Lists

By Erin Donovan

» continue reading "Best (and Worst) Movie Moms"

by Monica Peck

Buck up, folks. The Pennsylvania primary this week may be the decider of the Democratic candidate in November. It's high time to revisit some fine politically minded movies to stir our electoral souls. And with Jay Roach's Recount out next month (Kevin Spacey movie coming out this year) - one wonders where that film will sit if we revisit this list later. At any rate, here is some required viewing to gear up for another tumultuous election year.

» continue reading "Vote Early, Vote Often: Ten Movies To Watch Before the November Election"

By Erin Donovan

"Yeah yeah yeah, we all love Al Gore and his jaunty powerpoint presentation but Inconvenient Truth is not the only fruit, dear viewers. Here I suggest a few other environmentally-focused documentaries to make you laugh, cry, act - and seethe with anger."

With the release of The 11th Hour and Sharkwater today, and the notoriety received by a certain Oscar-winning doc about global warming last year, Erin Donovan brings us recommendations for some other environmental documentaries you need to see.

» continue reading "Top 10 Environmental Documentaries That Don't Rhyme With A Schminconvenient Schmuth."

By Monica Peck

When filmmaking and film viewing get out of the hands of studios and distributors, conventional constraints go the way of the bathwater. One recent trend is longer films - even longer versions of previously released films - and with DVD we have a better way of appreciating them. As Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz explained in a recent interview with Green Cine: "There are different concepts of viewing now. My films are just like paintings that are just there. Nothing changes. You can watch it for eight hours, and you can have a more fulfilling experience. Or you can leave the house, go to work, and when you come home, it is still there."

» continue reading "Ten Ridiculously Long Movies (That You Still Need to See*)"

When are all the Oscar-nominated films coming out on DVD, you ask? One step ahead of ya. Here's a list of all the films nominated for Oscars for 2006, both winners and runners-up at the 2007 Academy Awards. Each film that is available on DVD now, or that has an definitive announced date, links to GreenCine's catalog. Keep checking back, too; we'll update any remaining films as they are announced.

Updated! Late 2007.

» continue reading "All 2007 Oscar Winners on DVD: Now and Later"

Best Movies Seen on Screen or Via GreenCine in 2007

By Dylan de Thomas

Like most of us who don't work for major newspapers - or live in Manhattan or the City of Angels - I haven't had the chance to see many of the year-end must-sees, like Paul Thomas Anderson's much-anticipated and discussed There Will Be Blood, Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly or even Tamara Jenkins' The Savages. These either haven't made it up here to sleepy, rainy Portland, Oregon, or I just haven't made the time to make it out to the theaters to see 'em. Instead, I offer my favorite moments from mostly new-ish DVDs that I was able to see in the comfort of my own home, in between changing diapers and having tea parties with short, messy people. I gotta say, even from this distance, it's clear that it was a great year for film. Here are some of my favorites, split into neat categories for easy consumption.

» continue reading "Best of 2007: Dylan de Thomas's Best Films Seen on DVD List"

By David Hudson

At some point during the just-wrapped year, I promised myself I'd write up one of those year-end top tens (a first for me), and I have, finally, and it follows, but first, a round of the all but obligatory hemming and hawing. Last year at GreenCine Daily, I wrote a wordy entry on, oh, the state of things in general, and over the past couple of days, I've been wondering if I'd be doing something along that line again. But then I re-read that entry and realized that, with regard to most of the issues raised, not a whole lot has changed over the past 12 months. Let me explain.

» continue reading "Best of 2007: Yep, Another Top 10"

By Erin Donovan

As with last year's list, this is a look at some of the best women-centered films released - except, notably, for the first one - to theaters or DVD in 2007.

Eve and the Fire Horse - A Sundance darling that has yet secure a US distribution deal, though it's aired on the Sundance Channel on Demand. Julia Kwan makes a magnificent directorial debut with a light-hearted film about coming of age, religious education, immigrant assimilation and grief.

Broken English - A romantic tribute to the neuroses and glory of life New York City (the way it could only exist, in films) is a remarkable directorial debut from Zoe Cassavetes. Like Sex and the City with the brain cells added back in.

Read the whole list by clicking below:

» continue reading "Best of 2007: Best Lady Films"

By Craig Phillips

Some fine adaptations are central to this year's diverse list. Looking back on it all to try to find some overarching pattern emerge doesn't work as well, but that's what I like about the best films of 2007; they're unique and they made blood pulse through my veins in excitement. A few of them made me laugh. At least one of them made me slightly queasy.

Maybe this expansive list will counter those who've said '07 was a weaker than average year. Nonsense, I say. While I'm fortunate in that, unlike newspaper critics, who are forced to sometimes see truly bad films against their will, I can usually pick and choose films that I at least think will be interesting. But I certainly saw my share of Disappointing Films With Merit. (And by deadline time, I'd still missed more than I would've liked, too - see the list at the bottom*.) But these are the 15 films that lifted me somewhere special, and which I'd revisit again. And, as you can see, I didn't punish films just for being released much earlier in the year.

Read on for the Top 15, and many more.

» continue reading "Craig Phillips' 15 Best Films of 2007 (and more)"

By Erin Donovan

These were the best documentaries I saw this year, new to theaters or new to DVD in '07.

51 Birch Street - Doug Block, so incensed by the betrayal of his father getting remarried just 3 months after the death of his mother, turns an investigative lens on the once romanticized memories of his childhood to discover (via decades of journals, interviews with friends and home-made movies) the starkly different inner life his mother was leading to the woman he'd grown up with. Through the discovery of sad and ordinary dysfunctions 51 Birch Street is as much a touching family portrait as it is a window into the generational contrast between expectations about marriage.

Girl 27 - A surprising documentary that played to quiet appreciation at Sundance this year. Girl 27 starts out as a true crime expose about a vicious assault and the cover up by the svengalis of 1930s Hollywood but becomes a touching (platonic) romance about how intertwined a documentary film-makers can become with their subjects.

King Corn - Two affable food activists grow an acre of corn in Iowa and attempt to trace it into our food system only to learn that between starchy fast foods, artificial sweeteners and preservatives Americans eat so much corn that an acre (producing 10,000 pounds) is a mere drop in the bucket. In the vein of Super Size Me, co-stars/directors Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis create an oral history of a declining farm town as well as illuminate some of the absurdities of food production in America.

Read the rest by clicking below:

» continue reading "Best of 2007: Best Documentaries"