A terrific Japanese rites-of-passage drama shot Dogme-style on digital cameras, this puts a fresh twist on the timeless themes of alienation, dislocation and teenage angst. Shunji Iwai's impressionistic, cutting-edge ensemble drama weaves together the lives of several emotionally wounded Tokyo teens united by their blank worship of a distant pop idol, Lily Chou-Chou. Pretentious, but still a punky new voice in Japanese cinema.
Bernard Herrmann. To any soundtrack devotee the name's sacred. From Psycho to Taxi Driver, his music made good movies great and great movies greater. Here he even caused a rubbish film to linger in the collective memory. Flying saucers and robots were '50s cinema staples, spawned by a real public fear of science (in the aftermath of the atomic bomb). Robert Wise's 1951 sci-fi message movie (war is bad) would today look more hilarious than it does were it not for Herrmann's tonal and symmetrical score. Conducted by Joel McNeely, here it's been recorded in digital sound for the first time.
