Patchy, visually flashy remake by Neil Jordan of his favourite film, Melville's classic Bob Le Flambeur. Its art-robbery-scam story's all over the place, in truth, but Nick Nolte proves to be a wildly compelling force of nature as he kicks heroin, woos a young girl and beats casinos at their own game, all the while looking like he hasn't slept for a very taxing fortnight.
Given the parlous state of contemporary jazz singing (Diana Krall? Elvis, how could you?), Lea DeLaria, a butch dyke from St Louis with a dirty mouth and a deliciously wicked sense of humour, is all the more remarkable. Growing up with jazz in her veins, she was previously best known as a comic (she's also been a Broadway star), but singing is clearly her vocation.
"Oh, I just don't know where to begin," Elvis Costello swooned in the opening line to his lusciously hummable 1979 hit "Accidents Will Happen". Not strictly true. Elvis Costello has always known precisely where to begin. Knowing when to stop, that's been another kettle of worms. His latest batch of reissues being a case in point. Each has been fattened up for market with a mind-bending welter of bonus tracks, so that Get Happy!!, a 20-track tour de force in the first place, now weighs in at 50 tracks (with Trust at 31 and Punch The Clock at 39, see right).
