Reviews

The Crowded House siblings back together for the first time in nine years

Limited theatrical re-release of modern classic ahead of forthcoming DVD special edition

The ingredients are there: Nicolas Winding Refn (Pusher) directs John Turturro and James Remar in a (minimal) script by the late Hubert Selby Jr, with Eno scoring. Yet somehow this just doesn't gel as it wades through its slow pretensions. Turturro's a recently widowed security guard, obsessive over photos and CCTV as he seeks his wife's killer. Intelligent, but rather drab.

Wong Kar-Wai's quirky, impressionistic Hong Kong masterpiece reissued

This frustrating compilation trawls the archives from the early '40s to the late '80s to assemble 20 of the divine Miss Lee's greatest film and TV performances. While some clips are understandably washed-out, Lee's wide-ranging voice is black-coffee-and-honey throughout. What lets the set down is the decision to cut gushing tributes from celebrity fans into the performances. That aside, fine stuff.

Legendary 'bootleg' recording of the Velvets on home turf, taped just before Lou Reed went home to mama and then became the godfather of gory glam

Soft-pop group so good Stereolab named a song after them

First album of joint material since 1976's Whistling Down The Wire

Southern gothic via Manchester

Following the success of 2003's inaugural compilation, the follow-up sways to the same delicious white-boy groove. The cream of '60s/'70s southern country is here—from Tony Joe White to Dan Penn—torn between smalltown escape and pining for home. White's "High Sheriff Of Calhoun Parish" drifts in on a haze of woodsmoke; Bobby Gentry's "Fancy" is stifling humidity personified; Townes Van Zandt gets alarmingly funky on the early "Black Widow Blues" (1966); Shirl Milete's "Big Country Blues" is a lyrical feast.