Reviews

South Korean blockbuster that sank Titanic

A labour of love—or perhaps of jealousy—for writer/director Yvan Attal, who stars in this French farce as a journalist convinced his movie-star wife's having an affair with Terence Stamp. She's Charlotte Gainsbourg, Attal's real-life wife, so maybe it's all good therapy for him. For the rest of us, it's lively for half an hour, then the frisson fades.

Underrated comedy-drama from Chuck & Buckteam. Jennifer Aniston's fine as a frustrated store-worker who cheats on pothead John C Reilly with Jake Gyllenhaal, in another Holden Caulfield-type role. The feel reminds you of James Mangold before he went shit.

Kathryn Bigelow's Cross Of Iron, basically, with Harrison Ford's Soviet submariners the embattled equivalent of James Coburn's Wehrmacht platoon, both groups of men fighting for their lives in films that perhaps unsurprisingly failed to make a huge impression at the box office. Terrific in parts, with imperious turns from Ford and Liam Neeson, Bigelow handles the action stuff brilliantly though comes close to mawkishness in a tear-stained coda.

Credit Atomic Kitten for one thing—their version of "Eternal Flame" is partially responsible for this Valley High reunion. Susanna Hoffs' acting career (with her mum) is a thing of the past, so the chief Bangle has motivated her crew to come up with an assured, if airbrushed, female power pop disc that's loaded with tooth-kind melodies: "Stealing Rosemary" and "Single By Choice" are instant brain worms. Whether demand for the Bangles' cute Cali cool exists today is open to debate. Hurrah for big hair, anyway.

Oregon rockers graduate from grunge to gadgetry

Dark'n'heavy gem from Swedish gloom merchants

Bristol duo release third album and prove there's life in the old trip hop dog yet

Two-disc collection from Newman's hellish '95 musical

Memphis power pop is such an ever-expanding genre that Big Star's Alex Chilton, the godfather of the scene, must wish he'd taken out copyright. The Scruffs are one of several pre-Replacements acts who tapped into that antsy girls-on-my-mind mood and pursued the blend of melancholia with added rock'n'roll rush to a logical conclusion. Fronted by Stephen Burns, this second Scruffs album (recorded in 1978/9) contains band staples like "Go Faster", "Alice, Please Don't Go" and the post-Flamin' Groovies blood-letting of "Treachery".