Reviews

Lali Puna – Faking The Books

Third fantastic album by the Swiss glitch situationists

Summer Hymns – Value Series Vol 1: Fool’s Gold

Athens, GA septet deliver eloquently dreamscaped stopgap LP

Super Furry Animals – Phantom Phorce

Welsh neo-psych gang's most recent album gets the remix treatment

Various Artists – Folk Roots: A Classic Anthology Of Song

Essentially a Transatlantic label sampler of folksy recordings from the '60s and '70s

Torque

Smarter-than-it-looks biker flick

The Tenant

Filmed in '76, the conclusion to Roman Polanski's evil-rooms trilogy returns to the urban paranoia and fracturing psyches of Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby. Polanski—who'd just taken up residence in France—himself plays the vulnerable, mouse-like new occupant of a forlorn Paris apartment, whose creeping schizophrenia grows as he feels himself falling under the influence of the previous resident, a female suicide victim. A perverse slow-dazzle.

The Horse Soldiers

Another Cavalry Movie from Ford, and this time Johnny Reb's in the firing line as Yankee Colonel Wayne leads his troops on a demolition mission and kidnaps feisty southern belle Constance Towers. Here Ford's portentous 'Civil War is Hell' message doesn't quite gel with his trademark tomfoolery-drunken gags, funny fistfights and casual misogyny. The resulting film is strangely blank.

Blood Shot

Stunningly underrated, ferocious portrait of Wild Bill Hickok

Polly Paulusma – Scissors In My Pocket

Astonishingly mature debut from Britain's brainiest new singer-songwriter

Big Fish – Sony Classical

Danny Elfman looks like winning big awards for Big Fish, his sumptuous score for Tim Burton's best film. His track record—Men In Black, Good Will Hunting, Spider-Man—suggests they might even decide it's his turn for an Oscar. Supporting his work here is a stream of era-evoking pop songs from Elvis ("All Shook Up"), Buddy Holly ("Everyday"), Bing Crosby, The Allman Brothers and Canned Heat. And—perhaps incongruously—a new Pearl Jam track, "Man Of The Hour".
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