Reviews

Very early Hendrix tapes dusted down by his sax mate

DIRECTED BY Jonathan Mostow STARRING Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Claire Danes, Kristanna Loken Opened August 1, Cert 12A, 109 mins So far, 2003 has been heaving with lacklustre sci-fi epics. Enter the joker in the mega-budget pack: Terminator 3, the sequel no one wanted to see, starring an ageing icon 10 years past his best and directed by someone nobody's heard of.

Tom DiCillo's fascination with the chasm between talent and celebrity comes to the fore in this mischievously smart relationship comedy. New Yorkers Matthew Modine and Catherine Keener are drifting apart; when aspiring thespian Modine is fired from a role as an extra in a Madonna video, he hits rock bottom. Bitingly brilliant, with cameos from Steve Buscemi and Daryl Hannah. DVD EXTRAS: Scene selection. (CR)

"The night has its price," mysterious blonde Jenny Wright tells Adrian Pasdar's hapless Oklahoma farm boy before giving him a love bite and dragging him off on the road with her Mansonesque 'family' of white-trash serial-killer vampires—headed by a fantastic, dead-eyed Lance Henriksen. Kathryn Bigelow's genre-bending mix of horror, western and Southern gothic drags blood sucking into the modern world. One of the best horror movies of the last 20 years.

Stunningly dark, neurotic and indeed erotic drama from the matchless Nic Roeg who, in 1980, was flying. Set in Vienna, it traces the tangled affair between the passionate Theresa Russell and the deadpan (and very subtle) Art Garfunkel, with Harvey Keitel looking on suspiciously. Riddled with narrative and stylistic flash and mad degeneracy, somehow Roeg makes it stick. DVD EXTRAS: Trailer, scene selection.

Veteran UK shoegazers go global

Glam rock titans with strings attached

Former 10,000 Maniac gal's long-mooted collection of traditional and contemporary folk songs

For those partial to electro-jazz-funk

Dizzee Rascal is the best rapper this country's ever produced, period. His words are as sharp as prime Tricky, his delivery sharper; he's got bags more personality than anybody in the British rap scene. These local comparisons add up to faint praise, though, so how about this: 18-year-old, East London-bred Dizzee Rascal is as good as any MC currently active on Earth. Every UK garage MC brags about how his style's unique, and virtually every MC does it using the same flow and timbre.