We've now entered our favorite time of year. Autumn brings not just colorful foliage and a crisper air, but it feels like a general upswing in movie quality, too. GreenCine covers theatrical releases in our blog and in our many interviews, while the slate of new DVD and VOD releases get covered here and all over our site. And we're raking 'em up like leaves. Read on for more.

There are the books, the latest being Make Love... the Bruce Campbell Way, the comic books, and of course, the movies, and Bruce Campbell's movie of the moment is Man with the Screaming Brain, which he's directed and stars in. Campbell writes (Phase I), directs, produces and acts (II) and, with equal vigor, promotes (III). As Jonathan Marlow discovers ("Bruce Campbell in Phase III"), he does it all with a healthy sense of humor. And for yet more amusing babblings from Bruce, try his own personal web site (notice he's book-signing in San Francisco tomorrow, Seattle Thursday, and Portland Friday).

Coming in a few days, our interview with director Bennett Miller, who is garnering all sorts of well-deserved acclaim and buzz for his first non-documentary feature, Capote.

Opinions have varied wildly on Martin Scorsese's Dylan doc, No Direction Home. Also at GreenCine Daily, our award-winning film blog: David Cronenberg, Joss Whedon, Catherine Deneuve and David D'Arcy reporting on the New York Film Festival.

Video-on-Demand: The Flew (2003).

Fans of Guy Maddin and David Lynch - and the Brothers Quay for that matter - will want to take a look at The Flew. Full of surreal, freakshow atmosphere and creepy organ music, Clifton Childree's likeably odd and entirely original feature, shot by and starring himself, plays like a silent film, shot in black-and-white and sans dialogue. "Childree frames The Flew with a stylish visual sense that suggests a mix of deteriorating silent movie footage and sinister shadowplay that would make Val Lewton proud," wrote Phil Hall in Film Threat. "It is a great looking film, to be certain, and it presents a strong argument for making movies in monochrome."

"Cinematically stunning," adds Lawrence Raffel at Monsters at Play. "It's no Eraserhead, but it's pretty damn close, and I can honestly say without a doubt that Childree is destined to move onto bigger and better things - mark my words." And now you can judge for yourself by watching The Flew via GreenCine's constantly expanding Video-on-Demand service. (For more information on The Flew, check out the film's web site.)

GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: The Wire: First Season (2002).

Writer-Producer David Simon was writer-producer on one of the great television police dramas, Homicide: Life on the Street but he raised the bar yet another level with another Baltimore-set crime and punishment series, The Wire. The layers of complexity in the writing alone (often by Simon and Ed Burns) have made this series one of the better television programs in recent memory. Like that network's complicated Western Deadwood, there are times a viewer may feel lost in the seemingly labrynthine plotting without a Cliff's Notes, but in The Wire (which takes its name from the surveillance methods sometimes depicted in the show) it all comes together beautifully by the end of Season One. Rarely has any show or film so accurately and empathetically covered all aspects of the so-called Drug War, from narcotics and homicide in the Baltimore Police Department, the dealers efficiently running the Westside projects, the addicts, the judges, lawyers, and the culture and bureaucracy surrounding each.

The first season managed to be darkly funny, politically astute, suspenseful and even rather touching. This is certainly helped by the show's impressive stable of people who have pitched in for its three seasons (and counting), including directors Brad Anderson, Peter Medak and Agnieszka Holland, and writers Dennis Lehane and Richard Price. Add to that a terrific cast of mostly unknowns and one leaves the show feeling as if the characters and the stories portrayed are utterly real. You'll be ready for the equally compelling, if not quite as consistently brilliant Season Two (which shifts focus to where and how the drugs get into the cities in the first place). And if you like The Wire, also take a look at Burns' and Simon's earlier miniseries The Corner, which focuses on an economically-depressed Baltimore neighborhood, and one African-American family in particular, covering some similar ground with nearly equal results. -- Craig Phillips

You've heard of slow news days? Today is a slow releasing day, but there's always something to highlight among new DVD releases:

4 Films by Otar Iosseliani (1962 - 1976). "I am trying to create a universe that's not known," Georgian filmmaker Otar Iosseliani once told the New York Times. Though he hardly gives a flying flip about his own popularity, it's still somewhat surprising, given his acclaim all the international critical acclaim and the fact that he was one of Tarkovsky's favorite filmmakers, that he himself remains practically as unknown in the US as that universe he's been creating for decades now. Facets, by the way, which is releasing this collection, calls that universe "one of joyous pessimism." The four films collected on two discs here are April (1962, 45 mins.), Falling Leaves (1968, 90 mins,), There Once Was a Singing Blackbird (1970, 80 mins.), and Pastoral (1976, 90 mins.). In Georgian with English subtitles.

This Divided State (2005). You'll remember the heated atmosphere in this country during the final months of 2004's presidential campaign. Well, during the final weeks, Utah Valley State College invited Michael Moore to speak. Keep in mind that this is a county where Republicans outnumber Democrats twelve to one. If you can imagine the brouhaha that ensued, double or triple it. And all the while, Steven Greenstreet was there with his camera. The result? "Filmmaking gold... extremely moving," wrote the New York Times. Added the Seattle Times in its four-star review: "Gut-wrenching and ultimately tragic."

Lords of Dogtown (2005). Perhaps you've seen Stacy Peralta's documentary, Dogtown and Z-Boys. Peralta decided the story would make a cracking fictional feature and wrote it himself. Catherine Hardwicke, who broke out with Thirteen, is a fitting and happy choice for director. "Punctuated with legitimately engaging action bits, grimy pavement-level sound recording, and the occasional blink of wheel-cam, the film's well-cast character study counterbalances its function as self-hagiography," writes Ed Halter in the Village Voice. "Channeling Amy Heckerling for the post-emo era, Hardwicke's pop-Cassavetes melodrama rides as smoothly as a big-budget after-school special, capturing youth struggles from an appropriately blown-out teen's-eye perspective."

Creature Comforts. The Complete First Season (2003). One more for those of us eagerly anticipating the new Wallace & Gromit film. From Aardman Animation, the little claymation cottage industry unto itself, comes this BBC comedy series featuring a menagerie of talking beasties. Fun stuff spun off from Nick Park's first 'toon.

Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story (2005). "Is it laugh out loud funny?" asks Beyond Hollywood. Clearly a rhetorical question, since they answer it right off: "That depends. Do you like The Family Guy's brand of over-the-top and sometimes over-the-line sense of humor? If the answer is Yes, then Yes, you'll find the direct-to-video feature-length "Family Guy movie Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story to be laugh out loud funny."

We previously neglected to mention the recent release of the interesting non-Dogme Danish film Brothers (2004), co-starring Connie Nielsen. "The performances are impressive," wrote the BBC's Matt McNally, in this "morality play of grief and fidelity [that] unravels with gratifying unpredictability."

New Anime:

Samurai Champloo. Volume 5 (2005). "This is from Shinichiro Watanabe, also responsible for the wildly popular Cowboy Bebop. Far as I can tell you won't go wrong watching something with his name on it," writes ahogue. "It's just good fun, really."

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

We will have more winners of recent GreenCine trivia contests to announce in this space next week; we're just pausing to catch our breath. But in the meantime, check our site Friday for the next contest giveaway, for Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, fun for the whole family!

The member list of the week: "It's A Macabre World After All," by JAuner. "Inspired by Mondo Macabro the book and DVD label by Pete Tombs, here's a list of strange horror, cult and exploitation films from across the globe."

The next GreenCine-sponsored screening will happen a week from tomorrow, on October 5, as we present 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!

Whee! Happy Anniversary to the GreenCine Dispatch, which today celebrates (in its few seconds of spare time) its 100th issue. It seems like only yesterday the Dispatch was a toddler, barely able to walk, and now... just look at it! All grown up at 100. Well, here's to 100 more.

Meanwhile, in between sips of champagne, we bring you the latest happenings from the world of DVD, VOD, and other cinematic happenings, all designed to get your mind off the news and weather. Cheers!

"I was always just interested in arms trafficking because there is so much attention on drug trafficking, but this is so much more devastating," writer and director Andrew Niccol tells Sean Axmaker. Following the "social science fiction" of Gattaca, The Truman Show and S1m0ne, Niccol turns to the here and now in Lord of War.

Ardent eco-activist David Brower didn't just leave behind a legacy of environmental legislation and preservation; he also left us exquisite, vivid footage of some of America's most valuable Western wilderness. Jennie Rose takes a look at Monumental, Kelly Duane's Brower documentary that tapped the Brower archives for what The Oregonian called "a feast of nourishing images - as well as a persuasive reminder of what exactly environmentalists are fighting for."

Coming momentarily, an interview with director Mike Mills, whose Thumbsucker is just now hitting theaters and, according to critics everywhere, very much doesn't... suck.

The GreenCine Daily wraps up its coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival, while continuing to track the San Sebastian Fest. And then, as always, our coverage of the rest of the world of film which adds up to what one blogger called "The 800-pound gorilla of the film blog world."

Video-on-Demand: Learning Curve (1998).

Learning Curve, also known as Detention, is an undeservingly obscure little film by Texan Andy Anderson, who first made a splash five years earlier with Positive I.D. Learning Curve, with the tagline "Goodbye Mister Chips, Hello Midnight Express" pretty much summing it up, stars John Davies as a substitute teacher in a destitute school district stuck teaching out of control students. Unable to make a difference, the teacher shifts to some rather, ah, original approaches to discipline and punishment. The film was called out by filmcritic.com as "one of the most deliciously perverse and twisted independents to hit [home video] this year. You'll never listen to 'Hey Mickey!' the same way again." The film has "cult" written all over it, providing no easy answers but provoking in all the right ways. You won't be graded on a Learning Curve if you watch this film via GreenCine's constantly expanding Video-on-Demand service.

GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: My Life as a Dog (1993).

Chris Sullivan in the Independent (UK) recently praised My Life as a Dog as "one of the greatest films about childhood that has ever been made," and, while that could be overstating the case, I won't argue. Lasse Hallström has since gone on to make several successful Hollywood films but it was with this film that he earned his reputation and it is this film that remains his most resonant. Set in 1950s Sweden, it's the tale of young Ingemar (a remarkable Anton Glazelius), his mother terminally ill with tuberculosis, who is separated from his brother to live with relatives. Add to this the fact that he has to temporarily put his dog in a kennel, along with the natural confusion inherent with being on the cusp of puberty, and you have some turmoil. He empathizes with poor Laika, the Russian dog-turned-Cosmonaut, although one hopes he won't meet the same fate ("They put her in space. I don't think she felt so good about it. She went round and round until her doggy bag was empty. Then she starved to death," he narrates in one of his soliloquies in the film). But he soon finds himself distracted by his new surroundings, and in particular by the tomboyish Saga - their budding friendship only adding to his confusion. The film is episodic in nature, building whatever narrative momentum it has on smaller events, going for atmosphere and character over huge moments, but Hallstrom seamlessly blends humor and tragedy in what amounts to an incredibly poignant coming of age evocation.

Also available in the original DVD version, which is fine, too, but the Criterion disc has a superior high-definition digital transfer supervised by the director and improved English subtitle translation, as well as a 1973 short film by Hallstrom. -- Craig Phillips

Documentaries and international treats - both new and older - highlight this week's slate of new DVD releases (as well as a favorite late 70s American cult film):

Cowards Bend the Knee (2003). "I told you this before but I'll mention it again - Cowards is my favorite of your films," Jonathan Marlow said to Guy Maddin in an interview late last year. Replied the director: "I think that it might be my favorite, too. It was my favorite experience." Raved Manohla Dargis in the New York Times (after praising Maddin's "singular genius"): "There is also something rather splendid about this extended-play peep show, as if Mr. Maddin had stumbled across a hitherto lost archive of cinema's less-than-innocent past. What makes all this nostalgia for a movie history that never happened (as far as I know) is that, as is always the case with Mr. Maddin's work, it's executed with more love than irony and not a whit of derision."

Born Into Brothels (2003). "As upsetting as it is to see these children of India's red-light district growing up with so little chance in the world, the movie is equally heartening and disheartening because of the filmmakers' link to the kids and their very real and productive attempts to help half a dozen of them," writes talltale of this winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary.

"In It's All Gone Pete Tong (2004), everything that can go wrong generally does, mostly to surprisingly sweet effect," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, noting that Paul Kaye "appears in almost every scene and he carries that weight admirably. He manages the very neat trick of keeping you interested in a character who doesn't merit our affection but earns it nonetheless."

Masculin/Feminin (1966). Let's first get that famous intertitle out of the way: "The children of Marx and Coca Cola - understand who will." Now then, take it away, Pauline Kael: "Godard has liberated his feeling for modern youth from the American gangster movie framework... He has made up the strands of what was most original in his best films - the life of the uncomprehending heroine, the blank-eyed career-happy little opportunist betrayer from Breathless, and the hully-gully, the dance of sexual isolation, from Band of Outsiders. Using neither crime nor the romance of crime but a simple kind of romance for a kind of interwoven story line, Godard has, at last, created the form he needed. It is a combination of essay, journalistic sketches, news and portraiture, love lyric and satire."

Grimm (2003). A sort of contemporary retelling from the Netherlands of the tale of Hansel and Gretel, only with an absurdist sense of both humor and narrative and just a dash of Angela Carter.

Inside Deep Throat (2004)."As with Bill Condon's Kinsey," writes Nick Schager at Slant, "Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato's Inside Deep Throat proves that the sexual revolution that began in the '60s was spearheaded not only by daring risk-takers who believed in personal freedom and sexual openness, but also by creeps who had no qualms about cavorting with lowlifes and degenerates to accomplish their libido-liberating goals." Narrated by Dennis Hopper and featuring members of the cast and crew who worked on the cultural (and ultimately, financial) phenomenon that was Deep Throat as well as Gore Vidal, Erica Jong, Camille Paglia, Bill Maher and Norman Mailer and many, many more.

Divan (2003). A "charming first-person account of the filmmaker's trip to Hungary to retrieve a family heirloom - a couch upon which, one late 19th-century Sabbath, a legendary rebbe passed the night," writes J. Hoberman in the Village Voice. "Warmhearted but unsentimental, touching but not mawkish, clever but never cute, Divan is almost miraculously modest."

An Angel at My Table (1990). "In her 3-volume autobiography Janet Frame repeatedly links the problem of identity to matters of perspective," writes Sue Gillett at Senses of Cinema. "Jane Campion is also a director who understands the intricate circuits of vision between a woman and the world she tries to see. Her films are remarkable for the independence they give to images of women and their gazes. In her adaptation of Frame's autobiography, Campion creates a visual language to match Frame's literary preoccupation with seeing her self from both within and without and placing herself within those frames of vision." Criterion packs the disc with a doc on the film's making, deleted scenes, an audio interview with Frame from 1982, commentary featuring Campion, cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh and lead actress Kerry Fox.

Naked (1993). "An unapologetic masterpiece," Edward Champion declared recently, "a brutally honest and almost Doestoevskyian depiction of a drifter (played brilliantly by David Thewlis) and the lives he seems to alter and disrupt (when in fact it may be other lives and class trappings that alter and disrupt him)." Thewlis won Best Actor at Cannes, Mike Leigh, Best Director.

Over the Edge (1979). "What we have here," began Roger Ebert in his review, "depressing and harrowing and often very real, is the other side of the coin of Breaking Away. That movie was a celebration of the possibilities involved in coming of age in a small town. Over the Edge is a funeral service held at the graveside of the suburban dream. It tells a ragged story that ends with an improbable climax, but it's acted so well and truly by its mostly teen-age cast that we somehow feel we're eavesdropping."

New Anime:

Kodocha. Volume 2: Hayama Hijinks (2005). "This series has been called "Marmalade Boy on steroids," and that sums it up nicely," says drseid. "This long and "oh so good" shoujo series is super wacky and hyper, but it is so very funny with great characters!" Very high ratings all around from other GreenCiners as well.

For a complete list of all of this week's new releases, go here.

We get Misty. Or, we've got Misty, as we extend our congratulations to the lucky winners of the The Seduction of Misty Mundae trivia contest: RepairmanJack, billp1w, rastanaut, Madpuppy and SPat (the answer was Lord of the G-Strings: The Femaleship of the Ring). We'll announce more contest winners in this space next week. Meanwhile, check back Friday for our next trivia contest giveaway, for X-Files Mythology: Colonization.

The member list of the week: "Sound Design+++," by polarglitch. "just listen... if sound design is done well most people don't even notice..."

The next GreenCine-sponsored screening will be on October 5, as we present 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.

Baseball season may be winding its way down, while football season is winding up, but to GreenCine this time of year means Quality Movie Season, both in theaters and in living rooms. With a fine slate of films to look forward to this autumn, and many more coming out on disc and Video-on-Demand every week, we feel it's our job to keep you on top of things. Consider the Dispatch part of your back to (film) school kit.

As a sort of followup to his recent interview with D.A. Pennebaker, David D'Arcy speaks with another giant of the American documentary, Albert Maysles. With his late brother, David, Maysles has made some essentials of the genre - Salesman, Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens - but remains hard at work: he's currently working on several films all at once.

"God bless Hitchcock. He never won an Oscar and never gave us a second of boredom," Alex de la Iglesia has said. No one would ever accuse the Spanish director of boring an audience. In his latest film, El Crimen Ferpecto (The Perfect Crime), he hits again on a striking mix of violence and comedy. Jonathan Marlow asks him where all those outrageous ideas come from.

The GreenCine Daily, our award-winning film blog, has been covering so many film festivals lately we barely have time to write this blurb before we have to put up another festival recap! Add to that some fall previews, and many more hot links, and you've got your reading cut out for you.

Video-on-Demand: Stray Dogs (1993).

Stray Dogs, adapted by director Catherine Crouch from Julie Jensen's play of the same name, is a character-driven period piece that serves as a showcase for fine acting. Set in 1958 Appalachia, the film is a Southern gothic tale about the last night of a bad marriage. Guinevere Turner, star and co-writer of Go Fish, stars. "Don't mistake Stray Dogs for a work of feminist agit-prop. Crouch's sympathies are magnificently even-handed," says Gay Today. "Her instinctive humanism displays an appreciation for the psychological effects of this core illusion on all of her characters. It mirrors the way audience enjoyment of the Southern Gothic films took very personal forms. People empathize with Stanley, Blanche, and Stella in different ways; there are plenty of seats on that streetcar named desire. Crouch has a more expansive, inquiring vision. She's the artist as stray dog." The script occasionally lets the actors down with some clunky parts, but it's a strong dramatic tale nonetheless. You can watch Stray Dogs now or any time you wish, via GreenCine's constantly expanding Video-on-Demand service.

GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: Out of the Past (1947).

Remade not too terribly as Against All Odds, there's still only one Out of the Past, one of the finest and most quotable film noir ever. Robert Mitchum, in full-on cigarette-and eyes-drooping mode, stars as a man trying to separate himself from his past life as a private eye, to start afresh with the girl next door (Virginia Huston) - only to get sucked back into it all again. Kirk Douglas is absolutely electrifying as the mobster who'd hired him to track down a dame (Jane Greer), who ends up playing them both like saps; she's "awfully cold around the heart." Jacques Tourneur's moody, almost gothic direction and the varied locations - Eastern Sierra spots, in and out of diners, gas stations, cabins, forests and gloomy Tahoe mansions, plus equally atmospheric forays to Mexico and the shadows of San Francisco - heighten the feeling of melancholy doom (the film was originally titled "Build My Gallows High," the title of the Daniel Manwaring novel it's based on, and a line uttered memorably by Mitchum). But it's the tart dialogue, by Manwaring and an uncredited Frank Fenton and James M. Cain, that leaves the most indelible impression. The script zings and the one-liners ricochet like wayward bullets. "You're like a leaf that the wind blows from one gutter to another," Mitchum tells Greer at one point. "My feelings? About ten years ago, I hid them somewhere and haven't been able to find them," says the bitter Douglas. Out of the Past is truly quintessential noir, and will hit you like a slap in the face. And you'll like it. -- Tamara Lees

This week's new DVD releases are a wacky, some would say slightly disturbed bunch, and we like it. Read on, before they get ornery:

Palindromes (2004). "Palindromes takes what could have been simply a gimmick of a plot device - having a series of actors portray the same character - and turns it into something more revelatory," wrote Craig Phillips in the introduction to his interview with director Todd Solondz. "As with all his films, the film's fated to divide audiences and critics, for its seemingly nihilistic world view and bleak humor, and, of course, for making us all feel wholly uncomfortable.... He cares, he just has a funny way of showing it."

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005). Radio, TV, records, the stage, comics, even a computer game. Douglas Adams's massively popular riff on the end of the world has been with us for literally decades in practically every form imaginable except, oddly, a movie. It finally arrived to open this year's strange summer season and met with a mixed reception. But the New York Times's Manohla Dargis found it "hugely likable," noting that the filmmakers "have held onto a genuine sense of childlike wonder, which works as a nice corrective to what might otherwise come across as an overabundance of hip." And don't forget your towel.

Nobody Knows (2004). "Prime movie-of-the-week material," notes Filmbrain. "Four children, ranging in age from five to twelve, are left to fend for themselves in a Tokyo apartment after their mother abandons them. A thousand and one dire films could easily have been made from this premise, yet Koreeda manages to avoid every possible cliché and pitfall (and there are many) in his take on events that actually did occur back in 1988.... Nobody Knows isn't always an easy film to watch - as the seasons go by and the conditions worsen (the film was shot chronologically), it becomes increasingly uncomfortable to passively observe the inevitable downward spiral. Still, it's one that shouldn't be missed."

Head-On (2004). Before Head-On went on to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, David Hudson called it "an exhilarating return to what even [the director] calls the 'Fatih Akin film'... This is one of the most alive and lively films in Competition, thanks evidently to Akin's semi-improvisational approach and thanks most definitely to the two leads, Birol Ünel as Cahit and newcomer Sibel Kekilli, who plays a girl from a conservative Turkish family in Hamburg. She wants out, she wants sex, she wants to get high, to do what she wants whenever she wants... Cahit's situation: Depressed and depressing and yet in a ferociously amusing way. Until he rams his car into a wall. At the hospital, he meets Sibil; she's just slashed her wrists. And she has an idea: If he marries her, she'll clean his place and stay out of his way and her family will leave her alone. A marriage of convenience for both, in other words. They'll live their own lives and most certainly will not fall in love. Well. Yes, it happens, but it's the journey, not the destination (which isn't as predictable as it might seem at first) that makes this a favorite with press who hooted and cheered as Akin and his cast entered the press conference."

Though she lives in Paris now, the roots of Margarethe von Trotta's career are deeply embedded in the New German Cinema of the 70s and 80s. She acted in a few Fassbinder films and eventually married Volker Schlöndorff, with whom she co-directed The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (and they would eventually divorce). She broke out on her own with The Second Awakening of Christa Klages, "an acutely observed reflection on her favorite theme: the powerful (and often mysterious) psychic bond among women," as Scott Tobias has written for the AV Club. Two other von Trotta films are out today as well: Sisters, or the Balance of Happiness (1981), which Janet Maslin in the New York Times called "a quietly accomplished film, and often a very good one, skillful in its examination of both the separateness and the similarity of these two women"; and Sheer Madness (1983), which is an intriguing record of its era.

Rock School (2005). Richard Linklater has said he'd never heard of Paul Green when he made School of Rock and we're giving him the benefit of the doubt. But Green, for better and worse, is the real McCoy, a guy who actually runs a school in which he teaches kids to, you know, rock. But he's not quite as sweet or cuddly as Jack Black and the result here, as Manohla Dargis put it in the New York Times, is an "alternately hilarious and alarming documentary."

Schizo (2004). The movie takes place in rural Kazakhstan, and by rural, I mean very rural," wrote Opus at Twitch when he caught it at the Toronto Film Festival last year. "Houses dot vast fields, which are littered with the remains of electrical towers, empty warehouses, and other dwellings. The people who live in this place are a curious mix of European, Asian and Middle Eastern nationalities, and it's this mixture of cultures, in addition to the stunning landscape, that kept me intrigued, sometimes even more so than the actual storyline.... It's somewhat hard to place what, exactly, Schizo is. Is it a coming-of-age story, a crime thriller, a dark comedy, what? It's all of those things, and yet its subtlety means it's none of them as well."

Fingersmith (2005). "I heartily recommend this film to anyone who loves lesbian romances or BBC costume dramas (or both)," writes LSteele. "The acting is excellent, featuring Imelda Staunton as well as the two up-and-coming leads, Elaine Cassidy and Sally Hawkins. It's not surprising that the 2005 BBC adaptation is so good, considering it's based on an excellent novel by Sarah Waters (of Tipping the Velvet fame). Rent this along with Tipping, and have a compare-and-contrast Victorian lesbian costume-drama extravaganza!"

One Missed Call (2004). "God I love Takashi Miike," writes Jeremy Knox at Film Threat. "One Missed Call plays like a good cover song. It's not just a repetition of the previous tune. It reminds you why you liked the original in the first place and makes you rediscover it. Simply put, if you liked Ringu, if you liked The Eye, if you liked Ju-On, then you will like this movie."

New Anime:

Otogi Zoshi. Volume 4: Modern History (2005). "Although it sports numerous intense action sequences, Otogi Zoshi is not exclusively an action series," writes the Anime News Network. "The character design, which emphasizes the long hairstyles typical of the time period, is gorgeous. Sumptuous costuming highlights the designs, easily ranking the series among the best in recent memory in both categories."

For a complete list of all of this week's new releases, go here.

Congratulations to the winners of the The Transporter: Special Edition / Futurama: Monster Robot Maniac Fun Collection trivia contest: brinavee, kinsugi and JMendez (the answer was Taiwan). We'll announce more contest winners in this space next week. Meanwhile, check back Friday for our next trivia contest giveaway, for Project Grizzly - which would make an interesting companion piece to Werner Herzog's recent Grizzly Man doc.

The member list of the week is in honor of the disaster-stricken Big Easy: Cure for the New Orleans Blues, from ZenBones.

Thanks to all who came to our screening of Finger Man last week. We hope you enjoyed seeing that unheralded little film noir as much as we did. The next GreenCine-sponsored screening will be on October 5, as we present 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. Banned for more than a decade in Egypt after its initial release! At the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. More details to appear in this space in forthcoming weeks.

Can it really be September already? Time flies when you're having... summer. At any rate, we hope you had a fine Labor Day weekend and if you're heading back to school, may it be a good year for you.

Meanwhile, mentioned here last time but, unfortunately, remaining just as relevant this week: in the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, here once again is the link to the Red Cross. We also want to let any of our members out there in the Gulf Coast who miraculously are able to read this: you're in our thoughts. (We're also recalling Crescent City movies and other memories on our discussion boards.)

Now then, back to the escapist world of film... This week's Dispatch doesn't have to labor too hard to give you the 411 on DVD and VOD releases, new and old, renowned and obscure.

John Pierson, a major mover and shaker at the dawn of the American independent film movement of the mid-80s to mid-90s, author of Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes and host of the IFC series, Split Screen, got it in his head to take his family to Fiji, run a theater there and show movies for free. Jonathan Marlow talks to John, Janet, Georgia and Wyatt Pierson about their adventure and the film that captures their story, Reel Paradise.

And speaking of which: In these days of penguins and politics, it's easy to forget that documentaries were once an extreme rarity in theaters. With Hoop Dreams, Steve James helped prove audiences would turn out for a great story, regardless of genre. Marlow talks with James about how the aforementioned Reel Paradise, his latest, is unlike any film he's worked on before.

The GreenCine Daily rarely takes a day off and this week's no exception; enjoy our numerous dispatches from the Venice International Film Festival, in addition to the usual array of shorts.

Video-on-Demand: Hijacking Agatha (1993).

If there's such a thing as a Polish cult film, Hijacking Agatha is it. Described as that country's answer to our Fast Times at Ridgemont High because of its keen sense of modern teenage angst, and told with both humor and a cool music score (by Polish rock star S. Krajewski). But Agatha is also a thoughtful study of adolescent romance during Poland's cultural upheaval of the early 1990's, and the (mis)use of psychiatric care to repress natural desire. "Includes several elements I've found in many Polish films," wrote one Amazon.com reviewer, "it is unpredictable, quite serious, and not as happy a story as many might prefer. I enjoyed this movie's many twists and turns that kept me guessing, the action kept me on my toes, and its [underlying] messages are more complicated and thought-provoking than the naive themes I find in many American films." Marka Piwowski's Hijacking Agatha is available to watch now or any time you like, via GreenCine's constantly expanding Video-on-Demand service.

GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928).

Danish director Carl Dreyer was arguably one of the most artistically important film directors of the 20th century, yet he remains relatively unremembered outside of film critic and scholar circles. His expressionistic silent masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc was given a sparkling restoration by Criterion, and the haunting film is made all the more so by Richard Einhorn's "Voices of Light," the original accompanying orchestral work performed by renowned choral ensemble Anonymous 4, the Nederlands Radio Choir and the Nederlands Radio Philharmonic, which works perfectly with the film's imagery, and quite well on its own, too. Dreyer's assured visual style was very much ahead of its time, modern even, with his (and the great cinematographer Rudolph Mate's) use of low angles, a moving camera and of extreme close ups - and not a single establishing shot, contributing to the story's feeling of oppression. Dreyer based the script on actual transcripts of Joan's legendary trial in which the war hero was charged with heresy; he would return again to the theme of religious persecution in later sound-era works (Ordet, Day of Wrath), and Joan foreshadows his final masterpiece Gertrud as a study of a woman in search of inner peace. But all analysis aside, the watching of the film itself is a truly unique, even visceral, experience that cannot be properly described in words, and the face of Parisian actress Maria Falconetti as Joan will likely be forever etched in your brain. She's remarkable, even more so when you consider it was her only cinematic performance. Profound and moving, The Passion of Joan of Arc is essential viewing. -- Craig Phillips

This week's new DVD releases are a veritable windfall of eagerly anticipated releases from film and television, new and old, so we better cut to the chase:

Crash (2005). To the surprise of more than a few, one of the most talked about films of this year so far - besides the one with the penguins, of course - has been Crash, written and directed by Paul Haggis, the screenwriter behind last year's winner of the Oscar for Best Picture, Million Dollar Baby. Months after its release in theaters, the Los Angeles Times noted that it was still fodder for watercooler talk. Of course, the film is set in Los Angeles, but what Haggis is up to here - and he certainly doesn't bother being subtle about it - is tossing together "ciphers in an allegorical scheme," as A.O. Scott put it in the New York Times. In other words, this is post-9/11 America, as Haggis sees it. It's split critics in unpredictable ways, too. Scott, ultimately, doesn't buy it. But the LA Weekly's Ella Taylor has decided it's "not just one of the best Hollywood movies about race, but, along with Collateral, one of the finest portrayals of contemporary Los Angeles life period."

Save the Green Planet. (2003). "A rollercoaster ride of emotions eliciting absurd disbelief at one moment to deep pathos the next," writes markhl in his excellent list, The "New" Korean Cinema. "Shin Ha Kyun shows that his wonderful acting in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance was not a fluke with this delicate role. Unexpectedly unforgettable." "Snazzy, playful, somewhat gory, often hilarious," adds J. Hoberman in the Village Voice. "What's most remarkable about this lurid, wildly busy spectacle is how serious it can be - that is, how poignant and poetic."

3-Iron (2004). Once again, markhl: "Simpler is quite often better. And this latest offering from Kim Ki Duk is a refreshing piece which doesn't rely on provacative subject matter nor excessive violence to entertain. A simple message... beautifully delivered." And don't miss Jonathan Marlow's interview with the director.

The Holy Girl (2004)."This is a movie that does not give away its own ending, but that rather arrives at a final vantage point, which reveals the startling and intricate shape of everything that had come before," wrote A.O. Scott in the New York Times. "At the last possible moment, [Lucrecia] Martel's sympathetic inquiry into the varieties of human imperfection coalesces into something perfect. The Holy Girl is a film that defies categorization, but I'm tempted to call it a miracle."

Fear and Trembling (2003). Sylvie Testud plays a young Belgian woman who takes a low-level job at a Japanese company in Alain Corneau's adaptation of Amélie Nothomb's autobiographical novel. "A mindboggling view into the heart of Japan, Fear and Trembling includes some of the incongruous hilarity of Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation and the monstrous (if ceremonially correct) barbarity of Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, but it's also new and different," writes Janos Gereben at CultureVulture.net. "It will make you laugh, cringe, learn, and refuse to accept what appears obvious to those on the screen."

At long last, Paris is Burning (1991) is on DVD. "They call themselves the Children," writes PopcornQ. "As black and hispanic gay men, the Children inhabit two worlds - an everyday world of discrimination and poverty, and the world of 'Realness,' where through costume and competition, dance and inspired performance, they imitate and transcend the powerful fantasy media that excludes them." Introducing an interview with director Jennie Livingston at indieWIRE, Eugene Hernandez wrote, "When I first saw Paris Is Burning in Los Angeles in 1991 it blew me away.... [I] have always admired Jennie Livingston for creating such an incredible look inside a world that my friends and I found eye-opening. Listening to Cheryl Lynn's 'Got To Be Real' today still takes me back to the first time I saw the film."

"There is something to startle you in [Mike] Leigh's crooked, bittersweet little comedy Career Girls," wrote David Edelstein in Slate back in 1997. "It's called Katrin Cartlidge, and every director should have one - and build an altar to it." Few would disagree, which made losing her in 2002 to something as insultingly mundane as pneumonia all the more painful (she was only 41). As for the film, "It's more a morsel than a meal," wrote Laura Miller in Salon, also in '97, "not as substantial and cathartic as last year's Oscar-nominated Secrets and Lies, but anything at all by Leigh reminds us that movies can be about what it means to be alive in this world, right now, surrounded by real people - not just offer fantasy thrill rides through celebrityland."

This week sees a deluge of riches in the form of nine films starring Greta Garbo. For years, we had nothing at all on DVD, then The Grand Hotel - and now, nine! Chronologically, starting with an amazing collection of three silent features, made not long after she arrived in Hollywood:

TCM Archives: Garbo Silents (1926 and 1928). The Temptress (1926, featured on Disc 2) "is crammed full of melodramatic action, much of it preposterous," writes Silents are Golden, but "Greta Garbo makes the proceedings not only believable but compelling.... She is beautiful, she flashes and scintillates with a singular appeal. The Temptress is all Greta Garbo. Nothing else matters."; "Greta Garbo was merely an immigrant actress of considerable promise when she began Flesh and the Devil (1926, Disc 1) at MGM," writes TCM, "but when the film was finished, she emerged as the divine Garbo, one of the most mysterious, glamorous stars of the American screen, a distinction she maintained well into the 1930s."; "The Mysterious Lady (1928, Disc 2) exhibits Garbo's uncanny ability to anchor a film through the sheer power of her presence," writes the Cinematheque Ontario. "Garbo statuesquely presides over all the genre-bending turns and comedic flourishes of this at times majestically overwrought romantic thriller (Disc 2); And with Anna Christie (1930), audiences could hear Garbo for the first time. No other tagline was needed: "Garbo Talks!" The UK's Channel 4 sums up the critical consensus: "Shades of melodrama throughout, but Garbo is as watchable as ever." "Worth seeing, for the Presence most of all," adds the Chicago Reader; Mata Hari (1932) was one of Garbo's biggest box office hits; in Queen Christina (1933), "Garbo gives the drag performance of her career," proclaims PopcornQ. "Swaggering about castle and countryside in male attire, the Swedish queen is as butch as they come and then some.... And an early scene in the film features one of the nicest girl-girl kisses in Hollywood history" and in its 5-out-of-5-star review, TV Guide calls the film a "revelation, wrung from the usual MGM bio identikit, but given shape by [director Rouben] Mamoulian's painterly eye, and immortality by Garbo's ability to transcend."

Last but definitely not least: "Anna Karenina (1935) is considered to be the most cinematic of Tolstoy's great novels," notes Brian Koller at filmsgraded.com. "The best version is still one of the first.... And such a cast!" And get out your handkerchiefs for Camille (1936). "The great Garbo at her radiant peak, and certainly among the top five most romantic movies ever made," declares TV Guide. "[Director George] Cukor's renowned 'rapport' with actresses is unfailing here. MGM's glamour shows unmistakable care."

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944). TV Guide calls it Preston Sturges's "miraculously mad masterpiece. The marvel of The Miracle of Morgan's Creek is how the film ever got made in the first place. This onslaught against American morals in small towns, against the wartime romances of servicemen, against just about everything that the country held sacred during WWII was reckless, exaggerated, and very funny."

The Complete Ripping Yarns (1976). Once Monty Python's Flying Circus had run its course, each of the members of the original troupe, some on their own and some pairing off, ran off to follow fresh pursuits, most of them comedic. Michael Palin and Terry Jones's first post-Circus television program, Ripping Yarns, was "deliberately built around Jones's fascination with historical fiction, and Palin's versatility as a performer and his penchant for all things silly," as Stuart Galbraith IV writes at DVD Talk.

New Anime:

Gunslinger Girl. Volume 3: Il Silenzio Delle Stelle (2005). "Is Gunslinger Girl deplorably exploitive in the way it turns little girls into brainwashed, heavily conditioned cyborg killers, or is it an emotional and tragic tale?" asks Theron "Key" Martin at the Anime News Network. Well, GreenCiners seem to like it. A lot.

For a complete list of all of this week's new releases, go here.

Queues are most effective when they are filled with a large number of discs; we suggest a minimum of ten times the number of slots you have, i.e., forty if you're on the four-out plan. There are plenty of ways to populate your queue, including looking at our lists of titles coming soon, member lists (which you can look at chronologically, alphabetically or by average rating) and editorial top lists, by browsing through primers and our active discussion boards, among other ways, so queue away! And if you need to watch something right now, take a gander at our rapidly expanding Video-on-Demand offerings.

Congratulations to the winners of the Eric Idle's Personal Best/Michael Palin's Personal Best trivia contest: linkadvitch, dryerase, nonniebaloney, philomel17 and AACEVEDO (the answer was "...of Ulm"). We'll announce more contest winners in this space next week. Meanwhile, turn down the lights for our next trivia contest giveaway up this Friday: The Seduction of Misty Mundae.

The member list of the week is kdebonair's "Satire and the World of Tomorrow": "This isn't the world of Blade Runner. These dystopian futures give us a *wink*, but they feel oh-so true."

Tomorrow night! GreenCine proudly presents 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 underrated 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. Wednesday, September 7, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco. 7:30pm.