Reviews

Startling documentary about an American family torn apart by sexual scandal

Inventor of Britpop wallows gloriously on 'suicide standards' twofer

Second album from '60s NY oddball, aka piano man Stephen Friedland

Sparse, subdued third solo album from Muses/Belly survivor

Naggingly arresting indie intricacy

Charity worker makes enchanting debut

Over a decade of witty, cinematic pop from Manchester's Becker & Fagen

Hagiography of gangsta rap's most potent icon

Anthony Minghella's Civil War epic has plenty of razzle: spectacular opening sequence; deserter Jude Law's trans-American journey to Nicole Kidman; leery sheriff Ray Winstone; doughty Calamity Jane farmhand Renée Zellweger; and a plethora of star cameos. And yet, bar some early 'war is hell' pomposity, it's a disappointingly hollow experience

San Francisco, 1969: do enough acid and anything is possible. A gaggle of (mostly) gay freaks and flower children (and latterly, disco diva-to-be Sylvester) become the Cockettes, a utopian, ragged-arsed theatre troupe who wow the West Coast but flop in NY. This funny, moving doc eventually unravels in a roll call of deaths, both drug and AIDS-related. They were stardust, but all too briefly.