Reviews

Already a boys' own classic, Kevin MacDonald's award-winning doc about two foolhardy Brit mountaineers scaling the 21,000ft Andean peak of Peru's Siula Grande is almost hideously gripping. Brilliantly paced, Touching The Void re-enacts the climb—and the descent, more to the point—with actors Brendan Mackey and Nicholas Aaron. But much of the drama lies in the memories of climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, the interviews with whom are candid and vulnerable.

Alex Cox, maverick writer-director of Repo Man and Walker, on a newly extended version of Sergio Leone's epic

Emerging in 2001, these Detroit brothers lash the hard-livin' loucheness to traditional country ache. Frontman/songwriter Kurt Marschke's wail is Jaggeresque and there's lonesome balladry aplenty ("27 Hours", "Such A Crime") plus enough "Happy"-like fretwork to suggest what might have been had Gram'n'Keef really got it on. "Entitled" pits the sideways chug of The Breeders' "Cannonball" against early Replacements sneer, and dobro/pedal steel player Peter Ballard tints the big skies with a yearning airiness. Seriously impressive.

New York sextet release their hip hop debut, produced by feted duo DFA

1986 album from Tokyo-born but US-based singer-songwriter

The King's penance ignored

Retelling of the Gram Parsons story. Execrable

Ninth-rate martial arts animé about a killer with the mind of a six-year-old child. Frankly, a six-year-old child would have written something more entertaining than this—the only imagination on display here is reserved for the gore and violence, which is accompanied by a great deal of noise but no sense, and even the animation is unimpressively low-rent. Utterly worthless.

This not-as-crap-as-you'd-fear rehash of the much-loved '60s caper, with director F Gary Gray ensuring it isn't all just gung-ho car-chase action, throwing in stylish backdrops and a good joke or two for good measure. A shame, then, that the charisma-free Mark Wahlberg leads, and perhaps they should've opted for a fresh title, but a stellar cast including Ed Norton, Charlize Theron and Donald Sutherland can't be all bad. Lively enough.

Robert Altman's offbeat '70s transposition of Chandler's noir classic