Brooklynite Jon DeRosa's outfit are deceptive. At face value, PHAR offer little more than a sad shuffle, the odd cracked waltz and scattered flurries of noise. But give it time and these trampled-heart melodies burrow under the skin. Last year's Uncut-endorsed These Are The New Good Times was DeRosa's stoned-slacker take on slo-mo country mores, but here he broadens the palette with the addition of Low collaborator Marc Gartman as co-songwriter and ex-Mercury Rev pedal-steeler Gerald Menke.
Henry Hathaway's Nevada Smith takes one of the characters from Harold Robbins' Hollywood potboiler The Carpetbaggers (filmed by Edward Dmytryk two years earlier, with Alan Ladd in the role) and wraps an entire movie round him. Steve McQueen stars as the young Smith, a half-breed cowboy hellbent on tracking down his parents' killers. Beautifully shot by Lucien Ballard, McQueen is as quietly hypnotic as ever.
Ken Russell's 1975 adaptation of The Who's rock opera cast Roger Daltrey as the deaf, dumb and blind boy who finds enlightenment, but downplayed the mysticism in favour of addled Freudian guff. It's a real mish-mash, with some truly embarrassing moments (Paul Nicholas, for one), but is redeemed by the performances of Ann-Margret and Oliver Reed, interesting cameos from Elton John and Tina Turner, and a stylish sense of design.
