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Wax Poetic – Nublu Sessions

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When Norah Jones first arrived in New York from Texas in 1998, she gravitated to Nublu, the Lower East Side club run by Ilhan Ersahin. When he heard her sing, he knew he'd found the perfect voice for his band, Wax Poetic. Jones stayed with them for more than a year before launching her solo career. Now, five years and nine Grammies later, she's returned to record her two signature songs from her time in the band on Wax Poetic's debut album. Both tracks have an acid-jazz flavour, and it's fascinating to hear her operate in a funkier style than we're accustomed to hearing. Other guest vocalists include N'Dea Davenport, poet Saul Williams and Jamaican legend U-Roy, all of whom help create an impressively sophisticated postmodern Manhattan cocktail.

When Norah Jones first arrived in New York from Texas in 1998, she gravitated to Nublu, the Lower East Side club run by Ilhan Ersahin. When he heard her sing, he knew he’d found the perfect voice for his band, Wax Poetic. Jones stayed with them for more than a year before launching her solo career. Now, five years and nine Grammies later, she’s returned to record her two signature songs from her time in the band on Wax Poetic’s debut album. Both tracks have an acid-jazz flavour, and it’s fascinating to hear her operate in a funkier style than we’re accustomed to hearing. Other guest vocalists include N’Dea Davenport, poet Saul Williams and Jamaican legend U-Roy, all of whom help create an impressively sophisticated postmodern Manhattan cocktail.

Hidden Cameras – Play The CBC Sessions

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Anyone lucky enough to experience the ramshackle epiphany of Hidden Cameras live last year?complete with dancers in Y-fronts?can testify to their uniqueness. Last year's debut album, The Smell Of Our Own, offered explicit gay sexuality (at last!), DIY baroque arrangements and a delicate, lilting Phil Ochs-ish voice that sounded as if it came out of a mouth in which butter wouldn't melt, even though that clearly wasn't the case. Passing the time until their soon-to-come second album proper are these six session tracks, mostly lovely if, as expected, a little under-realised, and including some previously hard-to-find songs. If you're a convert, you'll want this. If not, head straight to The Smell Of Our Own and be ravished.

Anyone lucky enough to experience the ramshackle epiphany of Hidden Cameras live last year?complete with dancers in Y-fronts?can testify to their uniqueness. Last year’s debut album, The Smell Of Our Own, offered explicit gay sexuality (at last!), DIY baroque arrangements and a delicate, lilting Phil Ochs-ish voice that sounded as if it came out of a mouth in which butter wouldn’t melt, even though that clearly wasn’t the case.

Passing the time until their soon-to-come second album proper are these six session tracks, mostly lovely if, as expected, a little under-realised, and including some previously hard-to-find songs. If you’re a convert, you’ll want this. If not, head straight to The Smell Of Our Own and be ravished.

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Perhaps never given the proper credit for his awesome work on Young Americans and Station To Station (not to mention with Lennon and Jagger), Slick has called back a few favours for his first solo album in 12 years. And far from a middling vanity project, it's taut and tasteful. Bowie's quick to turn up, hollering the enchanting "Isn't It Evening (The Revolutionary)" with cool conviction and a daft title. It could easily be a Heathen outtake. The Cure's Robert Smith shrieks through "Believe", Spacehog's Royston Langdon forgets Liv Tyler long enough to warble the title track with comic Bowie-ness, and Def Leppard's Joe Elliott is, um, here. Sweetest surprise is Martha Davis, once of The Motels, eulogising the East Village on "St Mark's Place". Slick by name...

Perhaps never given the proper credit for his awesome work on Young Americans and Station To Station (not to mention with Lennon and Jagger), Slick has called back a few favours for his first solo album in 12 years. And far from a middling vanity project, it’s taut and tasteful. Bowie’s quick to turn up, hollering the enchanting “Isn’t It Evening (The Revolutionary)” with cool conviction and a daft title. It could easily be a Heathen outtake. The Cure’s Robert Smith shrieks through “Believe”, Spacehog’s Royston Langdon forgets Liv Tyler long enough to warble the title track with comic Bowie-ness, and Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott is, um, here. Sweetest surprise is Martha Davis, once of The Motels, eulogising the East Village on “St Mark’s Place”. Slick by name…

Various Artists – Zen CD:A Ninja Tune

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Long the preserve of web designers who enjoy a spliff at weekends, Coldcut's Ninja Tune label has, in its 12 years, released a lot of old cobblers. Gratifyingly, few stinkers sour this 32-track round-up of their best moments. Champions of the cut'n'pasted funky break, its tasteful acts such as Mr Scruff, Bonobo and Amon Tobin are perennial faves of TV ad directors. Within their catalogue lie fantastic offerings from Luke Vibert, Kid Koala and DJ Food. Buy this and its more attractive sister compilation, Zen Rmx, and you've enough Ninja Tune for life.

Long the preserve of web designers who enjoy a spliff at weekends, Coldcut’s Ninja Tune label has, in its 12 years, released a lot of old cobblers. Gratifyingly, few stinkers sour this 32-track round-up of their best moments. Champions of the cut’n’pasted funky break, its tasteful acts such as Mr Scruff, Bonobo and Amon Tobin are perennial faves of TV ad directors. Within their catalogue lie fantastic offerings from Luke Vibert, Kid Koala and DJ Food. Buy this and its more attractive sister compilation, Zen Rmx, and you’ve enough Ninja Tune for life.

Max Richter – The Blue Notebooks

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"If one pricks up one's ears and listens," Tilda Swinton reads from Kafka at the start of this album, "when everything round about is quiet, one hears, for instance, the rattling of a mirror not quite firmly fastened to the wall." Superficially, Richter's second album consists of benign classical ambience. But following Kafka's imprecation to listen closely, deeper layers of content reveal themselves. Blue Notebooks is full of deceitfully tranquil, borderline supernatural music:string-led and redolent of Michael Nyman, often augmented by the sort of pulses and field recordings favoured by Boards Of Canada. Uneasy and absorbing.

“If one pricks up one’s ears and listens,” Tilda Swinton reads from Kafka at the start of this album, “when everything round about is quiet, one hears, for instance, the rattling of a mirror not quite firmly fastened to the wall.” Superficially, Richter’s second album consists of benign classical ambience. But following Kafka’s imprecation to listen closely, deeper layers of content reveal themselves. Blue Notebooks is full of deceitfully tranquil, borderline supernatural music:string-led and redolent of Michael Nyman, often augmented by the sort of pulses and field recordings favoured by Boards Of Canada. Uneasy and absorbing.

Andy Summers – Earth & Sky

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Whereas just about every other genre of the late '60s and early '70s is now revered, jazz-rock remains deeply unfashionable. That hasn't deterred Summers, who has made a string of albums that combine his love of jazz virtuosity with his appreciation of rock dynamics. Earth & Sky is classy, all-instrumental stuff. But it also displays all the reasons why, Pat Metheny apart, jazz-rock fusion has been in the doldrums since the days of McLaughlin and Hancock. The suspicion of showing-off is never far away as tunes get buried in layers of noodling. Music to admire rather than love.

Whereas just about every other genre of the late ’60s and early ’70s is now revered, jazz-rock remains deeply unfashionable. That hasn’t deterred Summers, who has made a string of albums that combine his love of jazz virtuosity with his appreciation of rock dynamics. Earth & Sky is classy, all-instrumental stuff. But it also displays all the reasons why, Pat Metheny apart, jazz-rock fusion has been in the doldrums since the days of McLaughlin and Hancock. The suspicion of showing-off is never far away as tunes get buried in layers of noodling. Music to admire rather than love.

This Month In Soundtracks

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In Francis Ford Coppola's liner notes to this extended, remastered release of the soundtrack to his 1982 classic, he confesses he told Tom Waits and producer Bones Howe, "What I really want you guys to do is make an album called One From The Heart and then I'll make a movie that goes with it." In the event, both were deliciously melancholy works of art. The film was panned. The music, however, was universally loved from the get-go. It's the best thing Waits has ever done. The horror is that it could so nearly have been Bette Midler, not Crystal Gayle, duetting with Tom. Fortunately Midler had, Coppola reveals, a "conflicting schedule" (phew!), and Waits suggested the then little-known Gayle. Coppola took one look (he says), developed "a respectful little crush" and applauded Waits' musical taste. Her vocal sweetness and Waits' gruffness complement each other blissfully through a series of sublime love songs. Every Waits couplet on "Picking Up After You", "Old Boyfriends" or "Little Boy Blue" is a potential design for living. The title song's a deal-breaker if you're considering investing emotion in someone. Two bonus tracks?"Candy Apple Red" and "Once Upon A Town"?maintain the standard. Beyond all doubt the most integral and affecting soundtrack of the last quarter-century.

In Francis Ford Coppola’s liner notes to this extended, remastered release of the soundtrack to his 1982 classic, he confesses he told Tom Waits and producer Bones Howe, “What I really want you guys to do is make an album called One From The Heart and then I’ll make a movie that goes with it.” In the event, both were deliciously melancholy works of art. The film was panned. The music, however, was universally loved from the get-go. It’s the best thing Waits has ever done.

The horror is that it could so nearly have been Bette Midler, not Crystal Gayle, duetting with Tom. Fortunately Midler had, Coppola reveals, a “conflicting schedule” (phew!), and Waits suggested the then little-known Gayle. Coppola took one look (he says), developed “a respectful little crush” and applauded Waits’ musical taste. Her vocal sweetness and Waits’ gruffness complement each other blissfully through a series of sublime love songs.

Every Waits couplet on “Picking Up After You”, “Old Boyfriends” or “Little Boy Blue” is a potential design for living. The title song’s a deal-breaker if you’re considering investing emotion in someone. Two bonus tracks?”Candy Apple Red” and “Once Upon A Town”?maintain the standard. Beyond all doubt the most integral and affecting soundtrack of the last quarter-century.

Big Fish – Sony Classical

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Danny Elfman looks like winning big awards for Big Fish, his sumptuous score for Tim Burton's best film. His track record?Men In Black, Good Will Hunting, Spider-Man?suggests they might even decide it's his turn for an Oscar. Supporting his work here is a stream of era-evoking pop songs from Elvis ("All Shook Up"), Buddy Holly ("Everyday"), Bing Crosby, The Allman Brothers and Canned Heat. And?perhaps incongruously?a new Pearl Jam track, "Man Of The Hour". Written within days of first viewing the film, it begins: "Tidal waves don't beg forgiveness." Go with the flow.

Danny Elfman looks like winning big awards for Big Fish, his sumptuous score for Tim Burton’s best film. His track record?Men In Black, Good Will Hunting, Spider-Man?suggests they might even decide it’s his turn for an Oscar. Supporting his work here is a stream of era-evoking pop songs from Elvis (“All Shook Up”), Buddy Holly (“Everyday”), Bing Crosby, The Allman Brothers and Canned Heat. And?perhaps incongruously?a new Pearl Jam track, “Man Of The Hour”. Written within days of first viewing the film, it begins: “Tidal waves don’t beg forgiveness.” Go with the flow.

Ennio Morricone: Arena Concerto – East West

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Recorded at shows in Verona, Naples and Rome, this is as close to a Morricone live album as we'll get (given he's in his late seventies). The maestro conducts a 90-piece orchestra and 100 vocalists through a dozen selections from his (over) 400 scores. It's as gorgeous as you'd expect. Beginning with, to this reviewer's ears, his finest work?Once Upon A Time In America?it lopes, veers and swoops through themes and purple passages from, among others, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Cinema Paradiso and Once Upon A Time In The West.

Recorded at shows in Verona, Naples and Rome, this is as close to a Morricone live album as we’ll get (given he’s in his late seventies). The maestro conducts a 90-piece orchestra and 100 vocalists through a dozen selections from his (over) 400 scores. It’s as gorgeous as you’d expect. Beginning with, to this reviewer’s ears, his finest work?Once Upon A Time In America?it lopes, veers and swoops through themes and purple passages from, among others, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Cinema Paradiso and Once Upon A Time In The West.

Bow Selecta

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Further to the World Of Arthur Russell compilation reviewed in these pages a couple of months back (Uncut 81, February 2004), now comes the album on which Russell worked painstakingly between 1987 and his death from AIDS in 1992. In many ways the record is the epic intimacy of 1986's World Of Echo gone pop, but it is also a record of astounding brilliance, imagination and?despite Russell's failing health?joy and optimism. To a great extent, Calling Out Of Context comes across as reductionism of '80s pop. A song like "Arm Around You" is simultaneously a breath and a galaxy away from being Phil Collins, but instead of Linn drums smacking you around the head like Thatcher's handbag, Russell offers an amiable and genuinely joyous expression of love, and the demo-standard drum machine is set against endlessly inventive asides and figures from Russell's electronically processed cello. And there is a reminder of how sadly Jennifer Warnes' angelic embrace of a voice has been underused elsewhere as she duets with Russell on "That's Us/Wild Combination." Rather than John Martyn, Russell's feather-light, near-androgynous tenor voice is actually far closer to Shuggie Otis?hear how he trembles over the line "Not sure it's OK/We're feeling this good" on "You And Me Both". And throughout the album one recalls the direction AR Kane could have taken following their 1989 i album; songs like "Hop On Down"?with its constant interruptions of violent electronic static?always divert into unexpected territories. The highlight is the hypnotic "The Platform On The Ocean", which develops the aqueous theme of World Of Echo. As Russell's stream-of-consciousness vocals repeatedly split and multiply, the song could almost be a template for what Underworld went on to do. You should put this peerless record on your shopping list ahead of most of the rest of this month's pabulum.

Further to the World Of Arthur Russell compilation reviewed in these pages a couple of months back (Uncut 81, February 2004), now comes the album on which Russell worked painstakingly between 1987 and his death from AIDS in 1992. In many ways the record is the epic intimacy of 1986’s World Of Echo gone pop, but it is also a record of astounding brilliance, imagination and?despite Russell’s failing health?joy and optimism.

To a great extent, Calling Out Of Context comes across as reductionism of ’80s pop. A song like “Arm Around You” is simultaneously a breath and a galaxy away from being Phil Collins, but instead of Linn drums smacking you around the head like Thatcher’s handbag, Russell offers an amiable and genuinely joyous expression of love, and the demo-standard drum machine is set against endlessly inventive asides and figures from Russell’s electronically processed cello. And there is a reminder of how sadly Jennifer Warnes’ angelic embrace of a voice has been underused elsewhere as she duets with Russell on “That’s Us/Wild Combination.”

Rather than John Martyn, Russell’s feather-light, near-androgynous tenor voice is actually far closer to Shuggie Otis?hear how he trembles over the line “Not sure it’s OK/We’re feeling this good” on “You And Me Both”. And throughout the album one recalls the direction AR Kane could have taken following their 1989 i album; songs like “Hop On Down”?with its constant interruptions of violent electronic static?always divert into unexpected territories.

The highlight is the hypnotic “The Platform On The Ocean”, which develops the aqueous theme of World Of Echo. As Russell’s stream-of-consciousness vocals repeatedly split and multiply, the song could almost be a template for what Underworld went on to do. You should put this peerless record on your shopping list ahead of most of the rest of this month’s pabulum.

Cop Suey

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DIRECTED BY Andrew Lau, Alan Mak

DIRECTED BY

Andrew Lau, Alan Mak

Paycheck

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OPENED JANUARY 16, CERT 12A, 118 MINS Ben Affleck is the lantern-jawed, perma-tanned preppie genius Michael Jennings, a "reverse engineer" who regularly has his memory wiped when performing confidential assignments. After completing a job for billionaire Jimmy Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart), Jennings wakes to find three years of his life deleted and a Jiffy bag full of random objects waiting for him, instead of the expected $90m cheque. The FBI and Rethrick's head of security (Colm Feore) appear to want him incarcerated/dead, so our sharp-suited hero is forced to go on the run while trying to figure out what the fuck's going on. It's all a bit North By Northwest meets Total Recall, with the emphasis firmly on teen-friendly action rather than operatic violence. Affleck's okay, the pace never lets up and there's all the usual John Woo motifs: heavily choreographed action, soaring doves and a climactic two-man guns-to-the-throat stand-off. Hardly a work of genius, but it'll do until Woo finds himself a Hollywood project that can match Face/Off.

OPENED JANUARY 16, CERT 12A, 118 MINS

Ben Affleck is the lantern-jawed, perma-tanned preppie genius Michael Jennings, a “reverse engineer” who regularly has his memory wiped when performing confidential assignments.

After completing a job for billionaire Jimmy Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart), Jennings wakes to find three years of his life deleted and a Jiffy bag full of random objects waiting for him, instead of the expected $90m cheque. The FBI and Rethrick’s head of security (Colm Feore) appear to want him incarcerated/dead, so our sharp-suited hero is forced to go on the run while trying to figure out what the fuck’s going on.

It’s all a bit North By Northwest meets Total Recall, with the emphasis firmly on teen-friendly action rather than operatic violence. Affleck’s okay, the pace never lets up and there’s all the usual John Woo motifs: heavily choreographed action, soaring doves and a climactic two-man guns-to-the-throat stand-off. Hardly a work of genius, but it’ll do until Woo finds himself a Hollywood project that can match Face/Off.

Pieces Of April

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OPENS FEBRUARY 20, CERT 15, 81 MINS An overwrought directorial debut from quirky comedy writer Peter Hedges (What's Eating Gilbert Grape, About A Boy). Katie Holmes pseudo-slums it in neo-punk pigtails and goth mascara as the eponymous April Burns, the bad-apple daughter in skidsville Manhattan aiming to appease her stiff suburban family with a Thanksgiving meal. Only problem is... her oven's busted, her effete neighbour kidnaps her turkey, her doughnut-addicted mother is dying of cancer, her brother's a pothead, her sister's hysterical, her granny's senile and her boyfriend just might be a double-dealing gangsta. Which would be pure comedy bonanza if this was a gag-a-minute Ivan Reitman comedy, but here, amid the shaky grey pixels, rough sound and worthy pretensions (a wordless freeze-frame sequence), it all seems a bit fake. Added to which is the ending, crashing unceremoniously into view on 81 minutes, resolving all plot-lines with a syrupy musical montage.

OPENS FEBRUARY 20, CERT 15, 81 MINS

An overwrought directorial debut from quirky comedy writer Peter Hedges (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, About A Boy). Katie Holmes pseudo-slums it in neo-punk pigtails and goth mascara as the eponymous April Burns, the bad-apple daughter in skidsville Manhattan aiming to appease her stiff suburban family with a Thanksgiving meal. Only problem is… her oven’s busted, her effete neighbour kidnaps her turkey, her doughnut-addicted mother is dying of cancer, her brother’s a pothead, her sister’s hysterical, her granny’s senile and her boyfriend just might be a double-dealing gangsta.

Which would be pure comedy bonanza if this was a gag-a-minute Ivan Reitman comedy, but here, amid the shaky grey pixels, rough sound and worthy pretensions (a wordless freeze-frame sequence), it all seems a bit fake. Added to which is the ending, crashing unceremoniously into view on 81 minutes, resolving all plot-lines with a syrupy musical montage.

The Last Kiss

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OPENS FEBRUARY 13, CERT 15, 115 MINS The Last Kiss is writer/director Gabriele Muccino's exploration of a group of young men poised on the precipice of marriage, parenthood and maturity. His male protagonists battle the inevitable, with the browbeaten Adriano planning to escape from a permanent marital doghouse by driving off with his mates Alberto (compulsive shagger) and Paolo (tormented by unrequited love). Muccino zooms in on Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) and Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), living together with a baby on the way. It should be a perfect match, but Carlo's fling with a teenage blonde lights the blue touchpaper, and Giulia sprays on the kerosene. Mezzogiorno takes the honours, closely followed by Stefania Sandrelli as her mother, but a story as familiar as this needs more twists than Muccino offers. And while the male leads are supposed to be a bunch of wimps, did they have to be as insipid as this? On celluloid as in life, the women win by a knockout.

OPENS FEBRUARY 13, CERT 15, 115 MINS

The Last Kiss is writer/director Gabriele Muccino’s exploration of a group of young men poised on the precipice of marriage, parenthood and maturity. His male protagonists battle the inevitable, with the browbeaten Adriano planning to escape from a permanent marital doghouse by driving off with his mates Alberto (compulsive shagger) and Paolo (tormented by unrequited love). Muccino zooms in on Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) and Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), living together with a baby on the way. It should be a perfect match, but Carlo’s fling with a teenage blonde lights the blue touchpaper, and Giulia sprays on the kerosene. Mezzogiorno takes the honours, closely followed by Stefania Sandrelli as her mother, but a story as familiar as this needs more twists than Muccino offers. And while the male leads are supposed to be a bunch of wimps, did they have to be as insipid as this? On celluloid as in life, the women win by a knockout.

The Dreamers

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DIRECTED BY Bernardo Bertolucci STARRING Michael Pitt, Eva Green, Louis Garrel Opens February 6, Cert 18, 115 mins Film buffs have never looked less sexy than they do in Bertolucci's curiously distant rendering of Paris in May 1968. True, the film buffs in question spend most of their time loungi...

DIRECTED BY Bernardo Bertolucci

STARRING Michael Pitt, Eva Green, Louis Garrel

Opens February 6, Cert 18, 115 mins

Film buffs have never looked less sexy than they do in Bertolucci’s curiously distant rendering of Paris in May 1968. True, the film buffs in question spend most of their time lounging naked, playing psycho-sexual mind games and rutting feverishly. And yes, all three stars (Pitt, Garrel and, in particular, Green) are undeniably easy on the eye?something Bertolucci is at pains to stress with lots of salivating camera lingering on flesh. But there’s something off-putting about the way the three characters brandish their knowledge of arcane film trivia like membership to a Masonic cult. No one likes a know-it-all, even a lithe-limbed, sexually adventurous one.

The backdrop of the May ’68 unrest is just that?a kind of revolutionary wallpaper that is distinct from the central story. Apart from an abrupt concluding scene, the only time the dissent on the streets encroaches into the lives of the three protagonists is when they meet for the first time, protesting at the sacking of Henri Langlois, the director of the Cin

Feud For Thought

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DIRECTED BY

DIRECTED BY

Mona Lisa Smile

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OPENS FEBRUARY 27, CERT 12, 119 MINS The pupils don't all stand on their desks at the climax, but near enough. Mike Newell's tale of pioneering '50s feminists?and how spiritually wonderful Julia Roberts is?is Dead Poets Society with a gender switch. A great cast (Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Marcia Gay Harden) support La Julia like trusty table legs. Only less wooden. Californian teacher Katherine (Roberts) arrives at a posh New England women's college to teach art history. Her forward-thinking ways first bamboozle then annoy the students and staff. They've been taught to believe marriage is all; that their destiny is dishwashing. Gradually, though, Jools and her 'but-is-it-art?' discussions convert them to a liberated world view, as Dunst discovers that men are bad, Stiles clarifies that some aren't, and Gyllenhaal advocates promiscuity. This is a Rolls-Royce vehicle for a major star. If rose-tinted, it's intelligent and well performed by the generation hungry to supplant Julia.

OPENS FEBRUARY 27, CERT 12, 119 MINS

The pupils don’t all stand on their desks at the climax, but near enough. Mike Newell’s tale of pioneering ’50s feminists?and how spiritually wonderful Julia Roberts is?is Dead Poets Society with a gender switch. A great cast (Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Marcia Gay Harden) support La Julia like trusty table legs. Only less wooden.

Californian teacher Katherine (Roberts) arrives at a posh New England women’s college to teach art history. Her forward-thinking ways first bamboozle then annoy the students and staff. They’ve been taught to believe marriage is all; that their destiny is dishwashing. Gradually, though, Jools and her ‘but-is-it-art?’ discussions convert them to a liberated world view, as Dunst discovers that men are bad, Stiles clarifies that some aren’t, and Gyllenhaal advocates promiscuity.

This is a Rolls-Royce vehicle for a major star. If rose-tinted, it’s intelligent and well performed by the generation hungry to supplant Julia.

Suddenly

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OPENS FEBRUARY 13, CERT 15, 90 MINS The premise is hardly promising: two tough Argentinean lesbians kidnap a dowdy lingerie store worker, steal a taxi and head south for some crrrazy adventures with a mad maiden aunt. And yet, Suddenly, the slow-burning debut from Diego Lerman, is all about undercutting expectations. So criminal sapphic hipsters Mao (Carla Crespo) and Lenin (Veronica Hassan), with echoes of Baise-Moi, kidnap tubby Marcia (Tatiana Saphir) at knifepoint and demand: "Let's go fuck! I wanna eat your pussy!" But the bravado quickly subsides, and the movie instead focuses on the shifting power relationships between the three women. Similarly, the inky, saturated look has a hidden logic, moving from the Godardian cool of early scenes in Buenos Aires to a fuzzy, dreamlike resolution in the countryside. The cast acquit themselves amiably, with Hassan in particular simmering in a role that's practically mute for the first half of the film and then, as the title suggests, suddenly reveals hidden depths, particularly in the poignant closing scene.

OPENS FEBRUARY 13, CERT 15, 90 MINS

The premise is hardly promising: two tough Argentinean lesbians kidnap a dowdy lingerie store worker, steal a taxi and head south for some crrrazy adventures with a mad maiden aunt. And yet, Suddenly, the slow-burning debut from Diego Lerman, is all about undercutting expectations. So criminal sapphic hipsters Mao (Carla Crespo) and Lenin (Veronica Hassan), with echoes of Baise-Moi, kidnap tubby Marcia (Tatiana Saphir) at knifepoint and demand: “Let’s go fuck! I wanna eat your pussy!” But the bravado quickly subsides, and the movie instead focuses on the shifting power relationships between the three women. Similarly, the inky, saturated look has a hidden logic, moving from the Godardian cool of early scenes in Buenos Aires to a fuzzy, dreamlike resolution in the countryside. The cast acquit themselves amiably, with Hassan in particular simmering in a role that’s practically mute for the first half of the film and then, as the title suggests, suddenly reveals hidden depths, particularly in the poignant closing scene.

People I Know

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OPENS FEBRUARY 13, CERT 15, 100 MINS Set in a gloomy, Gotham-esque New York, People I Know depicts a day in the life of Eli Wurman, a veteran of the publicity game whose saggy eyes, low-level drug habit and distressed vocal cords suggest a man who hasn't had a decent night's sleep in years. Down on his career luck, Wurman still finds time to organise a benefit do for wrongly imprisoned African immigrants. However, it's when his last remaining client, Cary Launer (Ryan O' Neal), asks him discreetly to bail out his girlfriend who's in jail on drugs charges that he finds himself suddenly mired in sleaze and intrigue, and has to summon all his reserves of guile from decades in the PR game. Notable for a scene involving the Twin Towers perceived through a drugs haze, hastily excised following 9/11, People I Know is otherwise unexceptional. Although ambitious and ruminative, it crams too much into its 24-hour time scale?politics, tawdry celebrity, intrigue, romance?leaving you feeling as beleaguered and disoriented as Pacino's character himself.

OPENS FEBRUARY 13, CERT 15, 100 MINS

Set in a gloomy, Gotham-esque New York, People I Know depicts a day in the life of Eli Wurman, a veteran of the publicity game whose saggy eyes, low-level drug habit and distressed vocal cords suggest a man who hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in years. Down on his career luck, Wurman still finds time to organise a benefit do for wrongly imprisoned African immigrants. However, it’s when his last remaining client, Cary Launer (Ryan O’ Neal), asks him discreetly to bail out his girlfriend who’s in jail on drugs charges that he finds himself suddenly mired in sleaze and intrigue, and has to summon all his reserves of guile from decades in the PR game.

Notable for a scene involving the Twin Towers perceived through a drugs haze, hastily excised following 9/11, People I Know is otherwise unexceptional. Although ambitious and ruminative, it crams too much into its 24-hour time scale?politics, tawdry celebrity, intrigue, romance?leaving you feeling as beleaguered and disoriented as Pacino’s character himself.

Valentin

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OPENS FEBRUARY 27, CERT PG, 82 MINS It's a cheap trick: take one cute, precocious child and inflict them on a crotchety, cantankerous elderly person and watch as mutual lessons are learned (the mawkish Kolya and the more successful Central Station are recent examples). But this Argentinean picture is so appealing, it's difficult to resist. The main reason for its success lies with the casting. Newcomer Rodrigo Noya is adorable as the eight-year-old Valentin, gripped by the twin obsessions of space travel (one of the film's most touching scenes shows Valentin in a homemade space suit) and family. Sadly, he has no contact with his mother, only sporadic visits from his aggressive father, and lives with his perpetually carping grandmother (Carmen Maura). But the enterprising Valentin sets about creating a family from his wine-sodden musician neighbour and one of his father's girlfriends. The story is based on director Alejandro Agresti's own childhood, and he takes the role of his own abusive father, providing a darkly fascinating subtext.

OPENS FEBRUARY 27, CERT PG, 82 MINS

It’s a cheap trick: take one cute, precocious child and inflict them on a crotchety, cantankerous elderly person and watch as mutual lessons are learned (the mawkish Kolya and the more successful Central Station are recent examples). But this Argentinean picture is so appealing, it’s difficult to resist.

The main reason for its success lies with the casting. Newcomer Rodrigo Noya is adorable as the eight-year-old Valentin, gripped by the twin obsessions of space travel (one of the film’s most touching scenes shows Valentin in a homemade space suit) and family. Sadly, he has no contact with his mother, only sporadic visits from his aggressive father, and lives with his perpetually carping grandmother (Carmen Maura). But the enterprising Valentin sets about creating a family from his wine-sodden musician neighbour and one of his father’s girlfriends. The story is based on director Alejandro Agresti’s own childhood, and he takes the role of his own abusive father, providing a darkly fascinating subtext.

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