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The Company

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112 minutes of Robert Altman's floaty, wispy ambient eavesdropping in the company of Chicago's Joffrey Ballet, with producer/star Neve Campbell drifting into dance numbers, performing a few grands jetes, drifting out again, snogging non-dancing co-star James Franco, then it's back to the real troupe, dancing, rehearsing, then dancing again. A test for even the most ardent Altman fan.

112 minutes of Robert Altman’s floaty, wispy ambient eavesdropping in the company of Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet, with producer/star Neve Campbell drifting into dance numbers, performing a few grands jetes, drifting out again, snogging non-dancing co-star James Franco, then it’s back to the real troupe, dancing, rehearsing, then dancing again. A test for even the most ardent Altman fan.

The Apple

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While the US administration portray. Iran as hostile to culture and dissent, Samira Makhmalbaf's films suggest otherwise. Her 1997 debut, made when she was 17, tells the story of the Naderi family (played by themselves), whose daughters were kept unwashed and imprisoned until they were 12. Simple, painterly, weirdly engaging, it subtly reveals that excessive faith and the repression of women are outmoded concepts even in that 'axis-of-evil' capital Tehran.

While the US administration portray. Iran as hostile to culture and dissent, Samira Makhmalbaf’s films suggest otherwise. Her 1997 debut, made when she was 17, tells the story of the Naderi family (played by themselves), whose daughters were kept unwashed and imprisoned until they were 12. Simple, painterly, weirdly engaging, it subtly reveals that excessive faith and the repression of women are outmoded concepts even in that ‘axis-of-evil’ capital Tehran.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

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A 1986 John Hughes charmer which has acquired, over the years, near-legendary status for accidentally pre-empting the "slacker" (lack of) movement. Matthew Broderick and his Chicago buddies play truant, but through quick wits get the wheels and the girls?wish fulfilment for the pre-Nirvana generation. Crisp fun for those who found Pretty In Pink a little too dark and troubling.

A 1986 John Hughes charmer which has acquired, over the years, near-legendary status for accidentally pre-empting the “slacker” (lack of) movement. Matthew Broderick and his Chicago buddies play truant, but through quick wits get the wheels and the girls?wish fulfilment for the pre-Nirvana generation. Crisp fun for those who found Pretty In Pink a little too dark and troubling.

Wonderland

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Muddled, witless look at the notorious 1981 murders on LA's Wonderland Avenue, with an unconvincing Val Kilmer as faded porn star John Holmes, in over his coke-addled head in drug scams and violence. A pale cousin of Boogie Nights, its attempted narrative/ editing tricks flop badly. Kate Bosworth and Lisa Kudrow weep, and there's a scorching soundtrack (lggy, Patti, T.Rex). But kindness to the living exacerbates the mess.

Muddled, witless look at the notorious 1981 murders on LA’s Wonderland Avenue, with an unconvincing Val Kilmer as faded porn star John Holmes, in over his coke-addled head in drug scams and violence. A pale cousin of Boogie Nights, its attempted narrative/ editing tricks flop badly. Kate Bosworth and Lisa Kudrow weep, and there’s a scorching soundtrack (lggy, Patti, T.Rex). But kindness to the living exacerbates the mess.

The Return

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In remotest Russia, a father suddenly returns to the wife and sons he left 12 years earlier, and takes the two boys into the barren countryside on a fishing trip. Whether you read it as psychological thriller or allegory on human existence, Andrei Zvyagintsev's devastating directorial debut has established itself as a modern classic. This elegant film is charged with mystery, and dread that descends like fog.

In remotest Russia, a father suddenly returns to the wife and sons he left 12 years earlier, and takes the two boys into the barren countryside on a fishing trip. Whether you read it as psychological thriller or allegory on human existence, Andrei Zvyagintsev’s devastating directorial debut has established itself as a modern classic. This elegant film is charged with mystery, and dread that descends like fog.

The Fearless Vampire Killers

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Although panned on its 1967 release, Roman Polanski's third English-language movie, a horror comedy, is a delightful oddity. There's a dream-like, gothic quality to it as Prof Abronsius (Jack MacGowran) and assistant Alfred (Polanski) root out a nest of the undead in wintry Transylvania. The climactic Vampire's Ball is strikingly mounted, and it's easy to see how Polanski fell for leading lady Sharon Tate.

Although panned on its 1967 release, Roman Polanski’s third English-language movie, a horror comedy, is a delightful oddity. There’s a dream-like, gothic quality to it as Prof Abronsius (Jack MacGowran) and assistant Alfred (Polanski) root out a nest of the undead in wintry Transylvania. The climactic Vampire’s Ball is strikingly mounted, and it’s easy to see how Polanski fell for leading lady Sharon Tate.

To Live And Die In La

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Ridiculously entertaining car chase and all, William Friedkin's brutal, dumb 1985 crime flick resembles his French Connection resprayed for the West Coast. The movie benefits from LA shimmer and deployment of under-used actors: Willem Dafoe plays a ruthless, faintly perverse counterfeiter and William Petersen is the lawman in tight jeans crossing the line in pursuit of him. Listen for the Wang Chung soundtrack! Maybe not.

Ridiculously entertaining car chase and all, William Friedkin’s brutal, dumb 1985 crime flick resembles his French Connection resprayed for the West Coast. The movie benefits from LA shimmer and deployment of under-used actors: Willem Dafoe plays a ruthless, faintly perverse counterfeiter and William Petersen is the lawman in tight jeans crossing the line in pursuit of him. Listen for the Wang Chung soundtrack! Maybe not.

The Leopard

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Luchino Visconti's three-hour epic is a complex family saga, with Burt Lancaster as an Italian nobleman in the Garibaldi era. The colour and detail is so rich it's almost fattening. Visconti, calling in favours back in '63, wanted Lancaster (who's great), but outside Italy no one knew how to sell it, so it was hacked and dubbed. Now its sumptuous again, with a Nino Rota score and both Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon in their prime.

Luchino Visconti’s three-hour epic is a complex family saga, with Burt Lancaster as an Italian nobleman in the Garibaldi era. The colour and detail is so rich it’s almost fattening. Visconti, calling in favours back in ’63, wanted Lancaster (who’s great), but outside Italy no one knew how to sell it, so it was hacked and dubbed. Now its sumptuous again, with a Nino Rota score and both Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon in their prime.

Gallipoli

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Occasionally worthy slice of war-is-hell hand-wringing from pre-Hollywood Peter Weir circa 1981 is elevated by eye-popping 'scope photography from Russell Boyd and two credible central turns from Mel Gibson and Mark Lee as the Yin and Yang of Australian machismo. On the other hand, the repeated sampling of Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxygen was possibly a mistake.

Occasionally worthy slice of war-is-hell hand-wringing from pre-Hollywood Peter Weir circa 1981 is elevated by eye-popping ‘scope photography from Russell Boyd and two credible central turns from Mel Gibson and Mark Lee as the Yin and Yang of Australian machismo. On the other hand, the repeated sampling of Jean-Michel Jarre’s Oxygen was possibly a mistake.

Fleetwood Mac

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Clearly made by and for Americans, this doc overlooks the Peter Green line-up. Charting only the personal disintegration of Green, Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan, the story rushes on into the great soap opera that was the Mac as they conquered the world with Rumours. There are few heavyweight contributors, although first bassist Bob Brunning is enlightening and Stan Webb is hilariously perceptive.

Clearly made by and for Americans, this doc overlooks the Peter Green line-up. Charting only the personal disintegration of Green, Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan, the story rushes on into the great soap opera that was the Mac as they conquered the world with Rumours. There are few heavyweight contributors, although first bassist Bob Brunning is enlightening and Stan Webb is hilariously perceptive.

Pet Shop Boys

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Is it pop? Is it theatre? Filmed on their 1991 British tour and supported by a cast of thousands, Neil and Chris dress as public schoolboys, patients in a mental asylum, clowns, secret agents, Elvis lookalikes and cowboys as they play their greatest hits from "West End Girls" to "Where The Streets Have No Name". Well, it sure beats a bunch of beery blokes hunched over Fender Stratocasters.

Is it pop? Is it theatre? Filmed on their 1991 British tour and supported by a cast of thousands, Neil and Chris dress as public schoolboys, patients in a mental asylum, clowns, secret agents, Elvis lookalikes and cowboys as they play their greatest hits from “West End Girls” to “Where The Streets Have No Name”. Well, it sure beats a bunch of beery blokes hunched over Fender Stratocasters.

Spear Of Destiny

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Barely six months after the demise of Theatre Of Hate, Kirk Brandon was braving it on stage in Manchester in March 1983 with a new band, name and repertoire. That his audience look mighty perplexed by SOD's brassier tribal goth-dub makes his fearless performance, caught here, even more compelling.

Barely six months after the demise of Theatre Of Hate, Kirk Brandon was braving it on stage in Manchester in March 1983 with a new band, name and repertoire. That his audience look mighty perplexed by SOD’s brassier tribal goth-dub makes his fearless performance, caught here, even more compelling.

Page & Plant

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The duo's 1994 take on Unplugged, which involved recording new material in Morocco and rearranging old Zep songs with Middle Eastern flavours and musicians, was a brave but preposterous conceit. Filmed in a Welsh valley, in a slate quarry and cross-legged with locals in Marrakesh, they're only really credible and incredible in their natural environment?a stage.

The duo’s 1994 take on Unplugged, which involved recording new material in Morocco and rearranging old Zep songs with Middle Eastern flavours and musicians, was a brave but preposterous conceit. Filmed in a Welsh valley, in a slate quarry and cross-legged with locals in Marrakesh, they’re only really credible and incredible in their natural environment?a stage.

Badly Drawn Boy

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Less a standard promo stash than a loosely strung set of surreal vignettes, BDB's first video roundup is a riot. If the Python-meets-Floyd animatronics of "You Were Right" or "Disillusion"'s human Broadway cabbie seem deliciously askew, try sending in the misery clowns (" Another Pearl"), Joan Collins'rich-bitch depressive ("Spitting In The Wind") or the mallard-hating Countdown assistant of "Something To Talk About".

Less a standard promo stash than a loosely strung set of surreal vignettes, BDB’s first video roundup is a riot. If the Python-meets-Floyd animatronics of “You Were Right” or “Disillusion”‘s human Broadway cabbie seem deliciously askew, try sending in the misery clowns (” Another Pearl”), Joan Collins’rich-bitch depressive (“Spitting In The Wind”) or the mallard-hating Countdown assistant of “Something To Talk About”.

Jeff Buckley

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Amid the ongoing deification of Buckley, it's easy to ignore the man's inherent daftness. On this 30-minute doc (bundled with the remastered Grace LP) it blazes to the fore as he goofs around the Bearsville studio and woods and contrives quotes that hover uncertainly between pretension and piss-take. Live clips emphasise his greatness. Stolid testimonies from his bandmates, in contrast, provide scant new insight.

Amid the ongoing deification of Buckley, it’s easy to ignore the man’s inherent daftness. On this 30-minute doc (bundled with the remastered Grace LP) it blazes to the fore as he goofs around the Bearsville studio and woods and contrives quotes that hover uncertainly between pretension and piss-take. Live clips emphasise his greatness. Stolid testimonies from his bandmates, in contrast, provide scant new insight.

The Residents

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Vastly expanded version of the big-eyed boys' 1980 album of the same name. The 56 one-minute videos include animations that'll give you nightmares. "End Of Home" and "Dimples And Toes" lend themselves particularly well to The Residents' unique and slightly sinister brand of bizarrity, while the surrealist spirit of Max Ernst hovers unmistakably over "Medicine Man".

Vastly expanded version of the big-eyed boys’ 1980 album of the same name. The 56 one-minute videos include animations that’ll give you nightmares. “End Of Home” and “Dimples And Toes” lend themselves particularly well to The Residents’ unique and slightly sinister brand of bizarrity, while the surrealist spirit of Max Ernst hovers unmistakably over “Medicine Man”.

Tangerine Dream

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Recorded in Seattle in October 1992, this concert performance by Edgar Froese's Krautrock pioneers is less dull than it may sound, with the live footage intercut with the films and graphics used for the band's dramatic backdrop projections. There's a dynamite version of "Purple Haze", but at times the music veers too far into jazz-rock noodling. And, at 45 minutes, it's hardly value for money.

Recorded in Seattle in October 1992, this concert performance by Edgar Froese’s Krautrock pioneers is less dull than it may sound, with the live footage intercut with the films and graphics used for the band’s dramatic backdrop projections. There’s a dynamite version of “Purple Haze”, but at times the music veers too far into jazz-rock noodling. And, at 45 minutes, it’s hardly value for money.

Queen

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Archive film and audio recaptures May Taylor and Deacon in conversation with interviewers over the years, and there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it clip of Freddie talking. And what a guy, parading regally in his robe and crown. One old friend recalls that he "acted like a star until he became one". The thorough early-years coverage almost compensates for the non-participation of anyone close to Queen.

Archive film and audio recaptures May Taylor and Deacon in conversation with interviewers over the years, and there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it clip of Freddie talking. And what a guy, parading regally in his robe and crown. One old friend recalls that he “acted like a star until he became one”. The thorough early-years coverage almost compensates for the non-participation of anyone close to Queen.

Cleared For Take-Off

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"FEW BIG NAME groups from the late '60s have dated worse than Jefferson Airplane," Jon Savage recently wrote, reflecting a widely held view that, apart from a couple of spectacular early singles, the group that offered the Yin to The Grateful Dead's Yang in Frisco's hippie cosmos was ultimately little more than an exercise in bloated ego-tripping and drugged-out self-indulgence. Fly Jefferson Airplane gives the lie to such prejudice, and restores the band's reputation in the rock pantheon. Superbly compiled, it juxtaposes vintage footage with thoughtful present-day interviews to give a compelling history of a band that was one of the crowning jewels in the lysergic-laced crown of '60s psychedelia. The Airplane played at Monterey, Woodstock and Altamont, but their huge hit singles "White Rabbit" and "Somebody To Love" meant that they also got to appear on prime-time TV shows like The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Perry Como Special, leaving the makers of this doc a rich source of archive material. "Somebody To Love" from Monterey is simply explosive, with Grace Slick and Marty Balin coming on like a drug-crazed Sonny and Cher. Heaven knows how Slick got away with instructing a mainstream TV audience to "feed your head" on the acid anthem "White Rabbit". But she did. Then she blacked-up, minstrel-style, to sing the bizarre man-child ballad "Lather". What middle America made of this freakish spectacle was, sadly, not recorded. We see them filmed by Jean-Luc Godard playing a free rooftop concert in central Manhattan (and getting arrested for halting the traffic below) more than a year before The Beatles pulled a similar stunt in London. And, finally, we get Jorma Kaukonen's guitar showcase "Embryonic Journey" from the only reunion the band has undertaken in 30 years, at their induction to the Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame in 1996. Remarkably, all of the band have survived and offer illuminating commentaries. Grace reveals they'd taken "four or five different drugs" before hitting the stage at Woodstock. "I'm still awaiting the Altamont reunion on MTV sponsored by Pepsi-Cola and Chevrolet. Bring your switchblade," Paul Kantner deadpans. A magnificent tribute to a band that flew higher than most.

“FEW BIG NAME groups from the late ’60s have dated worse than Jefferson Airplane,” Jon Savage recently wrote, reflecting a widely held view that, apart from a couple of spectacular early singles, the group that offered the Yin to The Grateful Dead’s Yang in Frisco’s hippie cosmos was ultimately little more than an exercise in bloated ego-tripping and drugged-out self-indulgence.

Fly Jefferson Airplane gives the lie to such prejudice, and restores the band’s reputation in the rock pantheon. Superbly compiled, it juxtaposes vintage footage with thoughtful present-day interviews to give a compelling history of a band that was one of the crowning jewels in the lysergic-laced crown of ’60s psychedelia.

The Airplane played at Monterey, Woodstock and Altamont, but their huge hit singles “White Rabbit” and “Somebody To Love” meant that they also got to appear on prime-time TV shows like The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Perry Como Special, leaving the makers of this doc a rich source of archive material. “Somebody To Love” from Monterey is simply explosive, with Grace Slick and Marty Balin coming on like a drug-crazed Sonny and Cher. Heaven knows how Slick got away with instructing a mainstream TV audience to “feed your head” on the acid anthem “White Rabbit”.

But she did. Then she blacked-up, minstrel-style, to sing the bizarre man-child ballad “Lather”. What middle America made of this freakish spectacle was, sadly, not recorded. We see them filmed by Jean-Luc Godard playing a free rooftop concert in central Manhattan (and getting arrested for halting the traffic below) more than a year before The Beatles pulled a similar stunt in London. And, finally, we get Jorma Kaukonen’s guitar showcase “Embryonic Journey” from the only reunion the band has undertaken in 30 years, at their induction to the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame in 1996.

Remarkably, all of the band have survived and offer illuminating commentaries. Grace reveals they’d taken “four or five different drugs” before hitting the stage at Woodstock. “I’m still awaiting the Altamont reunion on MTV sponsored by Pepsi-Cola and Chevrolet. Bring your switchblade,” Paul Kantner deadpans. A magnificent tribute to a band that flew higher than most.

The Fog

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Originally seen as a disappointing follow-up to the all-conquering Halloween, John Carpenter's The Fog (1980) is now more widely regarded as a classic supernatural thriller, inspired by Poe and HP Lovecraft, in which the isolated Californian community of Antonio Bay is menaced by the ghosts of a pirate horde. Masterful.

Originally seen as a disappointing follow-up to the all-conquering Halloween, John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980) is now more widely regarded as a classic supernatural thriller, inspired by Poe and HP Lovecraft, in which the isolated Californian community of Antonio Bay is menaced by the ghosts of a pirate horde. Masterful.

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