Reviews

It's not an exhilarating concert. Even "The Boys Are Back In Town", "Jailbreak", "Waiting For An Alibi" and "Don't Believe A Word" lack lustre, as do Phil Lynott's eyes and the dynamics of the band. The audience is polite, excepting the odd permed headbanger. Uninspiring.

Four under-21s from Tyne & Wear with a sharply cut punk debut

A fetish nurse cover shot that could've been lifted from a Jim Thompson paperback. A regular flicker between white noise and mellow, Jefferson Airplane circa Volunteers melody... It could only be the return of Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley and their incumbent guru Jim O'Rourke. Having squared up as aggravating aural elders, the Youth sound rejuvenated as they alternate between Stoogey metal rattlers like "Pattern Recognition" or the fetish-laden "Dripping Dream" and irate hippie singalongs.

The Texan troubadour tackles the Big Questions

Two-CD compilation of Doug Sahm's pioneering Texan outfit

Compilation of wistful folk delights

...or It Shouldn't Happen To A Baby Seal

The small transit town of Nouadhibou lies between the desert and the sea in the African state of Mauritania. Here, Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako explores the tug between modernity and tradition, adopting an image-heavy poetic style to examine themes of migration and exile, centred around the character of Khatra, a young man caught between two cultures.

Sad, funny and cynical, Billy Wilder's 1970 movie presents a classically Holmesian mystery—a missing person case which ends with the Loch Ness Monster—as cover for an exploration of the great detective's myth, seeking to identify the crippled man behind the machine-like facade. Beautifully shot, the movie was cut by the studio and ignored by critics, but it's gorgeous. Robert Stephens is a complex Holmes, Colin Blakely a most human Watson.

Impeccable 1948 Hollywood swan song from Preston Sturges detailing the destructive effect of marital infidelity on suave millionaire Rex Harrison (brilliantly unhinged). Naturally, there's polished badinage, snappy one-liners and physical comedy aplenty. But it's also curiously dark and modern—see Harrison mutilating his wife with a cut-throat razor, and forcing her to play Russian roulette.