Reviews

Dark, character-driven tale told from three angles

The 1961 multiple Oscar-winner may have stagey settings, Natalie Wood's singing dubbed, and a well-meant but muffed 'message', yet it crackles with wit and panache. The Jets fight The Sharks while pirouetting, Romeo and Juliet (Tony and Maria) coo amid the washing lines, and every Bernstein song's a humdinger with sizzling Sondheim lyrical gags. Cosily cool.

You can't move these days for quality American TV dramas—Six Feet Under, The Badge, Boomtown, 24, the increasingly amazing Alias—so it says a lot for the enduring genius of David Chase's Mob epic that it remains the most compelling of the current generation of TV imports. Series Four was as frightening and funny as anything that preceded it, and was especially notable for its treatment of the darkening relationship between James Gandolfini and Edie Falco. The episode where Tony snuffs Ralphy is unbelievable.

Pre-Star Wars, '70s Hollywood loved its post-apocalyptic sci-fi dystopias—think The Omega Man, Rollerball and Logan's Run. With a brilliant cast—Charlton Heston, Edward G Robinson in his final role—and a superbly ghoulish twist, few come bleaker or better than this.

Hollywood's favourite French actress takes unconvincing stab at musical stardom

Rough Trade bands celebrate the label's 25th birthday by covering songs from the catalogue

Initially dazzling, largely frustrating 11th from moustachioed Swiss electro duo

White city blues on the rocks

Engagingly oddball debut from erstwhile member of Add N To (X)

Mining the same classical chamberpop as contemporaries Procul Harum, Alex Spyropoulos' and Patrick Campbell-Lyons' charges cut... Simon Simopath in 1967, a science-fiction pantomime a-flutter with silken strings and baroque delicacy. Part Greek myth, part L Ron Hubbard. Even better was follow-up All Of Us, though—with the exception of "Rainbow Chaser"—it failed to ignite a public weaned on less fragile acid fare.