Stats show that Middle America's "mass moral outrage" at Janet's Superbowl boob-bearing came from a noisy couple of hundred. Her career may survive, then, though no thanks to this year's scrappy LP Damita Jo. This gathers all the videos from the last four, the best of which is "That's The Way Love Goes", where she maximises her feline moves, timid voice, and gorgeous loping grooves. But she's definitely in decline.
Robert Altman's wry comedy tackles the origins of modern showbiz and media manipulation in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. Paul Newman plays the legendary 'star' as a bundle of neuroses who more than meets his match when the show is joined by Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts)—a man of principles, unimpressed by the razzamatazz. An enjoyable indictment of Hollywood.
Stunning all-star tribute to country music's first dynasty, produced by John Carter Cash
As musical legacies go, the Carter Family takes some topping. From an obscure 100,000-watt Mexican radio station, the truly seminal recordings of Alvin Pleasant Carter, wife Sara and cousin Maybelle took country to a whole new coast-to-coast American audience in the '30s. As vocal-harmony innovators, they were as vital to the development of bluegrass as Bill Monroe.
