Reviews

More eclectic Eastern punk from label that brought us Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her

Swiftly-recorded follow-up from scuzz-rock trio

Narrative 10-song cycle about a fictional clan is Young's best work in a while

Seminal rap duo makes compelling claim on cutting-edge supremacy

The Cult of Bill gathers pace, nine years after the rock'n'roll comic's death

Some imagined that by Avalon, Roxy Music had degenerated into non-ironic AOR. But the sounds on this, the biggest-selling album of their career, are as avant-garde as anything they'd ever done, just more subtle, Ferry having exchanged art attack for ambient seduction. Remember this came out in spring 1982, as New Pop was peaking—it's as if the Godfather had returned to show the rookies how elegant isolation should really be expressed. Throughout there are expressions of Ferry's uncertainty, plus evidence they'd been listening to Joy Division and Jan Garbarek.

Intriguing animated African folk tale

Mildly engaging Mexican comedy concerning female empowerment; a kind of My Big Lardy Greek Wedding for liberals. Should our heroine work to feed the poor folks, or follow her dream of further education? Will she learn that true beauty comes from within and body size isn't everything as we arrive at the dénouement? At least it hasn't got Rosie Perez screeching through it.

Written and directed by the perennially underrated French-Canadian Denys Arcand, this engrossing 1989 fable sees Lothaire Bluteau as an actor playing Jesus who's caught up in conflict with the church. His problems begin to echo those of the Biblical Christ. Oscar-nominated, the dry, ironic style gives it a wry resonance more effective than any breast-beating.

Brian De Palma's taken several critical and box office beatings in his erratically compelling career, but Femme Fatale's straight-to-video UK release must mark an all-time low for him. Not that the film deserves much better—it's glossy tosh, a supposedly erotic crime thriller about deceit and redemption in which De Palma lavishly indulges his stylistic obsessions to very little purpose. Painfully poor work from a great director.