Rent

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"

By Sean Axmaker

Adrienne Shelly blossomed onto the indie film scene with her 1989 screen debut in Hal Hartley's debut feature The Unbelievable Truth. In the succeeding years, the diminutive, red-headed actress proved to be very picky about her screen roles, appearing largely in idiosyncratic indie films and guest-starring in East Coast-based TV shows like Homicide and Law and Order. She had come from the stage and continued writing, directing, and performing numerous stage productions in the independent theater scene in New York, and she was making a name for herself as a film director.

(Note: Her final film as director, Waitress, is now out on DVD.)

» continue reading "A Conversation with Adrienne Shelly"

By John Esther

Considering the films he has written, directed and/or produced, it's not easy to see why Luc Besson and his film, Angela-A, were invited to this year's Sundance Film Festival. This is the festival, after all, that's supposed to be about finding great new voices outside of - and, ideally, who challenge - the mainstream entertainment apparatus.

Besson's newest feature, Angela-A, is now available on DVD.

» continue reading "In the Skies with Luc Besson and Rie Rasmussen"

By Sean Axmaker

In Christopher Boe's Allegro [official site], a world acclaimed concert pianist (played by Ulrich Thomsen) is formally invited to reclaim his lost past. You see, it's preserved in an impenetrable and inexplicable bubble in the center of Copenhagen. Imagine a cross between Andrei Tarkovksy and The Matrix, with a whimsical flair and a mischievous narrator (Henning Moritzen) who may be a guardian angel, an ironic devil, or simply an existential master of ceremonies.

Boe's latest feature Allegro is now on DVD.

» continue reading "Catching Up with Christoffer Boe"

Sergio Leone's largely neglected oddball socio-political Western Duck You Sucker had been chopped to bits in initial release but gets a new life in a restored DVD out today. The film starred Rod Steiger as a Mexican peasant (!; don't think about it too hard) who meets Irish revolutionary James Coburn; the two of them plot to rob a bank in Arizona, only to discover it's actually being used as a political prison. This handsome transfer restores the film to all its lengthy glory.

» continue reading "Duck You Sucker: a.k.a. A Fistful of Dynamite"

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Australian-born Mark Savage, 44, is a true D.I.Y. filmmaker, having begun making scads of short films while in his teens. He eventually graduated to features, shot on the cheap with lots of exploitation elements. He is also something of an expert on Hong Kong action cinema, having directed the "making of" documentary on Jackie Chan's Mr. Nice Guy (1997).

Savage's 2004 film Defenceless is now on DVD.

» continue reading "Mark Savage & the D.I.Y. Aesthetic"

By Caveh Zahedi

Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi (who interviewed Henry Jaglom awhile back to very engaging affect) talked with Israeli director Amos Gitai, who has made the personal political repeatedly in his ever-increasing filmography. In his new film Free Zone, Gitai used an American star - Natalie Portman - for the first time.

Free Zone is now on DVD.

» continue reading "Amos Gitai: In the Free Zone"

In the not too distant past, Mike Nelson was host of the long-running cult TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000, which had run for years on cable’s Comedy Central before moving over to the Sci-Fi channel (both channels, oddly, embraced the show for its cultdom while simultaneously screwing it over). When MST3K finally disappeared, those of us who had been fans from nearly the beginning were in a state of disbelief. The wisecrackers on the Satellite of Love gave us our fix for cheesy genre movies, making the horrible not only tolerable, but also damned entertaining.

Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy, have brought Rifftrax back to the Bay Area and will be performing May 27th & 28th. You can find event times and ticket info here.

» continue reading "Riffing with Mike Nelson"

By David D'Arcy

"What distinguishes Venus is that it strips the May-December cliché to the most basic equation, and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi isn't one to take the power of sex lightly," writes Nick Pinkerton at indieWIRE. Here, David D'Arcy talks with Kureishi about lust and life's "last lap" and about how to ensure that films studios don't want get made.

Venus is now on DVD.

» continue reading "Hanif Kureishi and the Birth of Venus"

By Sean Axmaker

The author of over 30 books on films and filmmakers, the founder and editor of The International Film Guide for over 40 years before his retirement, and the editor of the Tantivy Press line of film books that flourished through the 60s and early 70s, Peter Cowie is one of the most important writers and editors on cinema of the past half-century. He is one of the leading authorities on Ingmar Bergman and Scandinavian cinema and, in addition to his numerous books on the subjects, has contributed commentary tracks and essays to numerous Criterion DVD releases, including eight Bergman films, and has penned three books on Francis Ford Coppola and his films.

» continue reading "Peter Cowie's Revolution"