Reviews

Exquisitely bittersweet, pain-blasted country-rock from America's West Coast

Comprehensive 'official bootleg' four-CD set compiled by Robbie Krieger

They do everything else with sickening panache, but the French have never got to grips with the slasher flick, which makes this back-to-basics horror as unexpected as it is violent. A sexy teen (Cécile De France) is invited to the family home of her best friend (Maïwenn Le Besco) out in the French equivalent of redneck country. She meets mum, dad and little brother, night falls, a rusty old van pulls up outside, a fat bloke gets out and starts graphically raping and killing everyone. No intellectual chit-chat here, then.

Bright, polished but ultimately lightweight Britcom about a forbidden romance between a London girl of Indian parents (Preeya Kalidas) and a white English boy (James McAvoy), Jeremy Wooding and former NME editor Neil Spencer's debut feature rehashes a bog-standard culture-clash plot. The incorporation of Hindi film song-and-dance numbers into a naturalistic story is a nice touch, but at heart this is the kind of creaky yarn that might have made a generic TV drama at best.

Innovative, much admired collage documentary about mankind's physical journey from cradle to grave, culled from 100 years of archive footage by Simon Pummell and graced with an avant-rock score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood. Bodysong is hypnotically beautiful in small doses, even if Pummell comes across in the interviews as rather too pleased with a cod-profound idea which, in any case, Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass pioneered much more convincingly 20 years ago in Koyaanisqatsi.

When we rave about the force of nature that is James Woods, we tend to neglect this cautionary 1988 Harold Becker tale of how cocaine destroys the careers and marriage of a silver-tongued salesman and his wife (Sean Young, with whom, notoriously, Woods had a history). We shouldn't: it absolutely rocks, with Woods in his element as a cocky crack-up waiting to happen. And then, explosively, happening. Electric.

Superior then-and-now compilation ensures the circle remains unbroken

Premier league rap producer makes his dazzling solo debut

Mixed bag from McGuinn's immediate post-Byrds career

Moody Blues man's mid-'70s missives, produced mostly during the group's five-year break