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One Take Only

Directed by Oxide Pang, this was re-edited after his success with The Eye—Pang presumably feeling he could now take more stylistic liberties. The movie concerns a drug dealer who courts disaster by upping the ante to keep his girlfriend from prostitution, and sees Pang grandly messing with timelines, colour and reality. An enjoyable dip in the seedy Bangkok underground.

In This World

Michael Winterbottom veers as far away as imaginable from 24 Hour Party People, proving yet again that he's bizarrely versatile, in this "fictionalised documentary" about two Afghan refugees who flee across Pakistan, Iran and Turkey in an attempt to reach the relative safety of Kilburn High Road. Not an easy watch, it won multiple awards for its grainy worthiness.

The Name Of A River

Seven years in the making, this is Anup Singh's dreamy cinematic tone poem (lots of kites and rivers) based on the life and work of acclaimed Indian film-maker Ritwik Ghatak. Adopting a brave, artistic, and not entirely successful motif, Singh follows two symbolic protagonists, male and female, as they re-enact scenes and themes from Ghatak's seemingly sacred canon.

Pal Joey

Deeply cool 1957 musical based on the feckless chancer of the John O'Hara stories. Who else but Frank Sinatra could play the nightclub crooner who's a heel to not only Rita Hayworth but Kim Novak (both of whose singing was dubbed)? Rodgers & Hart songs, some (though not quite enough) smart-ass dialogue, and Frank in full effect.

Judge Dreads

November 1979. Bob Marley is already stricken with the cancer that will soon kill him. He's in the middle of a US tour that will take in 47 dates in 49 nights. By the time he reaches the Santa Barbara County Bowl, he's exhausted. He looks tired and has a cold he can't shake off. The throb in his cancerous toe is a constant reminder that he's dying. And yet he sounds magnificent.

Six Degrees Of Separation

Director Fred Schepisi attacks John Guare's stageplay, frenetically switching locations and narrators as often as possible in an attempt to movie-ise this intelligent, satirical, wordy account of sociopathic homosexual confidence trickster Will Smith (acting, for real!) and his divisive impact upon a group of pompous, wealthy, middle-aged Upper East Side culturati.

The Man Who Loved Women

Released along with four other François Truffaut films, this '77 piece is one you either love or hate. The auteur's autobiographical protagonist roves around Paris, picking up and ditching a stream of women, musing over what constitutes the perfect female ankle, and philosophising like Woody Allen on opium. Old-school; intense.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds—God Is In The House

A booted and suited Cave looks disarmingly like a door-to-door evangelist in this live French show from 2001. The intensity of his earlier work has of late been tempered by a more pensive, hymn-like calm and it's the latter which is to the fore in a set that concentrates on the No More Shall We Part album. Yet it's older material such as "The Mercy Seat" and "Saint Huck" which provide most of the highlights.

Welcome To The Jungle

Michael Cimino's searing Vietnam War epic stands its ground

Stars In Their Eyes

Tub-thumping story of how America conquered the final frontier
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