Footage of the stern old art-rockers in their pomp is hideously rare. Wire On The Box counteracts this, a full-length show recorded for German TV before a few dozen polite hippies. The tension is delicious, the music (mainly from 154) fantastic. Best of all, there's the mystique-smashing vision of the young band: gawky, self-conscious, striving cutely for the froideur that only age would bring them.
Charlize Theron earns her Oscar as confused Florida serial killer Aileen Wuornos, not just for looking less attractive but because, after 20 minutes, you forget she's even a woman. So macho is her white-trash lesbian aggressor that you believe Christina Ricci is 'her' arm candy. Both excel as fuck-ups, and Patty Jenkins' script and direction are grim and gristly. Superb.
The duo's 1994 take on Unplugged, which involved recording new material in Morocco and rearranging old Zep songs with Middle Eastern flavours and musicians, was a brave but preposterous conceit. Filmed in a Welsh valley, in a slate quarry and cross-legged with locals in Marrakesh, they're only really credible and incredible in their natural environment—a stage.
