Reviews

True story of controversial Australian murder trial

When filing clerks answer back

A contemporary coming-of-ager about a fiery 12-year-old Maori girl (Keisha Castle-Hughes) and her bid for the hyper-masculine tribal throne, Whale Rider is full of apposite Disney pluck, yet simultaneously shot through with a worthy, odd and inexorably cloying adoration of the mystical juju in Maori tradition.

A strange one, this, with Bowie's usually obsessive control seemingly relaxed enough to have allowed packaging that looks cheap and hurriedly slung-together. The content, though, is better—a straight documentary, punctuated with live and video clips, and interview snippets with Bowie, Iman, Iggy Pop, Trent Reznor and Moby. There's lots of rare early stuff but, for all his eloquence, the music does the talking best of all.

Six tracks of bliss from new singer-songwriter

Debut album from spiritual kin of Grandaddy and Flaming Lips

Second album from the stentorian UK rapper, the Harry Secombe to Roots Manuva's Spike Milligan

The songs The Beatles gave away rediscovered

That so little of Bill Withers' catalogue is available domestically is nothing short of scandalous; someone at Sony (who also own the four superb early Sussex albums) should be beaten soundly. Still Bill did slip out here a few months ago, but with little fanfare, and now that and his 1971 debut, Just As I Am, produced by Booker T Jones, appear on Australian label Raven.

Minghella's Civil War saga aims high