Standing one wintry morning on a bleakish railway station, waiting for his train to work, shy, socially inept Joel surrenders uncharacteristically to a sudden urge to hop an overland in the opposite direction, fetching up subsequently on a windswept beach where he meets blue-haired Clementine?a vivaciously garrulous cross between Annie Hall and Marla in Fight Club.

She’s rowdy, recklessly impulsive, tempestuous. He’s passive, withdrawn, awkward. They are each what the other is not, but there’s a mutual attraction, a feeling of recognition, a hint even that they may have met before, in circumstances neither can quite recall, memory?or the absence of it?becoming a principal issue in this deeply affecting, very funny film about love, delusion, emotional bafflement and the mental unravelling that leads to painful breakdown.

It’s another screenwriting triumph for the prodigiously gifted Charlie Kaufman, directed with visionary panache by Michel Gondry. The pair are well served by a brilliant ensemble cast that includes Jim Carrey as the troubled, lovesick Joel, a revelatory Kate Winslet as the combustible, unpredictable Clementine, an hilarious and touching Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson and Elijah Wood.

The film is too consistently ingenious for convenient pr

It’s 1988 and rising features writer at New Republic magazine Stephen Glass has charm, style, modesty and good looks. Trouble is, his reportage is pure fiction. Billy Ray’s film, based on a true story, juxtaposes two fine performances from Hayden Christensen, who plays Glass as a passive-aggressive manipulator, and Peter Sarsgaard as his editor Chuck Lane.

It’s scripted by David Mamet, but what raises Danny DeVito’s 1992 biopic is Jack Nicholson’s role as the irascible union boss/Mob associate who ‘went missing’ in the ’70s. Charting five decades, from bullying rise in the trucking game in the 30s, through troubles with the Kennedys, to Hoffa’s presumed assassination, it’s an ambitious undertaking, often muddled. Nicholson, though, hidden behind false nose, bulldozes through like Cagney. Neglected, but one of the performances of his career.

Sam Phillips, Joe Esposito and The Crickets lend authority to a doc that includes early footage and snippets of Elvis interviews, although none of his music. Glen Campbell and Kenny Rogers recall The King’s growing isolation and Tom Jones reminisces about Vegas, although the cheese-burger era’s largely ignored.

Footage of the stern old art-rockers in their pomp is hideously rare. Wire On The Box counteracts this, a full-length show recorded for German TV before a few dozen polite hippies. The tension is delicious, the music (mainly from 154) fantastic. Best of all, there’s the mystique-smashing vision of the young band: gawky, self-conscious, striving cutely for the froideur that only age would bring them.

Being among the greatest songwriters of his generation, it must have taken little effort from Davies to cajole Channel 4 into funding his idea for a one-hour TV rock opera back in 1984. Hence this dated and dodgy codswallop about a rapist businessman sharing a train carriage with Tim Roth and Ethel from EastEnders. Cringe!

Filmed last year in the ornate setting of San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall, Boz Scaggs runs through an effortless set of his best-known songs from Lido Shuffle to Low Down. In truth, there’s not a lot to watch other than a bunch of middle-aged musos flexing their jazz and blues chops. But when they enter the zone on such extended work-outs as “Loan Me A Dime”, the effect is transcendental.

Not the definitive doc currently in legal limbo, but an atmospherically filmed record of the Detroit punk pioneers’ Levi’s-sponsored comeback at London’s 100 Club last year. Of the stand-ins for late brothers Rob Tyner and Fred “Sonic”Smith, Lemmy stars, but the celebratory thunder of the surviving trio moves most.

Leaving aside for a moment the issue of whether an unshown TV special from ’68 could capture, as the opening credits suggest, “the spontaneity, aspirations and communal spirit of an entire era” any more accurately than, say, Catweazle or Do Not Adjust Your Set, and regardless of whether you think Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed are the fulcrum points of a generation or just something that music critics of a certain age should learn to get over, the portents of this cryogenically preserved moment in rock time are undeniable. Look! There’s Brian Jones in his twilight; puffy-faced, baggy-eyed, pilled and paunchy, just months from death. There’s Keith Richards’ priceless flicker of polite disdain when Yoko gets up on stage to wail along with hubby and heavy friends. There’s Lennon himself, caught at the precise moment he stopped writing songs about acid-ennui and started writing them about smack-ennui instead. And at the centre of it all there’s ringmaster Jagger, presiding over proceedings in his best gorblimey-gargled-in-mandrax accent, and staying focused-focused-focused for 36 hours until it’s all done and in the can. Which, of course, is where it remains for nearly 28 years until lan Stewart’s widow cleans out the shed one day and blows the dust off a vital historical document.

The guests run the full gamut from Bagism to Dragism. The opening spot went to Jethro Tull. It was their first big break and they grasped the opportunity with both hands. The name lan Anderson was often exhaled in the same breath as Roland Kirk at the time, and he proved to be as adept a showman as Kirk, too. In fact, with all that eye-rolling, lip-licking, gurning, long john silverism, the Tull frontman, for all his underground status, was as shrewd a manipulator of image as any manufactured bubblegum act of the period. Heard in short bursts, the Tull’s rambunctious jazz Bach’n’boogie has aged surprisingly well.

Next comes the highlight of the show. The Who’s splenetic, intense performance of “A Quick One” was allegedly the reason Rock And Roll Circus sat in the vaults for so long. And it’s undeniable that Pete Townshend’s first erratic truncated try-out at a rock opera grabs the glory. He’s touchingly self-effacing about it all in the DVD interview, but there’s nothing here to dispel the notion that The Who blew the Stones off the stage.

After Taj Mahal’s routine barroom R&B comes Marianne Faithfull. Already wearing the ravages of lost innocence in the cracked voice and the dulled belladonna gaze, she turns in the most beautiful performance of the entire event. Resplendent in a black crepe dress and displayed centre-ring like a lonely ice figurine on a giant cake, she performs her version of Mann-Goffin’s “Something Better”, probably the second best social conscience song to come out of the Brill Building after Carole King’s “The Road To Nowhere”. Which would have been an equally appropriate choice given what lay ahead.

After the obligatory Brit-hippie exotica from model Donyale Luna, all throbbing bongos and writhing flesh (very Powis Sq), Messrs Clapton, Lennon and Richards, aka Dirty Mac, do their supersession bit. The pernicious, tangible influence of king heroin once again hangs like an LA fog over proceedings. Great version of “Yer Blues”, though.

Which brings us to the hosts. Clearly this isn’t the Stones’ best ever live performance. Jagger’s intros and interjections are frequently forced and uninspired. A perfunctory “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” just about reaches something approaching urgency by the final verse. The rendition of “Parachute Woman” is equally so-so. Thankfully, things pick up a bit after that. Brian Jones manages some delicate slide work on “No Expectations”, and Jagger’s flirting, taunting interaction with the girls in the front row finally comes alive. “You cannot always get the man that you want honey,” he teases, as the girls wear their best “Ooh, isn’t he awful” demeanors. Meanwhile Jones throws gallows shapes. On “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” he sounds like he’s had his amp turned down. On “Sympathy For The Devil” he’s reduced to rattling maracas. From founder member and seeker of the holy Delta grail to proto-Bez in just five years.

It all ends with a mass sway-along to “Salt Of The Earth”. Altamont is just a shot away.