Reviews

Hank Williams – Come September

Portrait of a tragic country genius

Show Me The Money

Two CDs of remixes from the eternally bloody-minded Richard D James

TV Sinners

Schrader returns with lusty temptations of small-screen chancer

The Three Musketeers – The Four Musketeers

Dick Lester's faithful two-part version of Dumas' adventure tale has truly imaginative action sequences, a cracklingly witty screenplay by George MacDonald Fraser, swashbuckling heroes (Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay), OTT villains (Faye Dunaway, Christopher Lee), a fantastic supporting cast (everyone from Charlton Heston to Spike Milligan) and a visibly huge budget. Wonderful stuff.

Kissing Jessica Stein

Riding the ever-popular straight-man-gay-world comedy wave (see Happy, Texas, Three To Tango, In And Out), debut writers, actors and co-producers Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Juergensen add a distaff twist with their tale of a bi-curious gallery manager and her impulsive fling with a neurotic Jewish copy editor. The lines are witty, the nods to Annie Hall ubiquitous, though the resolution is strangely conservative.

Yes—Yes Years

Yes Years chronicles the band's career from the late '60s through to their '90s reunion via two hours of archive footage and interviews. Greatest Video Hits is more focused and concentrates on the late '70s and '80s when Trevor Horn and Buggles bizarrely joined the line-up. It's easy to scorn Yes' pretension, but Yes Years reminds us that the early material at least boasted some great tunes.

Medium 21 – Killings From The Dial

Young English heirs to The Flaming Lips

Use Your Delusion

Twenty-first album from America's startlingly original lord of lo-fi

The Hidden Cameras – The Smell Of Our Own

Self-styled "gay church folk music" from Toronto

Smallville – Eastwest

The fastest-growing TV show in the US, wherein tales of a young Superman are accompanied by a radio-soft blend of American rock, from Remy Zero's theme to Ryan Adams' "Nuclear". Von Ray's "Inside Out" is the spit of Nickelback, and the new single. Best thing here by a mile is The Flaming Lips' "Fight Test", the opening track of what's been described in these pages as the greatest album since Best Of Jesus Christ Volume One. It's lovely, but owes an extraordinary debt to the Cat Stevens song "Father To Son".
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