Ludivine Sagnier, all of 29, has already appeared in around three dozen features, including Claude Chabrol's new film A Girl Cut in Two ("an erotically charged, beautifully directed story of a woman preyed upon by different men and her own warring desires," wrote Manhola Dargis in the NY Times). James Van Maanen has a long, leisurely chat with Sagnier about working with Chabrol, Claude Miller, François Ozon and other directors; and about watching movies, French politics and whatever else strikes their fancy (they seem to have hit it off). Read Full Article >>

The Small Back Room (Criterion) Rent 

The superb team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (aka The Archers) made several films in and around and about WWII; The Small Back Room may be the most underrated. This new DVD from Criterion is "highly recommended," raves DVDTalk. "Less touted than the Archers' Technicolor flights of fancy, this black-and-white character study should delight the filmmakers' fans like a long sought-after secret that's finally been revealed." Adds DK Holm: "Over several viewings [the film] grew to be a rich, nuanced work, and clearly one of Powell and Pressburger’s best films."

Recount Rent  

This made-for-HBO film was based on a story we all basically lived through in some fashion, but probably didn't know all ins-and-outs (and insders and outsiders). Tom Shales: "Although Recount is a smashing success on almost every level, it's also a brutally disheartening experience for the story it tells." "[A]stute and deliciously engrossing," adds The NY Times. "retells the tale of Florida in all its bizarre and inglorious moments." Laura Dern's Katherine Harris is particularly memorable (some would say frightening).

Also out today: Twenty-Four Eyes (Criterion) (beautiful, moving Keisuke Kinoshita classic); An American Crime (disturbing movie with Catherine Keener and Ellen Page); Chronicle of an Escape; Dexter: Second Season; Enough!; Camp Rock; A Four Letter Word; Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day; Street Kings; Fire and Ice; The Life Before Her Eyes (rave member review); Never Love a Stranger [very early Steve McQueen, and John Drew Barrymore!]; Orson Welles' Don Quixote; Please Vote for Me [a real sleeper; read Hollywood Reporter review]; 6 Films to Keep You Awake; Sacred Family; Prom Night; Quid Pro Quo; Primo Levi's Journey; The Wizard of Gore; Tsubasa Volume 7; Otoboku Maidens Are Falling For Me, Vol. 2

New and Coming Releases lists | Your Queue | Discuss! | GreenCine's review blog: Guru | GC Member Reviews and Lists | New DVD Spotlight

Extasis Rent  Read  

How varied an actor is Javier Bardem? Stick Dance With the Devil, Second Skin and The Sea Inside in your queue and be amazed. Further, you can substitute practically any of his films for these three and get similar results. I suspect Bardem chooses his roles carefully. An actor cannot know what the result of something as collaborative as a motion picture will be. But if he is taking a leading role (or an important supporting role), and he's as strong a performer as Bardem, he'll know that he can probably exercise enough control (at least over his own performance) to end up with something worthwhile. This is how things have turned out for the actor so far, and his relatively unknown 1996 movie Extasis (Ecstasy) -- just out on DVD -- proves no exception... read the review >>

More like this The Perfect Crime | Burnt Money

Marco Ferreri: The Collection Rent

The DVD release of filmmaker Ferreri's notorious La Grande Bouffe included here is surely the main draw of this set of his films, but there are other treasures, too. Ferreri, notes MSN Movies in a review of the set, "brings a decidedly European slant to his 1981 Bukowski adaptation Tales of Ordinary Madness, dragging his Italian crew to the streets of Los Angeles to find a seedy Hollywood of dim bars and cheap apartments for Ben Gazzara's skid row poet Charles Serking. [And] Seeking Asylum stars Roberto Benigni as an unconventional kindergarten teacher, part doting dad-figure, part anarchist. The humor is more Ferreri than Benigni, but the actor delivers a curiously introspective and certainly unpredictable performance." Five other eclectic titles are included in this set out today.

More like this Mafioso | La Cage Au Folles

6 Films to Keep You Awake  Rent  

Horror aficianados were eagerly awaiting this collection of short horror features from some of Spain's foremost horror directors, originially made for Spanish TV. But, as Fangoria notes. " there’s something for all genre temperaments here, and each of the movies feels crafted for the big screen." The best of the lot may be The Christmas Tale (disc 2), which Fangoria's Mike Hodges says "is like the proverbial rollercoaster ride—fast, scary, exciting and fun, and when it’s over, you can’t wait to repeat the experience. All this, plus there’s added nostalgia value for genre fans old enough to remember “the wonder years” of two decades ago."

More like this The Others | In a Glass Cage

GreenCine Daily has up an appreciation and links galore to many more, of film critic Manny Farber, is " the liveliest, smartest, most original film critic this country has ever produced, "wrote Susan Sontag, "[his] mind and eye change the way you see.” Farber passed away Sunday. Read more >>

Also, a handy capsule of some recent DVD reviews from around the blog, er, globe.