Boy, do we have some catching up to do here. Up on GreenCine over the past week or so: interviews with The Orphanage director Juan Antonio Bayona and screenwriter Sergio G Sánchez, and with Persepolis' Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. Alongside that, Sean Axmaker's piece on Dream DVDs: Special Editions and Box Sets That Could Be has already provoked a stream of comments, as people muse on their own dream DVDs. And on top of that, a lively new interview: John Sayles new film Honeydripper (opening this month) "evocatively charts a time and place where change has been a longtime coming and buoyantly imagines a turning point where, at least musically, anything is possible," notes Cathleen Rountree, introducing her chat with the filmmaker in which they focus on the use of music in his films. Read article >>

Eastern Promises  Rent 

Premiere's Glenn Kenny called this thriller set among the Russian mob in London, "One of [David] Cronenberg's subtlest, most insinuating pictures, and one of the highlights of the year." Viggo Mortensen is stellar as a limo driver for a mobster (a frightening Armin Mueller-Stahl) who tries to protect a midwife nurse (Naomi Watts) from getting in over her head. "A movie whose images and implications are likely to stay in your head for a long time," adds the NY Times' A.O. Scott. Read our interview with Mortensen and Cronenberg, too.

Shoot 'Em Up Rent  

Go into this one expecting a cartoony, pulpy hyperkinetic action film rather than anything requiring deep (or any) thought, and you'll enjoy it. Roger Ebert called Shoot Em' Up "the most audacious, implausible, cheerfully offensive, hyperactive action picture I've seen since, oh, Sin City, which in comparison was a chamber drama."

Also out Dec 25-Jan 2: Indie Sex; Shattered; The Kingdom; Ballroom; The Brothers Solomon; Battlestar Galactica 1980 - The Complete Epic Series; Jimmy and Judy; The Tudors - Season 1; War; Kanon: Vol 1.

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The Rocket Rent  Read 

Somewhat surprisingly, the sport of ice hockey has inspired very few decent films over the years. You might be able to count them on two fingers...so it's nice to be able to add to this list The Rocket, a thoughtful biopic about the life of legendary Montreal Canadiens scoring machine Maurice "The Rocket" Richard (who retired from the NHL in 1960 and died in 2000). Directed by Charles Binamé (Seraphin: Heart of Stone), it stars popular Canadian actor Roy Dupuis, who had already portrayed Richard... Read full review here >>

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Lost and Found: The Harry Langdon Collection  Rent  

Produced by David Kalat, this new set of lost silent classics, writes Dave Kehr, is "a generous four-disc set with the avowed aim of establishing Langdon alongside the Holy Trinity of silent comedy: Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. The jury may still be out on that, but the case that Mr. Kalat presents — which includes 20 shorts and Langdon’s first feature, His First Flame (1927) — is strong." The four discs include audio commentaries by silent-film historians, rare clips, and Lost and Found, a documentary covering Langdon's career.

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A seven-hour meditation on Adolph Hitler doesn't exactly sound like a grand night (or three) in front of the telly, but this fascinating, one of a kind cinematic deconstruction by Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, just out on DVD, is the final part of the director's extraordinary trilogy on German culture. Wrote TimeOut: "Visually lyrical, the style is eclectic to the point of hysteria; and the tone oscillates between the operatic (Wagner figures large) and the colloquial (Hitler in conversation with his projectionist) without ever quite coming unstuck. Humour mixes with mythology and analysis in the attempt to reunite art, history and ideology. It's a quite remarkable film, with a sense of metaphor equal to its intellectual courage."

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GreenCine's ushering in the new year with a boatload of Best of 2007 lists. First up was James Van Maanen's Best Gay Films on DVD in '07, 17 very worthy movies along with a long list of near misses. Then we have Erin Donovan's Best Docs (which will be followed shortly by Best Women Films). And we now add to those GreenCine editor Craig Phillips with his own 15 Best Films of '07 list. Look for David Hudson's list tomorrow, and go here for all our Best Of lists; we'll soon pause to catch our collective breaths before starting to think about what films could be the best of 2008.