Clash

The Clash, Stones, Blur artwork also to feature on 10 new stamps

This year's London Film Festival kicks off next Wednesday (October 14) for 2 weeks. As usual, there's a ton of UNCUT friendly films screening, plus a particularly strong selection of music documentaries. So, for those of you umming and ahhing about what you might go and see, let us make some suggestions...

Smartly subversive rom-com, with plenty of Smiths references

In issue 3 of the unfortunately short-lived UNCUT DVD, we ran a piece called The Curse Of The Mullets. It was a particularly funny account of the scandalous fall from grace of the Brat Pack actors and the whirl of sex-tapes, alcoholism, drug busts and straight-to-video hell that engulfed them following their mid-Eighties peak. As hilarious as the piece was, it feels somehow emblematic of the way these films, and their stars, have become viewed over the last quarter of a century. Which, sadly, detracts from the importance of those films and the achievements of the man behind them – John Hughes, who has just died at the age of 59.

Saluting Jamaica’s professors of sound

Latitude closed tonight with headline sets from two of America’s greatest dance bands.

I’d been telling anyone who’d listen over the last few weeks and more in the build-up to Latitude that New Jersey’s The Gaslight Anthem in the right circumstances might be the surprise hit of the festival, especially after headline-grabbing sets at Glastonbury and Hyde Park, where they were joined onstage by Bruce Springsteen, who in turn had Anthem frontman Brian Fallon share the spotlight with him and the E Street Band on “No Surrender”.

True grit! The desert-bluesers’ fourth is raw, and all the better for it

“Somebody better get me a fucking elevator. I’m fucking 60!” Here’s Bruce Springsteen huffing and panting into his microphone, during “Out In The Street”. He's just pulled himself up from a prone position at the top of a set of steps that lead from the stage to the pit, and the audience beyond. Later, during “Born To Run”, he’ll actually end up on his back at the top of those stairs, calling to Miami Steve Van Zandt to help him up.

The E Street band play another mammoth set night after Glastonbury