Reviews

Carla Bozulich – I’m Gonna Stop Killing

A companion piece to last year's sensual reimagining of Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger, Bozulich's latest offers two tasters from there ("Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain"; "Can I Sleep In Your Arms?", with Nelson duetting) alongside the outré experimentalism of her live work. The ex-Geraldine Fibber revisits both 1997's "Arrow To My Drunken Eye" and the epic "Outside Of Town", sharding them with amplified strings, dissonant guitar and a voice like velvet studded with razor blades.

AC Newman – The Slow Wonder

New Pornographer jumps into classic singer-songwriter stream head first

French Letters

Succinct and soothing second album by Parisian quartet

The Bees – Free The Bees

Pure pop perfectionists have got a ticket to Ryde and they don't care

Eddie Hinton – Playin’ Around: The Songwriting Sessions (Vol 2)

Final demos of Alabama's doomed blue-eyed soul boy

Electronic System – Disco Machine

Telex chap's 1977 Moog-driven disco mini album

Horse Opera

Brad Pitt grabs a shield and gets all mythological

Pure

Ten-year-old Paul (Harry Eden) is at home in a world of pimps and pushers, bargain basement hookers and fly-blown market cafés. He has to be—since his widowed mother traded mourning for a regular numbing dose of heroin, it's been Paul who has kept the family running, even if that means fetching Mummy her 'medicine'. Gillies Mackinnon's drama is admittedly bleak, but excellent performances and restrained direction make this a rewarding, if heart-wrenching, experience.

Classic Monster Collection

A triple bill of iconic horror: Boris Karloff's Frankenstein's monster, Bela Lugosi's Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr's Wolfman. Admittedly creaky, these black-and-white chillers from the '30s and '40s still boast amazing gothic sets, mesmerising atmosphere and some riveting performances. More enchanting than scary, the best of them—James Whale's 1931 Frankenstein—appears here in its uncut form.

Reservoir Dogs: Special Edition

Timely reminder, in the midst of all the Kill Bill hyperbole, of true balls-to-the-wall Tarantino talent—that sickly mint-green warehouse, those black suits, that red blood, the infectious music, the terrifying Hawksian machismo and, mostly, that dialogue: witty and crude, poignant and allusive, naturalistic and downright poetic. Nothing less than genius.
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