David Byrne is best known for his work with Talking Heads, Eno, a smash hit last year with X-Press 2, and his label, Luaka Bop. It's less well-known that he co-wrote the score for The Last Emperor (despite the fact it won him an Oscar) and has worked with theatre experimentalist Robert Wilson.
Young Adam's David MacKenzie makes an impressive directorial debut with this low-key but unpredictable thriller about two travellers who stumble across a strange community in the remote Scottish Highlands. It benefits from a nice mix of quirky humour and quiet menace, plus a sprinkling of the supernatural for good measure. Bleak, but still well worth the journey.
The 1973 story of young fairground worker Jim (David Essex) making it as a pop star on the cusp of the '60s captures the very smell of small-time rock'n'roll dreaming. It ekes real pathos from the bloating of Jim's ego. Keith Moon's his drummer. In the sequel, Jim turns Lizard King, forgets his roots, shags around and gives manager Adam Faith headaches. Great.
The fundamental tension here isn't whether bipolar salesman Barry (Adam Sandler) will end up with doe-eyed English executive Lena (Emily Watson). No, the question here is one of authorship. At a snappy 97 minutes, detailing Sandler's eccentric but essentially loveable dufus, his explosive temper and wacky air-miles scam, it fits neatly into the Sandler lineage. Yet, with Sandler's broader antics leavened by long tracking shots and static arthouse takes, the film is recognisably the work of pop-auteur Paul Thomas Anderson.
