Aqua

Rock Bottom, Ruth Is Stranger Than Fiction and more

The Louisville recluse delivers a triumphant live album from his 2006 British tour. Not so dark

Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico talk about new LP

Dandy Warhols, Bat For Lashes and more take part for charity

And they're bringing Howlin' Rain along, too!

You may have noticed that the big movie for this Christmas period is The Golden Compass, a $90 million adaptation of the first volume of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. It's got talking bears, witches on broomsticks and Nicole Kidman, as the film's villain, Mrs Coulter. It's the best performance in a film that has many surprisingly smart casting choices (Tom Courtenay, Daniel Craig, Jim Carter, Derek Jacobi), despite its rather hamfisted handling of the source material.

Three brothers. On a train. In India..

And considering the competition -- Spider-Man 3, Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End -- that takes some beating. Admittedly, last week saw something of a bumper crop of UNCUT friendly movies (The Assassination Of Jesse James, American Gangster, The Darjeeling Limited), but all the same -- Across The Universe is a truly dreadful film.

The arrival of a new Wes Anderson film is pretty much always a cause for celebration in the UNCUT office. He's a master of dry, melancholic comedies and a meticulous visual stylist, with a fine ear for music and who's surrounded himself with a peerless roster of actors -- Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and Gene Hackman among them -- who faultlessly bring his peculiar, poignant stories to life. It's perhaps emblematic of Anderson's universe that, in the production notes handed out at last night's press screening for The Darjeeling Limited, Anjelica Huston describes her character in the film as "something of an action hero nun." I am also warned, half-seriously, by the film's press officer to prepare for the continuous use of Peter Sarstedt's ballad "Where Did You Go To (My Lovely)" over the soundtrack. Oh, and Bill Murray crops up for the opening five minutes in a mute cameo.

The International Festival de Benicassim is over, and we're back in a grisly ill-weathered England - craving sunshine, and the return of destroyed brain cells... Muse, closed the Fib festival with great space rock aplomb - the soaring nature of the trio combined with their spectacular video projections that included giant marching robots and melted acid-like views from the stage - proved to be amazing.