After a decade of making Oscar winners (The French Connection) and box office bonanzas (The Exorcist), director William Friedkin found himself drawn to a murder mystery set among the gay leather bars of New York City. In Cruising, Al Pacino plays an undercover cop who begins frequenting the bars looking for clues, but finds himself unequipped to deal with the sexual world opening up to him. A portion of the gay community felt a dark, violent film was not the way they wished to be portrayed, so they began demonstrating against it, stirring up a bitter controversy that has rarely been equalled in the history of film. Critics sneered and audiences stayed away. The film has languished for years, but a new print of Cruising made the rounds in select theaters and is out today in a deluxe DVD. Jeffrey Anderson met Friedkin and chatted with him about the film. Also: What do you think? Read article >>

Death Proof  Rent 

Real life stunt woman Zoe Bell makes a suitably impressive heroine, literally throwing herself into the role of, yes, stuntwoman Zoe Bell in Quentin Tarantino's contribution to the Grindhouse double-feature saluting 60s/70s exploitation cinema (Planet Terror is the other half). "I suspect that Death Proof will throw some of its director's admirers for a loop," wrote Scott Foundas, "though it may be the most revealing thing Tarantino has yet done -- a full-throttle expression of a singular artistic temperament disguised, like so many gems of grindhouses yore, as a glittering hunk of trash."

The Boss of It All Rent  

What's this? A funny, lighthearted work from Lars Von Trier that doesn't thumb its nose at America? Well, Von Trier - who appears himself at the beginning of this film about office politics to announce it as “a comedy and harmless as such: no preaching or swaying of opinion” - remains a trickster. "It's all quite funny and fittingly cynical as his buffoonish hero rants about character and motivation in the face of the filmmaker's gleeful contrivances," wrote the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Sean Axmaker, adding, "Even comic absurdity can't shake von Trier's misanthropic streak." The film features Iben Hjele from High Fidelity.

Also Out This Week: Severance; Camden 28; Crazylove; Dreaming Lhasa; The Flying Scotsman; Gracie; The Insatiable; Jekyll; Lucky You; Karin Volume 3: Thicker Than Blood; L'Iceberg; Upright Citizens Brigade: Complete Second Season; The Valet; Zoo; Cruising; Three Penny Opera (Criterion); Superman: Doomsday.

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

Martha Graham Dance On Film (Criterion) Rent  

One of the great artistic forces of the twentieth century, performer, choreographer, and teacher Martha Graham influenced dance worldwide. This welcome new Criterion DVD presents a sampling of her stunning craft, all collaborations with television arts-programming pioneer Nathan Kroll. The disc includes new, restored high-definition digital transfers of three films, A Dancer's World, Appalachian Spring, Night Journey; Martha Graham: The Dancer Revealed, a 1994 documentary produced for PBS's American Masters series; and a comparison of Appalachian Spring with an archival performance, by dance critic and historian Deborah Jowitt.

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Deliverance (Deluxe Edition)  Rent  

In honor of the 35th anniversary of this seminal adventure-thriller, Warner Home Video brings us a remastered DVD, which is chock full of behind the scenes extras (but, sadly, no banjo is included with the disc). You know the story: four urban dwelling men - Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ronny Cox and poor Ned Beatty - go on a wilderness weekend in the Georgia woods and get a bit more wildness than they bargained for. The disc includes new commentary from director John Boorman, too.

More like this Emerald Forest | The River Wild

"Why make films at all?" asked filmmaker Hilary Harris. "To give a richer vision of surrounding reality. My aim is to lift people out of their preconceptions.” We just added to our collection a bunch of art and avant garde films from Microcinema, and one of the highlights is this compilation of shorts by the man called "unquestionably one of the most original and talented filmmakers of the American independent cinema... he is in a class by himself, a master of his craft.” (Amos Vogel, NY Film Fest founder.) The disc includes Harris' Oscar-winning short, Organism. Read more here >>

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Michelle Devereaux spoke with french director Francis Veber about his latest farce, The Valet, with Daniel Auteuil and Kristin Scott Thomas; the film arrives on DVD today. Read more >>

Also: Charles Mudede, director of the controversial film Zoo, out on DVD today as well.

GreenCine is proud to have donated GC memberships to the San Francisco Eviction Defense Collaborative's auction. Proceeds from this event will help the EDC continue to provide eviction defense services to San Francisco tenants. The EDC assists thousands of tenants each year by preparing court papers, offering limited representation at settlement conferences, and providing financial assistance for rent payments. The auction is this Thursday at 50 Fremont Street, 6th Floor, San Francisco, 5:30-8pm.

Congrats to the winners of our Cinematic contest. These ten peeps will receive a copy of this new CD from Six Degrees Records): peckules, wpennell, KTBaron, HondoHoopster, ChefCFP, Katia477, Arnaud Hurst, Justin Lehrer, Jerry Stine and Martin Jauch. We'll announce Eastern Promises contest winners in this space next week.