Reviews

Cherished US singer-songwriter back on form

The legend behind such blaxploitation classics as Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, an incalculable influence on Tarantino and Spike Lee, recorded this in 1974. Fundamentally, it's him growling over "funky grooves". A born philosopher, he opines that "A Birth Certificate Ain't Nuthin' But A Death Warrant Anyway", and, after bemoaning the fact that he'll never visit every bar in the world, claims that "between a woman's breast is the thickest thorns you can ever lay your head on". We'll look out for that, Melv. Godlike, of course.

Debut by improvisational guitar god Derek Bailey's new five-piece band

Machine dance from (mostly) European eggheads

The seedbed of punk

Expanded '66 debut by Andover's finest

Frances McDormand impresses in triangular love story set amid the West Coast rock fraternity

Ravaged Irish immigrant family up sticks to New York

Dark, hugely inventive '93 animation from Tim Burton, possibly much too spooky for kids (or probably not, the sick little psychos). The Pumpkin King of Halloween tries to co-opt Christmas; the voices of Catherine O'Hara, Pee-Wee Herman and other disreputable types ooh and aah. Dazzling, macabre and faintly mad, an Oscar nominee for visual effects.

Corporate exploitation, US foreign policy, K-Mart, small-town rednecks, the NRA and Charlton Heston are all in the firing line as shaggy documentarian, and now best-selling author, Michael Moore tackles America's self-destructive gun culture. Mostly witty and irreverent, it's also sporadically profound—see the terrifying slow-mo security footage of the Columbine massacre and Chuck Heston's final broken and bewildered interview.