Another Burning Man doc, you sigh? But wait, this one's different! Confessions of a Burning Man follows four first-timers ("virgins") as they attempt to navigate the week-long event held in the Nevada desert. Their personal journeys are windows into the heart of Black Rock City, a virtual, temporary town of 30,000 revelers and artists. The DVD features commentary from the filmmakers David Silverman, a writer for The Simpsons. Or you can watch it on-demand on GreenCine, via our VOD service. And while you're at it, why not take a stab at GreenCine's latest trivia contest, in which you can win the next best thing to Burning Man tickets - a copy of Confessions of a Burning Man on DVD.

To be eligible for the prize, send an email with the correct answer to contest@greencine.com, including your name, email address and (if you're a GreenCine member) your username in the email, and "Burning Man" in the subject header. Winners will be selected at random from all correct entries. The deadline is Monday, March 12, at 12PM PST. Winners will be notified by e-mail and announced in future editions of the GreenCine Dispatch newsletter, and right here on this space.

The question: Where was Burning Man first held, before moving to the Nevada desert? (Name the city and the location in that city.)

Continue Reading Confessions of a Burning Man: Trivia Contest

Besides Borat (more on that separately) and Fast Food Nation (ditto), today sees the release of the spooky German exorcism film Requiem, two film versions of Prisoner of Zenda, a Platinum collector's edition of Disney's Peter Pan, Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion (one of Patton Oswalt's pals and a very original comic in his own right), the long awaited DVD release of the 80s cult classic Night of the Comet, and the British wedding comedy Confetti.

Click the link below to see the whole list of what's new and what's coming soon!

Continue Reading New on DVD: March 6, 2007

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan: Sacha Baron Cohen's genius portrayal of the Kazakhstan TV personality drove this deranged mockumentary about the titular character's search for the real America (and Pamela Anderson). Truly inspired, over the top, often gross and unforgettable, Borat is one of a kind.

The DVD comes in an authentic package written entirely in Russian (with the disc itself made to look like a bootleg.) The disc also includes: a Kazakhstan "Bay Watch" spoof, five deleted dcenes plus a deleted scenes compilation, and "Rodeo News Report." Very nice!

Continue Reading Very Nice! Borat on DVD

Eric Schlosser's best-selling expose of the fast food industry didn't seem like a likely candidate for a fictionalized feature film but that didn't stop Richard Linklater. "Feels like both a work of investigative journalism and an immense human-interest story," wrote the Boston Globe's Wesley Morris, "veering into muckraking, horror, teen comedy, and what passes for Twilight Zone science fiction." Manhola Dargis in The New York Times called it "the most essential political film from an American director since Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11."

More: Read our interview with Schlosser, and vote in our Linklater poll, too.

Continue Reading Fast Food Nation: The dark side of the all-American meal

Night of the Comet: Bitchin' end of the world spoof Night of the Comet is oh-so-80s, but we mean that in a good way - and here at last arrives the DVD. Two Valley girls have to fend for themselves ("Daddy would have gotten us Uzis") after a comet collides with the earth, wiping out most of humanity. There are totally icky zombies and a totally icky Mary Woronov in this, like, cult classic.

Continue Reading New to DVD: Night of the Comet

Interviewed By Susan Gerhard
November 17, 2006

"The book Fast Food Nation - a richly reported and thickly described literary investigation into the bowels of your everyday burger - was initially an article in Rolling Stone before it became a bestseller, spawned a children's book, instigated a movement, and morphed into a movie by Richard Linklater. If it didn't feel so wrong, you could almost say that it has, by now, become franchised..." Eric Schlosser tells Susan Gerhard how he worked with Richard Linklater to turn his bestselling exposéem>Fast Food Nation into what Film Comment's Kent Jones calls an "unassuming film, one of the most politically astute to come out of this country in quite some time."

Continue Reading Eric Schlosser: Our Fast Food Nation's Whistle-Blower

By Sean Axmaker

"Halfway through Written on the Wind (1956), after oil baron Robert Keith has been bluntly confronted by the tawdry affairs of his alcoholic daughter Dorothy Malone, the dialogue drops out and the driving rumba takes over the soundtrack. Malone kicks up a storm sashaying in her girdle, perversely proud of the discretion that has wounded her upright dad..." Sean Axmaker explores the brilliant film career of Douglas Sirk whose pictures though often misunderstood, never fail to entertain and exist as a benchmark in cinematic history. The American Cinematheque's retrospective of Sirk's films opens March 1st, 2007 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

Continue Reading The Incendiary Cinema of Douglas Sirk

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

During a recent conversation with Mark and Michael Polish, both 36, about their new movie The Astronaut Farmer, several questions came up about insiders and outsiders. For example, the Polish brothers made their debut with the quirky indie film Twin Falls Idaho (1999), in which the identical twins appeared as Siamese twins. It received some good notices and took in nearly double its initial cost, but it didn't exactly catapult the brothers into the mainstream.

Continue Reading The Polish Brothers: Inside the Outsider Aesthetic

interviewed by Jonathan Marlow, 21-February-2007

"Arguably the most unconventional documentary to air on television this year, Black Sun uses a series of remarkable audio interviews as a foundation for distinct ways of seeing the world around us. The film has played numerous festivals to much acclaim since its 2005 debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. Viewers tuning in to the program (Cinemax, 28-February, 7:00pm ET/PT ) relatively unawares will be rewarded with a thought-provoking and innovative account of overcoming adversity."

Continue Reading Gary Tarn & Hugues de Montalembert: The Assassinated Light

super Dylan, Terry Gilliam, Will Ferrell, Jack Black, and a doc on girls hoops highlight this week's new DVD releases. And don't forget a superb British miniseries that is as thrilling as it is topical. Plenty more to come, too, as you can see.

More: Interview with D.A. Pennebaker >>

Thoughts on Tideland? More >>

A girl hoop dreams? More >>

Continue Reading New (and Coming Soon) on DVD: Feb. 27, 2007