GreenCine Goes for the Movie Trifecta

Just the other day Karina reported on the Landmark Business Panel at SXSW, where Landmark honcho Todd Wagner waxed eloquent on his company's big plans to shake up the world of movie distribution by looking at what customers want and giving it to them. Now GreenCine (whose Daily GreenCine blog we frequently link to here on Cine, because they have some good stuff to read there), which has made a name for itself by focusing primarily on the niche indie market with Rent-by-Mail and Video-on-Demand, is diving headfirst into the murky space of DVD sales of mainstream films. In a press release, GreenCine proudly proclaims this move the "first time in history that a vendor has offered all three services from the same location".

Now, I have to admit, my initial reaction to this announcement was lukewarm. Not because I don't like GreenCine - I do (full disclosure - I subscribe to GreenCine and regularly check out DVDs from them). GreenCine has built its solid rep in the world of indie and foreign films, and I can find titles there I can't find anywhere else (even if they still don't offer Forgiveness, one of my favorite films from last year's Seattle International Film Festival, and if they don't add it soon I may be forced to just order the damn thing from South-freaking-Africa myself and suck up the $30 in shipping costs).

As a cinephile, my movie-love is pretty much equally divided between indies, foreigns and documentaries. Mainstream films? Meh. For the most part, they don't feed my soul. I'll occasionally suck it up to take the kids to a family film. I did stand in line (in the rain, even) for the last Star Wars flick, and you couldn't keep me away from Harry Potter if you tried, but for the most part, there's very little in mainstream cinema to entice me to go to the multiplex unless it's for a film I'm reviewing. So GreenCine offering mainstream, to me, kinda felt like the cool rocker kids who hang out smoking at the bus stop and actually know what A Clockwork Orange is, suddenly deciding to go grab a burger and milkshake with the drill team and football players.

The thing is, though, that there's more to GreenCine than renting obscure French or silent-era films. The discussion boards there are quite active, and I guess that somehow or another, some mainstream-movie-loving folks learned the Secret GreenCine Handshake, snuck in the back door, and started posting there. Or maybe there are actually a lot of people out there who are into Godard who also really dig Ron Howard and Michael Bay. What really warmed me up to GreenCine's plot to take over the world of home video, though, is the way they're positioning their foray into the world of mainstream. The idea, you see, is to lure unsuspecting mainstream movie fans into the site and then, by exposing them to discussion boards where people talk about good movies, and interviews with cool indie and foreign directors, open their eyes to the fabulous world of film outside of their local multiplex. And then, one hopes, all the mainstream film fans from small towns and mid-sized cities across America, who might otherwise never get to delve into the films we big-city folk take for granted, will realize what they've been missing - and revolt.

They will unite, en masse, and demand that Hollywood stop making crap and calling it movies. They know that a cow patty sprayed with gold leaf is still shit underneath, and they will come to realize that the vast majority of entertainment for the masses churned out of the Hollywood studio factories is just insultingly bad. They will stop giving their money to theaters that show such films, and they will clamor in voices too loud for studio heads to ignore for good movies. Films with compelling story lines, original plots, and great acting. No more Vin Diesel films. No Britney Spears or Jessica Simpson on the silver screen, ever again. Perhaps they'll even take away Uwe Boll's filmmaking equipment, for good. Independent filmmakers will be able to make a living actually making films, and the world will be a better place, and then we'll all join hands and sing Kum-Ba-Yah. Okay, maybe that's taking it a bit far, but still -- the idea of attracting mainstream fans and then subversively converting them to indie fans is so....I don't know, so diabolical, I just love it.

What do you think of GreenCine's ballsy move? Is it the death-knell of a great site for indie film? Or the most brilliant plan ever for exposing mainstream fans to indie film, while making money in the process?