Reviews

Bizarre documentary atmospherically recreating strange events that took place in a small Wisconsin town in the 1890s. Economic depression and an epidemic spark off a succession of murders and suicides, and insanity is rife—most memorably in the form of the cocaine-fuelled Mary Sweeney, who travelled the whole state killing windows. Compelling.

Tori has chosen a surprisingly conventional in-concert format for her first-ever DVD. Recorded in Florida last year, it's an intense performance, the songs drawn mostly from her recent Scarlet's Walk album, augmented by old favourites such as "Cornflake Girl" and "Professional Widow".

Testaments to a tragically obscure talent whose genius flared briefly but brightly

Brian Wilson backs his own backing band

Magnus is a collaboration between Tom Barman of superior Belgian noirists dEUS and heavyweight techno DJ/producer CJ Bolland. The dance/rock hybrid is usually an ugly beast, but The Body... represents a meeting of minds rather than a dilution of disparate talents. Live drums augment programmed beats throughout, while sax, Wurlitzer and sampled film dialogue are added to the mix and members of Belgian bands Evil Superstars and Millionaire guest.

Granted he has been off most people's radar for a generation, but surely the creator of Off The Coast Of Me, the man without whom there would be, arguably, no Prince, and, unarguably, no Andre 3000 (imagine "Hey Ya!" as a Kid Creole comeback smash in a parallel world), deserves better than the horrible, cheap, synthetic horns and bargain basement drum machines which dominate and desecrate this new album. Or perhaps not.

Two Texans plus two Mancunians equals the best debut album of 2004

Made-in-Taiwan teen flick

David Fincher's homage to Hitchcock (the North By Northwest title sequence, Howard Shore's score, the Rope/Vertigo-like apartment-as-stage conceit) finds Jodie Foster as the beleaguered mum trying to stay one step ahead of Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam and Jared Leto's housebreakers

The idea of Ralph Fiennes' sibling shooting a doc about God and guns in South Central LA is inherently tiresome. But, in fact, Sophie F manages to get inside the soul of this torn community. Grace Jones' pastor brother Noel is as fake as any pulpit rhetorician, but his Hoover Street church is a revival of hope.