Reviews

The late Tupac Shakur won't lie down, or be allowed to. This documentary (just released in the US) is struggling to get a UK release, but the album's an impressive mix of grave-robbing and creative necrophilia. Over a foundation of greatest hits, there are three new tracks. Eminem produces "Runnin' (Dying To Live)", which fuses 2Pac and Biggle, while the 8 Mile animal himself raps on "One Day At A Time".

Shambling indie pop may be rather passé these days, but The Pastels have skilfully rebranded themselves and their associates as something akin to naïve artists. Central to this endeavour are Maher Shalal Hash Baz, a sprawling Japanese group who record for the Pastels' Geographic imprint and who pivot on Tori Kudo, a potter and former terrorist currently operating as a kind of whimsical Sun Ra. Recorded in East Kilbride, Blues Du Jour captures Kudo's haphazard troupe at their most accessible and endearing.

Roll over Jack Nitzsche and tell Bill Medley the news. Two dozen quality excursions into Echo Chamber Music

The shoegazing revival starts here. Apparently

OPENS NOVEMBER 14, CERT 15, 102 MINS Ann (Sarah Polley) is 23 and works as a night cleaner. She lives in a trailer home in her mother's backyard, along with two young daughters and an unemployed husband. She also, it turns out, has inoperable cancer, and a matter of months to live. And while on paper that might sound like Terms Of Endearment on a budget, this beautifully judged Canadian picture (produced by Pedro and Agustin Almodóvar) couldn't be further from the mawkishness of a Hollywood weepy. What lifts the film is the powerful, dignified performance from Polley.

Acclaimed Danish film-makers do battle

In June 1988, Depeche Mode took their stadium techno roadshow to ground-breaking heights by filling the 65,000-capacity Pasadena Rose Bowl near LA. Captured by the legendary rock-doc maestro DA Pennebaker and his long-term partner Chris Hegedus, the show became a fine concert film, incorporating reality TV-style coverage of fans travelling to the gig. Repackaged with extra footage, audio commentaries and updated interviews, it's a handsome historical record of Wagnerian electro-pop and hair gel abuse.

Truly wonderful Japanese black comedy about a nice family who open a quiet B&B in the mountains, only to watch all their guests accidentally perish in increasingly macabre ways. Utterly barking stuff, this has something for everyone—surreal musical numbers with dancing zombies, claymation sequences and an exploding volcano! With movies like this around, who needs drugs?

Press faves deliver diamond-hard art-pop

Breathtaking third album from Brixton house heroes. Mad, actually