a bunker deep underground while Berlin burned above them. Hitler had been depicted in German films before, but never in such a human light. Was this permissible? Or was it even necessary for an understanding of evil as originating from within our own nature rather than from some conveniently exterior supernatural force? Regardless of where critics, philosophers and politicians stood on the film (nominated for an Oscar in the Foreign Language category), few have denied that Bruno Ganz's performance as the dictator sinking ever deeper into paranoia and dementia is absolutely riveting.

Beautiful Boxer (2004). "Ekacahi Uekrongtham's debut feature is a beautifully shot chronicle of the trials, tribulations and watery makeup days that face all transvestites trying to earn the cash for their transgender surgery while labouring in Thailand's kick boxing industry," writes James Wegg at Film Threat. "Beautiful Boxer is a magical vision of the ring of the imagination, where anything is possible if the top of the seemingly impossible staircase of self acceptance can be reached." What's more: "The kick boxing is incredible," says ZArkles.

"Pretty girl."
"Yes. She's a very nice type."
"You got types?"
"Only you, darling. Lanky brunettes with wicked jaws."

Ah, Nick and Nora, William Powell and Myrna Loy, and their irresistible blend of sophisticated cosmopolitanism and pure American, wisecracking sass. Under the direction of W.S. Van Dyke, they set the standard and no other married pair of detectives would ever rise to it. If you fall in love with The Thin Man series as deeply as we're sure you will, check out our Screwball Comedy primer for more whiplash double entendre. Out this week: The Thin Man (1934); After the Thin Man (1936); Another Thin Man (1939); Shadow of the Thin Man (1941); Thin Man Goes Home (1944); Song of the Thin Man (1947); and, as a lovely supplement, Hollywood Remembers: Myrna Loy - So Nice to Come Home To (1991).

Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and 30s (2005). In the latter half of the 20th Century, Raymond Rohauer was one of the nation's foremost proponents of experimental cinema. Programming diverse films at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles, and making the films in his personal archive available for commercial distribution, he helped preserve and promote avant-garde cinema. This two-DVD collection assembles some of the most influential and eclectic short films in the Rohauer Collection, including works by Man Ray, Hans Richter, Marcel Duchamp, Watson & Webber, Fernand Léger, Joris Ivens, Dimitri Kirsanoff, Jean Epstein and Orson Welles. Disc 2.

And now for something completely different: Alexander (Director's Cut; 2004). When both Baz Luhrmann and Oliver Stone announced all but simultaneously that their next films would be epic retellings of the legend of the Macedonian conqueror, the race was on. Stone won, but the speed with which he crossed the finish line may not have served his film all that well. Here, with the Director's Cut, he gets another shot at reshaping the tale. Starring Colin Farrell, Anthony Hopkins and, "with nose-flaring gusto" (Manohla Dargis in the New York Times), Angelina Jolie. "Not being an Oliver Stone fan, I am beyond shocked at how much I enjoyed his Alexander - first moment to last," writes talltale. "One of the most intelligent of spectacles, the movie is almost always gorgeous to watch without hitting you over the head with its display."

New Anime:

Lupin III Volume 11: From Moscow With Love (2005). Will Lupin's sexy and mysterious rival Fujiko help him in his next heist or lead him into Interpol Inspector Zenigata's next ambush? "Silly and slapsticky," says IronS of the series. Meant in the best way, of course.

It's always good to keep an eye on your queue to make sure the films you most want to see are at the top. We also recommend having a minimum of ten times the number of slots you have, i.e., forty if you're on the four-out plan. If you're having trouble thinking of titles to rent, here are a few ideas: check out member lists (which you can look at chronologically, alphabetically or by average rating) and editorial top lists, browse through primers and our active discussion boards, look at our lists of titles coming soon, among other ideas. So queue away! And if you need to watch something right now, take a gander at our rapidly expanding Video-on-Demand offerings. And for ease of browsing, you can look at our currently available VOD titles by genre; go to the main page for a list of all genres.

We'd like to congratulate the winners of some of our most recent trivia contests. We'd like to, but can't because we are awaiting the discs from the studios for the few contests still pending. Look for winner announcements in this space next week. Meanwhile, try your luck at a brand new trivia contest, just up on our home page, for classic John Wayne films The High and the Mighty and Island in the Sky. This week's bustin' out with giveaways, as we'll have another contest up on Friday: X-Files Mythology: Black Oil. The freebies are out there.

Member list of the week: ZenBones' What the Presidents Liked to Watch, inspired by the recent Bravo documentary, "All The Presidents' Movies."

Tomorrow night! GreenCine Presents Doris Wishman's naturist classic, Hideout in the Sun, at the Yerba Buena Center. The exploitation queen's first film was shot at a Florida nudist colony and "had a strong influence on prolific exploitation producer Dave Friedman and the entire exploitation industry in general" (Senses of Cinema). The screening will be introduced by Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of "Adults Only" Cinema author (and creator of our film noir primer) Eddie Muller. The YBCA is at 701 Mission Street near Third in downtown San Francisco. Ticket prices are $8, or $5 for seniors/students/YBCA and GreenCine members. Showtime is 7:30PM, August 3.

And merely one week later, on August 10, Red Cockroaches, the winner of the DivX Presents the GreenCine Online Film Festival's Narrative Grand Prize, will screen theatrically at San Francisco's revitalized Balboa Theater. The film will be projected in DivX format and is not to be missed! We'll have a more detailed notice for this in next week's Dispatch. Hope to see you at both these unique events.