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Reviews

Mira Calix – 3 Commissions

Mini album of delicate electronica

The Emperor Machine – Aimee Tallulah Is Hypnotised

First-class heavy-duty sci-fi synth action

Lazyboy – Penguin Rock

Kylie collaborator and Blue Room co-presenter's long promised debut

Le Tigre – This Island

Patchy major label debut from rad-fem electro-punks

Lucie Silvas – Breathe In

Too many cooks mar debut by backing vocalist turned singer-songwriter

Kate Aumonier – Here I Am

Debut album from well-travelled British singer-songwriter

Exorcist: The Beginning

The devil's prequel fails to ignite

THX 1138: The Director’s Cut

George Lucas' debut is a dystopian 1984-style fantasy of a loveless society, starring Robert Duvall. The studio hated it, hacking five minutes out of it (here restored) for its initial 1970 release, but even though bleak and predictable, it's visually breath-taking. Speculate on where Lucas might have gone from here if only he hadn't been waylaid by Wookies.

52 Pick-Up

When blackmailers try extorting businessman Roy Scheider over his fling with a stripper, he thwarts them by telling his wife—so they film the girl being murdered and threaten to frame him. At which point, it gets personal. Although co-scripted by the author, John Frankenheimer's flat 1986 movie is just another unsatisfactory Elmore Leonard adaptation. The dialogue occasionally crackles, but the casting is off and the pace drags enough to let you count the implausibilities.

Wonderland

Muddled, witless look at the notorious 1981 murders on LA's Wonderland Avenue, with an unconvincing Val Kilmer as faded porn star John Holmes, in over his coke-addled head in drug scams and violence. A pale cousin of Boogie Nights, its attempted narrative/ editing tricks flop badly. Kate Bosworth and Lisa Kudrow weep, and there's a scorching soundtrack (lggy, Patti, T.Rex). But kindness to the living exacerbates the mess.
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