OMD were always the most reasonable of electropoppers, and much of their eponymous 1980 debut album resembles a sixth-form music project with songs ranging from the endearingly daft ("Red Frame/White Light") to the accidentally profound ("Messages"). Organisation, released six months later, is what they turned into after they had listened to Joy Division; few hit singles have been as darkly ironic as "Enola Gay".
Ken Loach at his best. First-time actor Martin Compston is outstanding in the role of Liam, a teenager growing up with a mother in jail, a drug-dealing stepfather and no future to speak of. But Liam is a bright kid who dreams of a normal family life. He's determined to make enough money to rent a home for his mother for when she gets out of jail. It's heartbreaking stuff that combines a political message with real humanity and a rich strand of black comedy. Highly recommended.
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.
