Reviews

Nouvelle Vague-inspired camerawork plus a searing central turn from Carol White remain supremely effective in Ken Loach's 1965 teleplay about naïve bride Cathy (White) and her descent into poverty. The tone occasionally veers into public service hysteria, especially after the Capitalist State Apparatus removes Cathy from her tenement, fires her husband and steals her children. A landmark British film nonetheless.

The medium-defining shibboleth that induces paroxysms of adulation from film critics (but not filmgoers), Citizen Kane has become, in its inviolable immensity, the cinematic equivalent of its own overbearing protagonist, Charles Foster Kane. Yes, the 25-year-old Orson Welles' direction is astounding. Yes, Welles and Herman Mankiewicz's screenplay is a pointed satire of paper baron William Randolph Hearst. Yes, Gregg Toland's deep-focus cinematography is sumptuous. Yes, Bernard Herrmann's score is eerily ominous.

Ulu Grosbard's sombre noir revolves around the infamous Black Dahlia murder that gripped 1940s Los Angeles. With Roberts De Niro and Duvall excellent as brothers caught up in the case—respectively, a repressed but ambitious priest, and a hardbitten homicide cop who suspects his sibling knows more than he should—it aims for a dark, sweeping resonance pitched somewhere between Chinatown and L.A. Confidential.

Cardiff indie fusioneers' sixth album has all the usual humour and beauty

Confident reworking of historical protest songs by anarcho-punksters

Full-length debut from Australia's acclaimed dreampop/nu-country combo

Norwegian newcomer has lullabies to soothe but leaves an itch that needs scratching

The rapturous return of Commander Ferry and the finest space age rock band in the universe

Second volume of Byrds-related oddities, curios, rarities and essentials

Magical coming-of-age tale