Reviews

The Ten Commandments: Special Edition

It's very long and extremely po-faced, and most of the performances are pretty wooden, Yul Brynner's imperious pharaoh aside. Even so, Cecil B DeMille's 1956 account of the life of Moses (Charlton Heston) still has some impressive sequences-notably the Exodus from Egypt, with 60,000 extras—and remains the definitive Biblical epic.

Carly Simon

Melodiously laid-back adult pop

Clifford T Ward – No More Rock’N’Roll

1975 album from the late teacher turned crooner

Chet Baker – Chet Baker Quartet Featuring Dick Twardzik

Brilliant session from Baker's tragically short-lived quartet

Reality Bites – RCA

Tenth anniversary "upgrade" with six bonus tracks from the undervalued Ben Stiller film which caught the narcissism of Generation X nicely. These include New Order's "Confusion" and The Trammps' "Disco Inferno", with which there's no arguing. Also, less happily, songs from Ethan Hawke and Lisa Loeb, whose "Stay", from here, was one of the biggest US hits of the mid-'90s. Fine flurries, too, from The Posies, Dinosaur Jr, U2 and Crowded House, plus The Knack's utterly brilliant (you know it) "My Sharona".

Smells Like Teena Spirit

Comeback from woman who should have been Madonna

Dios

Cali pop from Beach Boys' hometown

Trauma

OPENS AUGUST 27, CERT 15, 93 MINS Here's Colin Firth, trying to banish forever the memory of being "television's Mr Darcy", teaming up with Resurrection Man and My Little Eye director Marc Evans to make something edgy and intense, a dark psychological thriller. With ants. Oh, dear. Colin plays Ben, left comatose following a car crash in which his wife died. Recently awoken, he now lives in a Gothicky converted hospital in grim old east London, with nothing but an ant farm for company and Mena Suvari as his neighbour. Ben starts having visions of his dead wife.

Envy

Stiller/Black pairing fails to rescue lacklustre yarn

The Marx Brothers Collection

"O JOY!"IS NOT THE UNIVERSAL response to the idea of a sofa, a bag of toffees, a long weekend and six Marx Brothers movies to sit through. Inexplicably, there are those whose funny bones are immune to the work of Groucho, Harpo and the rest of the crew. When it comes to the Marx brand of sideways lunacy, seems you either get it or you don't. This latest DVD set gathers up A Day At The Races, A Night At The Opera, At The Circus, Go West, The Big Store and A Night In Casablanca.
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