Reviews

Choppers’ Paradise

First part of Tarantino's kick-ass grindhouse homage testifies to his awesome directorial development

Slaid Cleaves – Wishbones

Long-awaited return of New England philosophy major-cum-troubadour

Rob Ellis – Music For The Home Vol 2

Second full-length adventure in uneasy listening from PJ Harvey collaborator

Lonesome Travails

Exquisitely bittersweet, pain-blasted country-rock from America's West Coast

The Doors – Boot Yer Butt!

Comprehensive 'official bootleg' four-CD set compiled by Robbie Krieger

The Fog Of War

Stunning documentary/interview with former US Defence Secretary

Raising Victor Vargas

Peter Stollett's refreshing debut is somewhere between Larry Clark's Kids and a witty Lower East Side comedy of manners. It takes a hugely charismatic teen cast, light docu-style shooting and a textured screenplay and then follows eponymous virgin-surgeon Victor (Victor Rasuk) and his embattled Latino clan over one momentous and hormonally challenged summer.

Bodysong

Innovative, much admired collage documentary about mankind's physical journey from cradle to grave, culled from 100 years of archive footage by Simon Pummell and graced with an avant-rock score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood. Bodysong is hypnotically beautiful in small doses, even if Pummell comes across in the interviews as rather too pleased with a cod-profound idea which, in any case, Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass pioneered much more convincingly 20 years ago in Koyaanisqatsi.

The Boost

When we rave about the force of nature that is James Woods, we tend to neglect this cautionary 1988 Harold Becker tale of how cocaine destroys the careers and marriage of a silver-tongued salesman and his wife (Sean Young, with whom, notoriously, Woods had a history). We shouldn't: it absolutely rocks, with Woods in his element as a cocky crack-up waiting to happen. And then, explosively, happening. Electric.

This Month In Americana

Superior then-and-now compilation ensures the circle remains unbroken
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