The inimitable Pat Robertson once said on The 700 Club, "I think we ought to close Halloween down. Do you want your children to dress up as witches? The Druids used to dress up like this when they were doing human sacrifice. [Your children] are acting out Satanic rituals and participating in it, and don't even realize it."

Well, at the risk of sounding sacreligious to some, [rasberry sound]. We love Halloween week at GreenCine, because it's all so cinematic, what with the horror films themselves, of course, along with seeing people decked out in scary (in all senses of the word) costumes, the spirit of playacting adding up to just the kick in the pants we all need - and probably more than once a year. That and a lot of delicious candy - which we probably don't need more than once a year.

As Batman begins anew (on DVD): More than a few were surprised when Christopher Nolan, director of such heady features as Following and Memento, was chosen to revive the Batman franchise. In "Christopher Nolan's Realistic Superhero," Sean Axmaker asks him about reimagining an icon and the challenges of directing an action adventure as big as Batman Begins.

For those of you with your GreenCine adult-browsing turned, uh, on: Eon McKai is paying back his film school and art school debts by doing what he knows best: smut. Using his wealth of knowledge of film (both adult and non) and his desire to stir things up, McKai is already blazing a trail with Art School Sluts and the Kill Girl Kill series leading the way. He spoke with Jonathan Marlow about his influences and his own brand of alt.adult.

The GreenCine Daily, our award-winning film blog, takes a look at new means of (self-)distribution options for filmmakers to consider, and the ramifications and problems therein. That and some horror-themed lists at various other film web sites, and oh, so much more, are all free for your reading pleasure on the Daily.

Video-on-Demand: A Killer Within (2004).

C. Thomas Howell and Sean Young star in A Killer Within, a taut, dark sleeper of a mystery in which a powerful lawyer becomes the prime suspect when his wife is found murdered. "A tight plot and solid performances set this film above the standard fare," wrote one IMDB user, while another added the film has "a lot of good twists and turns which would leave a person guessing right up to the end...The cast was put together well and seemed to work together well." The cast includes the always reliably good Giancarlo Esposito (Do the Right Thing, Homicide), Dedee Pfeiffer (yep, Michelle's sister) and Ben Browder (of Stargate SG-1 and Farscape fame) all doing good work. Now you can watch A Killer Within anytime you wish, via GreenCine's rapidly expanding Video-on-Demand service.

Speaking of Video-on-Demand, GreenCine has also added a boatload of new Hentai titles for download, including the fun-to-pronounce but dark Urotsukidoji II, which one reviewer on the web said was "the first hentai I have ever seen, and it remains my favourite. Its dark adult themes resonate." Go to our write-up on BlueCine for more details.

GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959).

Britain's legendary horror factory Hammer was the subject of Jeremy Wheat's film primer on GreenCine, and he rightly listed The Hound of the Baskervilles as one of Hammer's best. With Peter Cushing so perfectly spot-on as Sherlock Holmes and André Morell lending very capable support - not overplaying as is usually the case when actors play sidekick Dr. Watson - the film also features Christopher Lee, who had earlier co-starred as the monster to Cushing's Dr. Frankenstein in The Curse of, and would go on to famously make a string of Hammer horror classics. Playing Sir Henry Baskerville, it's a nice change of pace for once to see Lee as a victim, not victimizer. Based on, but deviating a bit from, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous Holmes book, the story has Holmes called upon to visit Baskerville Hall to investigate that family's awful curse, in which descendants have been terrorized by a legendary hound from hell.

One of many renditions of this book, and still tops; in fact, it's my favorite Holmes movie ever (with Christopher Plummer's turn in Murder by Decree and Basil Rathbone's many tied for a distant second). The gothic tale is brought to life by underrated British director Terence Fisher and aided by Jack Asher's superb cinematography, full of lush watercolors and ominous fog. The DVD is fairly bare bones but satisfactory enough; an engaging interview with Lee is among the few extras. Still, the film itself is a perfectly creepy treat. -- Craig Phillips

There are a lot of treats in the DVD trick or treat bag that is this week's crop of new DVD releases, includes a couple of darkly fascinating independent films and a sweet group of Werner Herzog docs:

Last Days (2005). "It's a defiantly uncommercial, individualistic mode of expression that [Gus] Van Sant has been exploring with great success," wrote Sean Axmaker in the introduction to his interview with the director of Gerry and Palme d'Or-winner Elephant. "Last Days is the epitome of these explorations and a beautiful marriage of subject matter and style." The subject matter, of course, is the final arc of the long decline of a very familiar-looking musician, Blake, played by Michael Pitt.

Mysterious Skin (2004). At indieWIRE, Erik Syngle expressed a surprised reaction to Mysterious Skin that was echoed through most critics' reviews, writing that the film "proves that, contrary to any reasonable expectations, [Gregg] Araki has matured.... At the same time, it manages to incorporate most of his familiar trademarks: aliens, teenage angst, jailbait TV stars, and loads of sex. What it adds, most notably, are the twin excellent lead performances of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet and an authentic sense of place (Hutchinson, Kansas) as opposed to his usual shoestring L.A. 'nowhere.'"

Rize (2004). "The film's krumpers are nothing short of intense and [fashion photographer-turned-director David] LaChapelle's saturated aesthetic evokes the way the energy of their glistening and glowing bods seemingly spills into the world around them. This is a fitting visual motif for a documentary about young men and women wishing to make a social imprint under their own terms," writes Ed Gonzalez at Slant. "It's like being high without the drugs." And if you're not sure what krumping is, well, see the film.

Melinda and Melinda (2004). When Match Point screened at Cannes this year, many critics hailed the return of the Woody Allen they once knew and loved. Not that Match Point is a comedy; by all accounts, it most certainly is not. But before Allen found the pulse of humanity once again after all these years, he made Melinda and Melinda - which, don't get us wrong, is not a bad film. But neither is it Manhattan or Crimes and Misdemeanors. (But it's also not Celebrity.) Still, it makes for a passable evening as we watch Radha Mitchell play out two possible versions of Melinda's life, one comic, the other tragic. And there's a sweet nod to My Dinner With Andre when it turns out to be Wallace Shawn (once again, over dinner) who proposes exploring the two opposing worldviews.

5x2 (2004). Harold Pinter did it with Betrayal (and there's a film we need to see released on DVD): the dynamics of a relationship are exposed in extraordinarily revealing ways when the chapters of its development unfold backwards. Where Betrayal leads to an exhilarating temptation that will doom a marriage, François Ozon, in 5x2, begins in a similar spot but takes a different route, beginning with a divorce and tracing its origins all the way back to that first flicker of a flirt. "The implication of the central performances [by Stéphane Freiss and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi] - that those involved in the romance may be instinctively aware of that final outcome all along - is potent stuff," writes Nick Pinkerton at indieWIRE.

Love and Anger (1969). If years had slogans, could you find a better one for 1969 than "Love and Anger"? And if the year were 1969 and you were in Europe and you were looking to put together a collection of topical films by some of the hottest directors around, here's who you'd choose: Carlo Lizzani, Bernardo Bertolucci, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jean-Luc Godard and Marcello Bellochio. (Bonus disc.)

Wheel of Time (2003). Suddenly, after what seemed to have been years spent best known as a prominent figure in a chapter of cinematic history long past, New German Cinema, Werner Herzog was everywhere this year, alive and kicking ass. Ed Park captured the feeling of trying to keep up this summer in the Village Voice: "Between balloon (The White Diamond) and bear (Grizzly Man) comes Buddhism, in this season's transfixing trifecta of Werner Herzog docs." Wheel of Time tells of a huge conclave in India in 2002 and of a more modest gathering later the same year in Austria. As Park writes, "Patient and fascinated, but never succumbing to abstraction, Wheel of Time can be seen as the middle installment of a trilogy against nature."

Herzog's The White Diamond (2004) "suggests that while he has mellowed a bit with age, [Herzog] is still fascinated by the danger and romance of the natural world and attracted to characters who share this fascination," wrote A.O. Scott in the New York Times this summer. "His foil and alter ego in this case is Graham Dorrington, an English aeronautical engineer who designs airships and pilots them over remote tropical rain forests."

The Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner / How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck / La Soufrière (1979). Three early films in which Herzog examines the life of a man who wants to be a great sculptor (but who is actually a champion skier) in The Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner (1974); visits a world championship for cattle auctioneers in How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck? (1976); and explores the island of Guadaloupe after all but one of its residents have evacuated their town because of fears of an impending volcanic eruption in La Soufrière (1977).

Le Samouraï (1967). "Long before Cahiers du Cinema was even a gleam in the eye of its founders, [Jean-Pierre] Melville worshiped at the shrine of Hollywood and dutifully cataloged its artistic riches," Jonathan Rosenbaum has written in the Chicago Reader. "Le Samouraï expresses a kind of loneliness to be sure, but it's that of a teenage male dreaming about Hollywood movies and their accoutrements - penthouse apartments, acerbic cops, melancholy city streets, smoky card games, fancy jazz nightclubs - which he projects into a Paris of the mind. Beginning with almost no dialogue at all, Le samouraï unfolds like a poetic fever dream." This Criterion release features new video interviews with Rui Nogueira, author of Melville on Melville, and Ginette Vincendeau, author of Jean-Pierre Melville: An American in Paris, as well as archival interviews with Melville and actors Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon and Cathy Rosier and more.

And nothing to do with the above: Samurai Rebellion (1967). Masaki Kobayashi's classic was the centerpiece just last month of a "Summer Samurai" series at the Film Forum in New York, and little wonder. "The tension builds slowly until all hell breaks loose," David Shipman once gushed. "The final duel between [Toshiro] Mifune and [Tatsuya] Nakadai is as exciting as any ever put on film." And Philip Strick in Sight & Sound: "The splendid Mifune scowl, and the instant authority with which he dominates the screen give him such seemingly unquestionable heroic integrity that his glee at a fight is disturbingly easy to share."

Sword of the Beast (1965). "One of [Hideo] Gosha's earlier movies, it contains all the elements that made him a chambara director to be admired and emulated," writes a fan at the IMDb. "Well-composed and thoughtful cinematography, a cynical view of authority (with certain implications for modern Japanese society), human drama, and of course, some excellent swordplay!"

Cannibal Holocaust (1979). "Notorious for its ultra-realism and relentless scenes of carnage, Cannibal Holocaust has a sordid and fascinating history," writes Lawrence P. Raffel at Monsters at Play. "Quite often banned (in many countries)... the film had even dragged director [Ruggero] Deodato kicking and screaming to court at one point where he had to prove that the violence was indeed fake (except for the animal violence that is). Shocking because of its deadpan delivery, the many other cannibal clones available often came across as camp with nutty dialogue and hammy performances. Not Cannibal Holocaust though; with its serious and grim tone, the film is anything but a laughing matter (unlike Cannibal Ferox) and remains just as ferocious today as it ever was."

New Anime:

Gankutsuou. Chapter 1: The Count of Monte Cristo (2005). "Gankutsuou, the latest effort from legendary director of Blue Submarine No. 6 and the 'Last Renaissance' segment from The Animatrix, is without a doubt one of the finest anime series ever made and probably the best thing released this year," writes Zac Bertschy for the Anime News Network. "People like to say shows like Naruto are 'for adults' because there's blood and swearing; Gankutsuou is for adults in the same fashion that films like Elizabeth or The Lion in Winter are for adults. It's a mature story, told in a mature way."

For a more detailed list of this week's new releases, go here.

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Congratulations to the blessed winners of our Kingdom of Heaven/The Crusaders/Beyond The Gates of Splendor trivia contest: csmith2, laurateresad, binsolo, dboyd, llm13254 and wildeo (the answer was Richard the Lionhearted). We'll announce more winners of recent trivia contests in this space soon, so keep checking back. Meanwhile, our next trivia contest will be up on Friday, in which we offer a chance for you to win a copy of Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda.

The member list of the week: In honor of Halloween, and one of horror's most famous contributors, JWallis' The Spawn of Lovecraft ("Films with references to the legend of Dark Fantasy.")

GreenCine is proudly co-presenting two screenings in the Film Arts Foundation's 21st Annual Film Arts Festival, at the Roxie Cinema (3117 16th Street, San Francisco):

Wellstone!, the inspiring story of the remarkable Senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone, who defied tradition to return political power to the people, will screen on Satuday, November 5, at 8:20 pm, with an introduction by GreenCine's Jonathan Marlow. Romantico, Mark Becker's superb documentary chronicling the struggles of an illegal immigrant who works as a Mariachi in San Francisco's Mission district until family matters bring him back to his Mexican village, screens on Sunday, November 6 at 2:00 pm. Both are part of the Mother Jones Agitators and Instigators series, and the screening of the latter will conclude with a live music performance by Trio Los Románticos.

Welcome to the Dispatch of the Living Dead, which is re-animated for you in honor of our new zombie primer. Just one of the little treats GreenCine will toss into your candy bag in the days leading up to All Hallow's Eve.

As mentioned above, a new primer has risen from the dead: Zombies. Liz Cole takes a look at the perpetually reawakening horror genre: "Zombie flicks have enjoyed a popularity and longevity afforded to few other subgenres of horror, thanks largely to the versatility of zombies themselves." Night of the Living Dead and all of George A. Romero's handiwork is there of course, but so, too, are lesser-known gems like Tombs of the Blind Dead and Bio Zombie - not to mention gross-out classics like The Grapes of Death and Junk. And then there's Redneck Zombies - the title "says it all," notes Cole.

And we have yet more on Romero specifically: In 1968, with Night of the Living Dead, Romero not only "turned zombies into metaphors for societal decay," as Cole writes in the zombies primer, he also "[changed] the face of American horror for good." So says Sean Axmaker, who talks with Romero about that landmark film and his latest, Land of the Dead.

Meanwhile, two other new noteworthy articles:

"With a 25-year career in some 70 films and TV shows, the prolific David Strathairn is one of the finest contemporary actors who remains largely unknown to most viewers," writes Axmaker, introducing his interview with Straithairn, before adding, "Good Night, and Good Luck. could change that."

For N.P. Thompson, The War Within is "an insightful, unsparing film about the personal life of a suicide bomber." He talks with actor/co-writer Ayad Akhtar and producer/co-writer Tom Glynn about their creative process and the controversy they've stirred.

The GreenCine Daily covers the world of film, from fests to the year's best. Read it every day to keep up with our breathless pace.

Video-on-Demand: All My Loved Ones (1999).

All My Loved Ones, the debut feature of Czech director Matej Minac, was inspired by his family's own experiences in World War II. It tells the story of a Jewish clan living in Prague on the eve of the war and seems indebted to Vittorio De Sica's The Garden Of The Finzi-Continis. "The tale commands attention," wrote Dave Kehr in The New York Times. The Village Voice adds: "Offers a glimpse of the Solomonic decision facing Jewish parents in those turbulent times: to save their children and yet to lose them. And it traces a sustained and moving portrait of the worldly Sam, whose despair as the society he embraced abandons him is both clear-eyed and devastating." All My Loved Ones is a moving, provocative film and worthy of a watch - which you can do any time you wish via GreenCine's rapidly expanding Video-on-Demand service.

GreenCine Staff Pick(s) of the Week: Dog Soldiers (2002) and Ginger Snaps (2000).

We begin our series of Halloween-ish staff picks with a doubleheader to get you in a howling mood. Werewolf tales are about as old as the moon itself, with movies about them not too far behind (or at least as far back as the early 40's). The British werewolf film Dog Soldiers gives the age-old story a bit of a shake, by depositing it in a modern scenario: soldiers on a routine training mission in the (appropriately) misty Scottish Highlands (although it was actually shot in Luxembourg!), when things go to... the dogs. When the action really gets going, so too does the film, gripping you as tension builds and builds through a series of attacks. You'll gasp at least a few times. As one GreenCine member noted, the editing is a little choppy in spots, with the great momentum it builds eroded a bit as it moves through its second half, but it's still an exciting feature debut for filmmaker Neil Marshall, with enough blood and scares for lycanthrophiles. (Yes, we're making up words.)

The Canadian-made Ginger Snaps wasn't John Fawcett's debut (the lesser, but still interesting, The Boys Club was), but it surely marked his as a name to watch. Credit, too, should go to Karen Walton for her sharp script (in which one character rightly observes "Let's forget the Hollywood rules"). One watch of Ginger Snaps and you'll understand why teenagers have made this a serious cult favorite (right up there with Freeway). The film is full of the kind of black humor teens love and an appreciation for adolescent ennui, stars the realistic kind of goth teens you rarely see in commercial films and television, and is pleasingly anti-authority. It's fairly scary, too, but mostly it's wicked good fun. And the film's central metaphor is perfect - appropriately, uh, bloody and sickly funny. Ginger Snaps is Heathers with a lot more bite. Followed by the surprisingly decent sequel Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed and the prequel Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning.

And if none of these float your boat, there's always An American Werewolf in London, still effectively scary and funny. -- Craig Phillips with Tamara Lees

We bring you highlights of this week's cornucopia of new DVD releases, which feature the return, rebirth even, of one iconic character as well as one iconic director:

Not to, uh, overkill this one, but: Land of the Dead (2005). George A. Romero returns, the zombies he all but reinvented in tow. "Given that US screens are frequently filled with Romero-lite horror fare, it is a treat to see the real McCoy back behind the camera with a reasonable budget and cast," writes Jonathan Marlow. "These upstarts have nothing on the man that essentially (re-)started it all." Adds Cinenaut: "Overall, a must-see for zombie fans. Post-apocalyptic world fans should find something to like as well. Not for the squeamish, natch."

Batman Begins (2005). One of the first releases in this summer's blockbuster sweepstakes remains, now that all is said and done, one of the best. "It's amazing what an excellent cast, a solid screenplay and a regard for the source material can do for a comic book movie," wrote Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "[W]hat makes this Batman so enjoyable is how [Christopher] Nolan balances the story's dark elements with its light, and arranges the familiar genre elements in new, unforeseen ways." Bonus disc.

Mad Hot Ballroom (2005). The fox trot, the rumba, the tango - swing! As performed by fifth graders. Thanks to the American Ballroom Theater's Dancing Classroom programs, a smash hit among the kids in over 60 schools in New York City. Spurring them on is a chance to compete in the Rainbow Team Match and the result, writes Film Threat, is "an uplifting and inspiring tale." Many have compared the doc to Spellbound, but read what Ed Gonzalez has to say about that in Slant: "Bound to earn endless comparisons to Blitz's crowd-pleasing doc, Mad Hot Ballroom actually feels as if it were intended by director Marilyn Agrelo as a point-by-point rebuttal." Click his name to follow the convincing case.

Landscape in the Mist (1988). "It is a sad indication of the insularity of American cinema that Theo Angelopoulos, a Greek director with international stature, is virtually unknown in the United States," wrote Stephen Holden in the New York Times. In 1990. Not much has changed - yet. We're hoping that, even though the releases are few and far between, this DVD might help rectify this situation. As for this film, "Landscape in the Mist is a poignant, lyrical, and allegorical fable on the human struggle for identity and connection," writes Acquarello at Strictly Film School.

Tell Them Who You Are (2004). "Mark Wexler has decided to steer a lens toward his famous father, and it's no small measure of their stormy relationship - and the film's prickly, fascinating texture - that Haskell in turn aims his camera right back. The men duel it out in scene after scene with shoulder-propped video cams," reports Michael Atkinson in the Village Voice. The result is "an ingenuous portrait of a thoroughly Four-Square Artist, Assembled With Love And Rockets Inside A Family's Spite-Tainted Gates." Among the interviewees: George Lucas, Jane Fonda, Paul Newman, Milos Forman and Conrad Hall and on and on.

Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film (1894 - 1941). "When the smoke clears, this amazing seven-disc set, which comprises 18 hours and 47 minutes of material, will undoubtedly stand as one of the major monuments of the DVD medium," wrote Dave Kehr in the New York Times back in September as he was previewing the season's major releases. True, if for no other reason than the fact that many of the films here really had gone unseen for decades until curator Bruce Poznar collected them in a program that's been traveling across the country - and can now be seen in any home. The first volume is The Mechanized Eye: Experiments in Technique and Form, featuring work by, for example, early cinematographer James White, shooting in Paris in 1900, and photographer Walker Evans.

Also: The Devil's Plaything: American Surrealism, featuring works by Douglas Fairbanks and Victor Fleming, William Vance and Orson Welles and Joseph Cornell; Light Rhythms: Music and Abstraction, featuring works by Man Ray, Ernst Lubitsch and Busby Berkeley; Inverted Narratives: New Directions in Storytelling, featuring work by D.W. Griffith; Picturing a Metropolis: New York City Unveiled: "Busby Berkeley's 'Lullaby of Broadway' sequence combines city-symphony footage, elaborate choreography, and dream imagery in a showcase of Hollywood-style surrealism." (City Papers); The Amateur as Auteur: Discovering a Paradise in Pictures, featuring work by Joseph Cornell; Viva La Dance: The Beginnings of the Cine-Dance, featuring work by Oskar Fischinger and Norman McLaren.

Lifeboat (1944). Based, as CPurvis notes, on a story by John Steinbeck (he started the screenplay as well; Jo Swerling wrapped it up and Ben Hecht screwed several scenes even tighter), Lifeboat, like Rope, say, can be seen as one of Alfred Hitchcock's formalistic experiments conducted on his mainstream audience: the entire film takes place on the boat. It works. The cast is terrific, the dialogue sharp, the tension Hitchcockian. Look fast, too, for Hitch's cleverest cameo.

New Anime:

Tenjho Tenge. Round 03 (2005). "Tenjho Tenge turns out to be one of the stronger entries in the 'hot schoolgirls who fight a lot' genre," writes Carlo Santos for the Anime News Network. "With eye-popping action and just enough plot to make things intriguing, this is a series that defines the meaning of guilty pleasure."

For a more detailed list of this week's new releases, go here.

Congratulations to the lucky winners of several recent GreenCine trivia contests: John Wayne contest winners were HanShann, transom and Dgray (the answer was True Grit). Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst contest winners were velvetonefusion and Jerry Stine (the answer was "Tania/Tanya"). Meanwhile, join the butt-kickin' trivia two-fer now up on the GreenCine home page for your chance to win the Bruce Lee Ultimate Collection and Elektra: Unrated Director’s Cut.

The member list of the week: In honor of Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, we give you Cinenaut's Scary Rabbits list. Bunnies! Who knew?

We'll announce more upcoming GreenCine-sponsored film screenings and other events in this space soon. Keep checking back!

GreenCine sometimes gets so excited by movies we could curse like sailors*, but we'll keep this clean so family readers can enjoy the newsletter as well. Part of the good, clean fun this week: new releases, staff VOD and DVD picks, and a host of articles to shout about. Gosh, we're busy bees.

(*No offense to any sailors out there; we're sure many of you don't curse. It's just an expression. Gosh!)

As Susan King noted recently in the Los Angeles Times, John Wayne "may have been a 'personality,' but he was also a highly underrated actor." Jonathan Marlow talks with Gretchen Wayne, widow of Wayne's oldest son, Michael Wayne, and president of Batjac Productions, a California company founded by Michael's father, about the restoration and release on DVD of several Wayne favorites.

"One of the last great samurai who unyieldingly fights for ideals and convictions," Ingmar Bergman once said of Swedish documentary filmmaker Stefan Jarl. As his most recent film, The Girl From Auschwitz, screens at the Mill Valley Film Festival, the ever-busy Marlow talks to him about his early work, global politics and working with Lukas Moodysson.

Also fresh to GreenCine: If the Symbionese Liberation Army hadn't kidnapped the daughter of a media magnate in 1974, would anyone ever have heard of them? Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Robert Stone talks about his latest, Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst.

The GreenCine Daily is as busy as ever, covering film fests both East and West - namely, the Pusan (Korea) International, and the Mill Valley, among others. That and the usual suspects - film commentary, quotes, reviews, and news - make for some good readin'.

Video-on-Demand: Saviour of the Soul (1992).

The lovely Chinese singer and actress Anita Mui tragically left us earlier this year, but we still have some fine examples of her work available to remember her by. Corey Yuen's Saviour of the Soul is, rather incredibly, written by Wong Kar-Wai, who would go on to more artistically interesting endeavors as a director - but Soul is also a load of fun. The fantasy-romance-action film is "creative and enjoyable," says LoveHKFilm. As you'd expect from a Corey Yuen film, "Saviour of the Soul really looks cool, with a mix of traditional sets and Blade Runner-ish future noir," adds HKFilm. "There's plenty of inventive weapons (such as [Andy] Lau's combination steel yo-yo/knife/sword and Mui's arsenal of lethal exploding homing knives) that are put to use in some great action sequences." You can watch the film anytime you wish via GreenCine's ever-expanding Video-on-Demand service. You can also check out a trailer for the film by clicking on the "Watch trailer" link on the film's page.

GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: Paris, Texas (1983).

A tall, gaunt man in a red baseball cap stumbles through the desert. Thus the enigmatic beginning to Wim Wenders' haunting, achingly beautiful Paris, Texas. Harry Dean Stanton's Travis (surpassed for me only by his turn in Repo Man), a nearly mute (at first), anxiety-prone drifter whose impetus only gradually becomes apparent, slowly draws us into his own internal landscape. In a dream pairing of artists, Wenders collaborated with writers Sam Shepard and L.M. Kit Carson, whose spare but beautiful script, in which characters dance around the edges of things, works perfectly with Wenders' keen eye and sense of discovery. The wide open spaces of West Texas are famously captured here by the great cinematographer Robby Müller, the soft blue sky gives way to red-orange thunderclouds and sunsets, the brown desert mesas, the endless highways, but the film is just as effective in the smaller spaces, the way distances between people are demonstrated visually - from low-rent motel rooms to the suburban Los Angeles home in which Travis reunites with his son and, most unforgettably, in the peep show conversations between Travis and his ex (Natassja Kinski). Unsurprisingly, because the story here is more internal than external, more about the emotional arcs of the characters, the pace is leisurely - but not at all leaden.

The film is about loss, a man lost in grief and trying to reconnect with the young son (Carson's son Hunter, a natural) who barely remembers him. The relationships between the central six characters are painfully, but beautifully, played out by all concerned. Dean Stockwell, 180 degrees away from his Ben in Blue Velvet, nicely underplays Stanton's sweet-natured brother who comes looking for him. Aurore Clément (whose scenes were restored in the extended Apocalypse Now) is also lovely as his wife. Kinski does a more than passable Texas accent, and the film is a reminder that she wasn't just another pretty French face. She can act, too, and one wishes she'd been given more opportunities to do so. The film is also enhanced by Ry Cooder's appropriately low-key and twangy score. Paris, Texas is a near-masterpiece, a sublime miracle.

Note: Wim Wenders' commentary on the DVD is often revelatory and definitely worth a listen, including his words over the deleted scenes ("I wanted this shot for the giant road runner in the background - I'm a sucker for things like that.") -- Craig Phillips

This week's basket of new DVD releases are brought to you by the letter H (as in "Hella cool"):

Me and You and Everyone You Know (2004). "Artist-actress-filmmaker-writer Miranda July is so hyphenated she's hard to keep up with," wrote Craig Phillips in his introduction to his interview with the woman half the world fell in love with this year. "Her debut as a feature director, the film is startling in its assuredness and acuity, and even more startling, won the Camera D'or at Cannes this year, as well as the Special Jury Prize at Sundance, where it also caught the eye of Roger Ebert. The critic called it 'delicate, tender, poetic, and yet so daring in some of its scenes that you sit in uncertain suspense.'" In his review at GreenCine Daily, Craig added, "Me and You and Everyone We Know could be considered a 'small' movie, in a good way, for while it may not offer up a ton of drama, it has a huge heart. It's a film about people trying to communicate with each other and the rest of the planet, managing to be both magical and grounded at the same time. No small feat."

High (Haute) Tension (2003). "Best slasher film ever," announces danofthedead. Quite a pronouncement from a connoisseur. "Haute Tension is a movie that wants you to squirm in your seat and judged by that standard, it works brilliantly," wrote Jeremy Knox for Film Threat when he caught it on the festival circuit.

Unleashed (2005). Luc Besson collaborator Louis Leterrier, currently being lauded for making Transporter 2 better than the original, directs Jet Li as, basically, a killing machine. Trained to be one by his cruel "Uncle Bart" (Bob Hoskins). "Unleashed is a nice, violent little film about the redemptive powers of art and love," wrote Stephanie Zacharek in Salon. "It's really two intersecting pictures, an action movie and a fable about the strength of family bonds, that merge to make a wholly satisfying Venn diagram, one that exploits our emotions shamelessly but with blunt honesty."

Kingdom of Heaven (2005). There were plenty of worries, and understandably so, given the current geopolitical climate, when word got out that Ridley Scott would be making a movie about the Crusades. Turns out, Kingdom of Heaven is a plea for cross-cultural understanding. According to Robert Fisk, who reported in the Independent this summer on watching the film in Beirut, it achieves that goal surprisingly well. "There is an integrity about its portrayal of the Crusades which, while fitting neatly into our contemporary view of the Middle East - the moderate crusaders are overtaken by crazed neo-conservative barons while Saladin is taunted by a dangerously al-Qa'ida-like warrior - treats the Muslims as men of honor who can show generosity as well as ruthlessness to their enemies.... Here is a tale that - unlike any other recent film - has captured the admiration of Muslims."

Izo (2004). Takashi Miike casts a host of Japanese well-knowns in small parts and cameo appearances - the most famous of which here is Takeshi Kitano - in one of his oddest and most violent films yet. "Taking the final scene of Hideo Gosha's Hitokiri - the execution of homicidal 19th-century samurai Izo Okada - as its starting point, this was never meant to be any old chambara, but a meditation on mankind's eternal propensity for violence and destruction," writes Tom Mes at Midnight Eye. "Izo confirms that the mixed feelings Miike's work can provoke only add to its ongoing allure."

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004). Xan Cassavetes (yes, John's daughter) retells a fascinating and generally overlooked chapter in cinematic history. In the 70s and early 80s, before home video really took off, and in the earliest days of cable, it was, of course, extraordinarily difficult to see films of any artistic interest at all, even given the occasional repertory theater - and even in Los Angeles, heart of the film industry. Which is where the tiny cable offering, Z Channel, began showing foreign and obscure American films, often bringing them to the attention of the industry's movers and shakers for the first time. The tragedy here is that the brilliant programmer, Jerry Harvey, was a deeply disturbed man who wound up killing his wife and then himself. Clips of an interview with Harvey serve as an ominous chorus, foretelling the doom inherent in his obsessive nature. Cassavetes also interviews Z Channel fans such as Robert Altman, Quentin Tarantino, James Woods, Jim Jarmusch and Alexander Payne, though the most engaging interviewee is critic FX Feeney. And the string of scenes from the films Harvey championed serve as a sort of alternative history of an already celebrated cinematic decade. (And here's a handy list to help get you started on some Z Channel favorites.)

Project Grizzly (1996). What is it about grizzly bears that attract, shall we say, unusual personalities? One of the most captivating docs of the year so far has been Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man. But several years ago, Peter Lynch turned his own cameras on Troy James Hurtubise, who survived a grizzly attack in 1984 and thereafter became, well, obsessed with creating a grizzly-proof suit. Out of rubber, chain mail, air bags, you name it. This is a doc, in other words, that is not without its humorous angle. It includes, in fact, as Peg Aloi wrote in her 1998 Boston Phoenix review, "hilarious forays into the doughnut dens and biker bars of Canada, there to tangle with inebriated homo sapiens surrogates in preparation for the suit's intended nemesis. The mythic creature's awesome power is also simulated in 'crash tests' by swinging logs, speeding trucks, and high dives off cliffs.... This is Animals Attack! meets Twin Peaks by way of RoboCop."

New Anime:

Gantz. Volume 8: Deathwatch (2005). Battie has done some revision: "My original review stated a lot of things that I no longer necessarily agree with. It's still morbid, still has a bit too much profanity, nudity and gore, but it also has something that made me want to watch. And that thing became stronger as the series ran on."

For a more detailed list of this week's new releases, go here.

Sorry, no trivia winners to announce this week, due to a few delays from our distributors. But we promise to have some lucky names in this very space next week. Meanwhile, join the Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst trivia contest, now up on the GreenCine home page.

The member list of the week: As AKrizman honors his third year as a GreenCine member, so too do we.

Thanks to those who came to see the lovely Egyptian film Cairo Station at the Yerba Buena Center last week. We hope you enjoyed the rare opportunity. Keep checking this space for announcements about more GreenCine-sponsored events in the near future.

Have an October-fest at GreenCine, where every day is... Halloween. But we'll try not to spook you out too much with today's newsletter. Just a happy survey of the latest DVD and VOD releases, articles, tips n' picks, and a reminder about this week's film screening. That's about all we've got, news-wise.

My, we've been busy:

Walter Hill is one of "the most underrated American directors working today," writes Sean Axmaker, introducing his chat with the screenwriter behind The Getaway, a producer of Alien and the director of a couple of dozen solid narrative machines. The "Ultimate Director's Cut" of his balletic urban nightmare, The Warriors, is out today.

As Capote, his first narrative feature, has opened to widespread acclaim (leading to early Oscar talk for an unforgettable Philip Seymour Hoffman, at left, among other contributors), Bennett Miller confesses to Craig Phillips: his fear of "getting it wrong," and why he waited so long before tackling his first feature. Apparently, for a film Rolling Stone's Peter Travers calls "a movie that doesn't pull its punches - a knockout," the wait was most certainly worth it.

Dave McKean isn't merely wildly prolific; he's wildly prolific in a wide range of artistic disciplines: illustration, photography, comics, music, writing and film. In "Dave McKean's Handmade Fantasies," Jonathan Marlow asks him about turning one of his many collaborations with Neil Gaiman into his first feature, MirrorMask.

If it's happening in film, our award-winning blog, GreenCine Daily, is on it. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson - may he rest in peace, David Cronenberg, JX Williams (hoax or real?) and Charles Burnett are among the subjects touched upon this week.

Look for a steady stream of horror film primers coming this month, as we ready ourselves for the spookiest of holidays, Halloween.

Video-on-Demand: Kitsch (2002).

The film-within-a-film thing has been done many times at this point, and often to pointlessness, but the Polish comedy Kitsch gets it just right. As Andrew James Horton in our Polish film primer writes, it is just one "of a number of instances in which the industry - and particularly the dire straits it is in - has become a subject in itself for filmmakers." Kitsch, the story of an unscrupulous director who cons people - okay, women - out of their money under the guise of appearing in his wannabe movie, is quite silly but makes for an enjoyable farce. "The satirical elements transcend the language barrier," GreenCine member BeenJamin wrote. "It is light, fun, musical, and hilarious." DVDTalk reviewer Don Houston called it "a twisted look at those in the film industry as well as those that want to want to break into said industry. It was an amusing rental that was well worth the cost of admission, despite the limitations of the format. If you're looking for a lighthearted look at the movie industry, Kitsch is as independent, and on target, as you'll find." It's particularly worth the cost of admission via GreenCine's reasonable, convenient and rapidly expanding Video-on-Demand service.

GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: The Five Deadly Venoms (1978).

The Five Deadly Venoms, a.k.a., Wu Du, is not an Animal Planet show, but instead one of the great, and unsung, martial arts films of the 70s - or any era. The film has an almost perfectly simple set-up: five disciples, "The Centipede," "The Snake," "The Scorpion," "The Lizard," and "The Toad," are summoned by their former teacher, who is worried that his pupils are using their talents for evil. The dying master sends out his young pupil Yang De (Chiang Sheng) to investigate. To reveal more of the plot intricacies would be unfair, but with elements of mystery and suspense - along with a bit of wuxia (fantasy/swords and sorcery) - expertly mixed in with the masterful fight sequences, that aspect of the film ranks well above the stereotypically mindless martial arts film. Wei Pai, as the Snake (in a role originally intended for a woman), is a particular standout and will make one wish he'd been able to have a longer career after this. If you've never seen a Shaw Brothers film before - the incredibly prolific producers of Hong Kong entertainment for three decades, who left an astonishing legacy of cinematic spectacles - The Five Deadly Venoms will serve as a fine introduction. -- Tamara Lees

A rather short n' sweet list of new DVD releases this week, but some real treats in here, to be sure, including some genuine creepiness for those wanting to get an early start on Halloween:

My Summer of Love (2004). "What is it about the mercurial emotional voltage of teenage girls that contains the potential for obsessive relationships?" asks Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. Polish-born British director Paul Pawlikowski - and we're thrilled at least one of his films is finally making it to DVD - has channelled that voltage onto the screen. Turan: "Pawlikowski is an assured, intuitive writer-director who uses a system of controlled improvisation to examine out-of-control people that's reminiscent of Mike Leigh's celebrated technique. Starting from a novel by Helen Cross and a 37-page 'shooting document' (as opposed to the standard 120-page script) and with two gifted, adventurous actresses [Natalie Press and Emily Blunt], he has achieved wonders." The film also features Paddy Considine, whom the Guardian recently proclaimed as "British acting's secret weapon."

The Interpreter (2005). The director, Sydney Pollack, and the cast, led by Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn and Catherine Keener, are all undeniably solid talents. And then, there's the setting: This was the first time the UN allowed a feature film to be shot on and within its premises. And yet, for some, The Interpreter isn't quite up to the standards set by earlier work from everyone involved. Fair enough. But on an evening when you're in the mood for a political thriller, you'll find this one more than serves.

Cat People / The Curse of the Cat People (1942 / 1944). This two-fer disc is surely the centerpiece of "The Val Lewton Horror Collection": Nine films plus a documentary on the RKO producer on five discs. In his 4-out-of-4-star review at his site, Combustible Celluloid, Jeffrey M. Anderson best explains why: "Cat People (1942) was a cheap B-movie made on assignment for very little money at RKO. I doubt that anyone really paid much attention to it back then, but today I consider it one of the ten greatest films ever made." He's not alone. Jacques Tourneur is now widely recognized as one of cinema's most brilliant directors. Adds TV Guide: "Superbly acted (with [Simone] Simon evoking both pity and chills), Cat People testifies to the power of suggestion and the priority of imagination over budget in the creation of great cinema." Simon returns in The Curse of the Cat People (1944), a sequel in title and a landmark study of a troubled child in fact. The late Robert Wise makes his directing debut, co-helming a gothic-laced mix of fantasy and fright so astute it was used in college psychology classes.

I Walked with a Zombie / The Body Snatcher (1943 / 1945): Gary Tooze, who runs DVDBeaver.com, writes of the 1943 Jacques Tourneur film, that "there is no denying this film's powerful blend of imagery, music and environment. The camerawork is a real treat as well. A hidden gem that many may dismiss for its repetitively abused title words. Don't let it deter you. A very worthwhile, if short and curious, film."

Also in the Lewton collection: The Leopard Man / The Ghost Ship (1943 / 1943); Isle of the Dead / Bedlam (1945 / 1946) (SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review calls Bedlam (1946) "arguably one of the finest written and most overlooked of the Lewton films"); and The Seventh Victim / Shadows in the Dark (1943 / 2005). "One of the most effective thrillers I have ever seen," writes Nate Yapp at Classic Horror of The Seventh Victim (1943). "Director [Mark] Robson knows how to build suspense, create a sense of foreboding, and generally draw the audience in, moment by tense moment." Shadows in the Dark is a new documentary on legendary RKO producer Val Lewton, and look who's talking: William Friedkin, Neil Gaiman, John Landis, Harlan Ellison, Joe Dante, George A. Romero, Guillermo del Toro and many more.

The Fly (1986). Speaking of horror re-releases: In case you hadn't noticed, David Cronenberg is the man of the hour. Or certainly one of the top five or so. It doesn't matter that his A History of Violence came back from Cannes empty-handed. His fellow Canadians more than made up for it with their wildly enthusiastic reception of the film at the Toronto Film Festival, where Cronenberg was practically treated like royalty. And south of the border, he's been charming interviewers coast to coast while US critics lavish praise on the film as it rolls out wider and wider. Now comes an overdue extras-laden re-release of Cronenberg's remake of the 1958 horror classic, The Fly. Gory and disturbing as hell, but anchored by an amazing performance from Jeff Goldblum as Seth Brundle, the scientist who makes that one tiny but fateful oversight.

Also: The Fly II (1989). In a special "Schlockcast" devoted to the re-release of the two Flies, G. Noel Gross notes that this one coming out again is "is sweet vindication for we CineSchlockers who've long salivated over Chris Walas's underappreciated and gloriously grue-slathered sequel."

Overlooked last week: Mark Hanlon's rather dark and daring indie, Buddy Boy (1999). Ron Wells in Film Threat: "A little nudity, a lot of willful strangeness, Susan Tyrrell, and a cameo by Harry Groener (the Mayor from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer) all add up to a movie my mother would hate. In this case, that's good enough for me."

New Anime:

Inu Yasha. Volume 34: Children of the Snow (2005). "Classic," announces CarpeNoctem, and of course, few would argue when it comes to one of the most internationally successful anime series ever. So what's it about? Fangs explains: "Inu Yasha is a half-dog demon and half-human boy, with a serious attitude. Kagome is a human girl from modern day Japan, who gets transported back in time. The series is about their love/hate relationship and their quest to keep the Jewel of Four Souls away from the bad guys."

For a more detailed list of this week's new releases, go here.

Congratulations to these lucky winners of the Monty Python 16-ton Megaset: giljo11778 and NMcClure (the answer was the larch... the larch...) We'll announce more winners of recent contests in this space next week. Meanwhile, mosey on back to the site on Friday, pardner, when our next contest giveaway appears - for two John Wayne releases: Hondo and McLintock.

The member list of the week: You want twists? rmarkd's got 'em on the Twist-o-rama!!! list, with each film's big twist appropriately rated.

Tomorrow night! GreenCine presents Youssef Chahine's masterpiece Cairo Station (1958). The director, in a rare acting role, stars as a crippled newspaper dealer who falls in love with a lovely lemonade seller. She, however, is only interested in another man, thus setting the stage for a series of hopeless actions and terrible consequences. The film was banned for more than a decade in Egypt after its initial release. "All human life is here: the phrase really does apply to Chahine's tragicomic masterpiece," wrote Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian (U.K.), while his colleague Gaby Wood added, "We can see how brilliantly it predates Robert Altman." At the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 7:30 pm, Wednesday, October 5. Don't miss it!