For a filmmaker associated best with exploring gender and sexuality onscreen in such audacious, stylized films as Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Shortbus, John Cameron Mitchell seems an unlikely but inspired choice to helm David Lindsay-Abaire's pared-down adaptation of his own Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Rabbit Hole (opening in limited release on December 17, nationwide January 14), for which Nicole Kidman is already considered an Oscar nomination shoo-in. Aaron Hills chatted with Mitchell for a new podcast >>

Easy ARent  

After a little white lie about losing her virginity gets out, a clean cut high school girl sees her life paralleling "The Scarlet Letter," which she is currently studying in school ­ until she decides to use the rumor mill to advance her social and financial standing. This ode to John Hughes is "a funny, engaging comedy that takes the familiar but underrated Emma Stone and makes her, I believe, a star," writes Roger Ebert. "Witty," writes the Guardian's Philip French, "cleverly developed and sharply observant of high-school life."

The AmericanRent  

"Anton Corbijn's The American [out 12/28] looks and feels like a movie made by a filmmaker who hasn't been to the movies since the '70s," writes Stephanie Zacharek, "and I mean that as the highest compliment." Adds the Village Voice: "Despite its director's disinterest in letting people in, there is nevertheless something exciting about a movie this uncompromised, in which the big change from [Martin Booth's] book to the screen actually toughens up the story instead of watering it down."

Also out: Salt; Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; Amateur Porn Star Killer: Trilogy; Devil; Resident Evil: Afterlife [12/28]; Twelve.

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

LiverpoolRent  Read 

Doing away with conventional exposition is a tricky business but Lisandro Alonso gets away with it fairly well in his 2008 film Liverpool, just now making its DVD debut via Kino Home Video. It's one thing to ignore exposition when you have a main character who is relatively open and sociable. When you have an extreme loner, as is the case with Alonso's "hero" Farrel (played by Juan Fernandez, in real life a snowplow operator), this makes connecting with the movie much more difficult. And yet I believe the director/co-writer (with Salvador Roselli) manages even this challenge better than might be expected...Read more >>

More like this 101 Reykjavík | The Sea Inside

Exit Through the Gift ShopRent  Read 

Whether you take it at face value or gradually get the feeing that you're watching an art-world answer to This Is Spinal Tap, the much yakked-about Exit Through the Gift Shop is a knowingly subversive commentary on subversive art - and one of the year's best screen comedies, intentional (which I fully believe it is) or otherwise (a little too good to be true). Pulling a meta-Warhol move, the pseudonymynous UK street artist Banksy, now an international art celebrity, introduces a putative documentary about his work by turning the tables. Banksy, a silhouette in a hoodie whose voice is altered by distortion, tells us about a Los Angeles-based, French filmmaker who proposed making a movie about him, but instead it's Banksy who has made a film about the other guy: Thierry Guetta... Read more >>

More like this Hard Core Logo | The Radiant Child

Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor...Rent  Read 

The Zeitgeist DVD Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor and other Fantastic Films by Koji Yamamura collects the Japanese filmmaker's hand-drawn short works into one memorable DVD. "Though Yamamura knowingly appropriates and incorporates the hallmark style of artists like Salvador Dali, the Brothers Quay and Franz Kafka into his revelatory short films, his style is all his own," writes Simon Abrams in NY Press. "His anime is vivid, reveling in the possibilities of its medium...Read more >>

More like this Paprika | The Face of Another

In "Notes on a Legacy", Vadim Rizov writes about the experience of watching TRON Part Deux, a "light-show with roaring accompaniment, quickly forgotten but dazzling in the moment," in a sort of defense of the spectacle as an improvement over the original. More >>

Steve Dollar's pick for Holiday DVD of the Week: Ten Thousand Points Of Light - Elvis! Xmas! Americanarama!

Also: Vadim Rizov takes a peak in the pick-a-nick basketful of weirdnesses that have accompanied the CGI-laden new Yogi Bear movie.

And if you need last minute gift suggestions for the film nerd in your life, have we got the place for you: GreenCine's Holiday Gift Guide.

Somewhere won the Golden Lion Award at the 2010 Venice International Film Festival. From Academy Award-winning writer/director Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides), Somewhere is a witty, moving, and empathetic look into the orbit of actor Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff). It's "original and smartly funny with top performances," says Empire Magazine. And now you have a chance to win a cool Somewhere prize package thanks to a giveaway sponsored by GreenCine and Focus Features. Go here for more details >>.

And you can still enter our Micmacs giveaway - merci bon coup.