Reviews

Greenaway has more than once been known to disappear up his own aesthetics, but this collection of his short films plays to his strengths, tolerating little tedium. Disc One includes six films exploring his constant themes, from A Walk Through H (numbers, maps, the afterlife) to Windows (37 people fall through windows to their deaths). Disc Two features the obsessive Vertical Features Remake and The Falls (92 mini-biogs), and is—if you're in the mood—monumental like video art pioneer Bill Viola.

With barely a nod to the notion of storyline, this is another loud, brash series of MTV sketches, big on energy, little on brain. Somehow the idea of three scantily-clad chicks getting along okay with each other is pitched as pop-feminist empowerment. Diaz, Barrymore and Liu kick ass and chew scenery; Demi Moore is freakish; the (great) soundtrack rides roughshod over everything. Candy floss.

Who'd have thought after the debacle of Velvet Goldmine that Todd Haynes' next film would be as clever, meaningful and powerfully resonant as this masterpiece of stylised social commentary? In the 1950s, the expatriate German director Douglas Sirk directed a series of Hollywood films that at the time were sniffily known as "women's pictures", which only later were recognised as brilliantly crafted satires, as sharply observed as novels like Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates' classic dissection of the Eisenhower years.

Non-stop erotic cabaret singer goes East to form Buena Vista Socialist Club

Marvellously convoluted virtuoso mayhem

Second album from junkyard-cowboy Manchester quartet

Classy comeback from former Cream man

Best Of for envelope-pushing dance trio

The best of compilation: a time to reflect upon a career, including even the early mishaps that eventually shape one's body of work. That's how it should be, anyway. It's telling reflection on the control freakery and uptight nature of Primal Screen that they've chosen, like some pampered footballer or insecure soap star, to relate a sanitised autobiography with Dirty Hits, ignoring their early but substantial first recordings as both fey indie janglers and one-dimensional rockers.

Vampire road movie leads nowhere