Halle Berry's blubbing Oscar win shouldn't obscure the fact that this is a brave, harrowing film, echoing the intimacy of '70s cinema's heyday. Billy Bob Thornton is uncannily intense as a Death Row prison guard who cracks up when his son Heath Ledger can't handle his job. An odd coupling with convict's wife Berry may or may not redeem him. Inspirational.
Affecting nu-folk debut from Liverpudlian Lin Sangster
From Monterey, Mexico, Kinky's extraordinary debut album was recently shortlisted for the American equivalent of the Mercury Music Prize, and it's easy to hear why. The quartet mix funk, house, rock-en-Español, salsa, hip hop and mariachi into an anarchic musical fusion that has inevitably been dubbed 'decks-Mex'. Think the Chemical Brothers meet Flaco Jiminez and you'll get the idea.
The lyrics are fascinating, too, although they're almost entirely in Spanish. "San Antonio" is about a local saint, who, when hung upside down, helps women to catch boyfriends.
French study of a true-life serial killer who habitually robbed, kidnapped and killed in the south of France during the 1980s. Stefano Cassetti brilliantly captures the unhinged Succo, and there's a steely intelligence throughout, but Cédric Kahn's overly detached approach drains Succo's demonic acts of real terror or impact. That aside, definitely worth investigating.
