Reviewer: Simon Paul Augustine
Ratings (out of five): Milestones ****
Ice ** 1/2 

“I was having this dream, the feeling of a gap between what I believe in, and what my life is like day to day…” – from Milestones

Even in the context of underground cinema of the late 60’s and 70’s, Robert Kramer’s Milestones stands as a dizzying confluence of genres and styles, reality and fiction. Kramer is a prominent figure in the American DIY scene that existed forty years ago – a time when auteurs outside the Hollywood system, in lieu of the unprecedented access to video and computer technology that fuels today’s indies, were heir to a tradition that used real film stock and mother-of-invention ingenuity to plumb the possibilities of how celluloid, including its physical tangibility, could harnessed for expression. Part of a lineage that included predecessors like Stan Brakhage and Kenneth Anger, Kramer and his contemporaries merged text, still images, graphic design, and unconventional, daring editing and sound choices in endless ways.

Continue Reading A Rare Brand of Honesty: Robert Kramer's Milestones / Ice

We've got some great titles for rent to get you in the mood for the Oscars this weekend. Stay tuned for our complete list of Oscar nominees for rent! 

Continue Reading New and Coming Releases: Feb 21, 2012.

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Ratings (out of five): ** (round up 1/2 if you're keen on the subject)

Watching the extremely retro documentary The Sons of Tennessee Williams, directed, edited, written and produced by Tim Wolff, it's hard not to wonder at the rather shockingly old-fashioned attitudes, interests, and behavior of the gay denizens of New Orleans and its environs, as they reminisce and ready themselves for a relatively recent Mardi Gras ball.

Granted, this is all about Mardi Gras, a time when letting loose and having fun is evidently paramount. (I have never been to Mardi Gras or to carnival in Rio, so I can't claim to understand what all the fuss is about.) Still, Mr. Wolff's concentration on dressing up in drag as the be-all and end-all of gay liberation seems a bit much. While the press materials hails this as a history of the earliest civil right movement for gays in the U.S.A. -- and time-wise this indeed appears to be true -- the interests of the men shown here seem to begin and end with dressing up in drag and getting away with it. This is certainly a part of gay liberation, for some, but making a whole movie around it is a tad circumscribed, no?

Continue Reading The Sons of Tennessee Williams

Happy Valentine's Day to our sweet GreenCiners! Though this week doesn't feature much in the way of romance, there's plenty to enjoy in the way of vampires, teachers, men hell-bent on revenge, and more. 

Continue Reading New and Coming Releases: Feb 14, 2011.

Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson 
Ratings (out of five): ***

Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing placed on Cahiers du Cinema's ten best list for 2011, a not-too-shabby achievement. It says a great deal for the Polish-born director Skolimowski, who has been a favorite of that magazine for generations. But it also says something about the critics, who were given two big themes to think about: the primal theme of man-versus-nature, and the more newsworthy theme of Middle Eastern terrorists.

Continue Reading Essential Killing

We've got a wonderful mix of fantasy and reality this week, covering everything from explosion Asian action, riveting documentaries, love triangles, and more. 

Continue Reading New and Coming Releases: Feb 7, 2012.

Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson 
Ratings (out of five): *** 1/2

Sometimes movies are called "painterly," but it's not often that a movie is based on an actual painting. The Quince Tree Sun (1993) and Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) come to mind. Also Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark (2002), which is about a museum rather than a specific painting, but uses a "painterly" quality of its own.

Now we can add Lech Majewski's The Mill and the Cross to that short list. Based on Pieter Bruegel's painting "The Way to Calvary," from 1564, the movie patiently and delicately outlines many of the themes in the painting, even though the film itself can be somewhat drifting and opaque. It's quite unlike the anchored, physical quality of a painting; it's something rather different.

Continue Reading The Mill and the Cross

Reviewer: Philip Tatler IV
Ratings (out of five): SET **** 1/2 
Poto and Cabengo  ***** 
Routine Pleasures   **** 1/2 
My Crasy Life   **** 1/2

Jean-Pierre Gorin is probably best been known for partnering with Jean-Luc Godard in the late ‘60s to form the Dziga Vertov Group. Their aim was to take cinema in an authorless, overtly political direction and produced (among others) the Jane Fonda-starring Tout Va Bien. Thanks to Criterion’s latest Eclipse release, Gorin’s work is finally making its American DVD debut and will hopefully increase his stature to beyond just a footnote in Godard’s career.

Continue Reading Eclipse Series 31 - Three Popular Films by Jean-Pierre Gorin

2012 hums along with another stellar week for DVDs. Feast your eyes on the Oscar-snubbed (or was it? Vote in our poll for the other snubs!) Drive, Asian action, period pieces, and more, inside. 

Continue Reading New and Coming Releases: January 31, 2012.

Reviewer: Philip Tatler IV
Rating (out of five): * 1/2

Anyone familiar with Werner Herzog’s 1999 docuhomage My Best Fiend knows that Klaus Kinski – whatever his merits as a performer – was a prone to deranged lunacy. Herzog’s film posited Kinski as a demon-possessed megalomaniac nearly incapable of taking direction. His (allegedly fabricated) autobiography is full of abuses hurled at the “idiot” directors who Kinski felt mismanaged their films and, above all, his performances.

Kinski’s single directorial effort – 1989’s Paganini – was his chance for him to vindicate himself from all the meddling hacks he’d endured throughout his career. Kinski finally had control of everything – from pre- to post-production – and could deliver the Klaus Kinski performance that he’d longed for audiences to see.

Continue Reading Paganini