Settling down into my seat at last night's press screening for Planet Terror, I overheard the chap sitting next to me giving his friend a crash course in the film's back story. "You know Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof was originally part of a double-feature called Grindhouse? Well, this is the other bit." Quite how Robert Rodriguez would respond to having his film referred to as the "other bit", I don't care to imagine, the Mexican temprament being notoriously fiery. It's a stroke of luck, then, that his name appears 7 times on the opening credits, just to reinforce the fact that there's more to Grindhouse than just Tarantino's movie. In fact, Planet Terror is far and away the better of the two movies, Rodriquez cannily remembering to include some of those elements in his film Tarantino left out -- plot, character, humour, simple things like that. Though, thankfully, Planet Terror conspicuously lacks the rather nasty, misogynistic streak that made Death Proof such an uneasy viewing experience for me. As it goes, Tarantino himself turns up in Planet Terror, cameoing as an army guard who -- rather too gleefully for my liking -- tries to force Rose McGowan to go-go dance for him. After the disturbing levels of enthusiasm with which he subjected women to all manner of psychological, sexual and physical abuse in Death Proof, I'm left wondering quite exactly Tarantino's head is at. Anyway, Planet Terror isn't by any stretch a great film, but it is pretty funny. It's certainly in the style of many a bad Seventies' horror film (and they're all pretty bad in my book), with a troop of soldiers led by Bruce Willis releasing, perhaps by accident, a noxious chemical into a small Texas town that turns nearly all the residents into flesh-eating zombies. It falls to a small band of survivors to try and make it out of the city limits to safety. Rodriquez cheerfully throws as much gore at us as he can -- heads explode, entrails are duly snacked upon, limbs are lost (and, in the case of McGowan's leg, replaced by automatic weaponry) -- and there's an energy and exuberance to the whole thing that, at the very least, is a lot of fun. Rodriquez is a big fan of Jim Thompson, so there's a something of a noirish sensibility at work in the characterisations. There's Freddy Rodriquez' loner El Wray (a Thompson nod if ever there was); his former girlfriend Cherry Darling (McGowan), who now works as a go-go dancer; Michael Biehn's crusty sherriff Hague. Sure, they're all rather reductive archetypes, but they sit easily in Planet Terror's trashy, two-dimensional aesthetic. A friend of mine asked after the screening, is this meant to be homage or parody? Certainly, some of the biggest laughs in the film come when Rodriquez deliberately undercuts the genre. One scene sees a character trying to make a getaway from hoardes of lumbering zombies on a mini-motorbike. A lot of the time, Freddy Rodriquez and McGowan seem on the verge of winking knowingly at each other. It all just ads to the laughs. Anyway, I'll be interested to see how it does when it opens in the UK in November. Anecdotal reports aren't good for Death Proof -- I heard a Friday evening screening in Brighton last week had only six people in the audience, and this the day after the film opened. But I can almost imagine Planet Terror doing better business on DVD anyway -- it has that (admittedly very deliberate) culty, Shaun Of The Dead vibe about it that I suspect will endear it to the teenage market.

Of course, I’d love to have been there, but since I wasn’t, here’s guest blogger Gavin Martin, on Bob Dylan’s return to Nashville. . . BOB DYLAN Ryman Auditorium September 20 2007 Down on Nashville's Broadway, Dylan's arrival is being treated as the return of a musical saviour. Things certainly have changed - back when Johnny Cash presented Bob, the pilgrim rocker, to Music City in 1969, Dylan was regarded as a blow in, a musical carpetbagger. Now he's an heroic survivor, a custodian of the values Nashville's reigning country establishment have forsaken, an iconoclast as single-minded as any in country music history. Excitement around Bob's two night residency at the 1,200 capacity Ryman, setting for the Grand Ol’ Opry's golden era, increases with the news that Dylan and his road band, still riding their post-millennium hot streak, are spending their days in a local studio, prepping a follow-up to Modern Times. The show repays the anticipation - Bob wields a Stratocaster on the opening "Cat's In The Well". No longer spending his entire performance to the side of the stage behind the organ (when he does take to the keyboard its stage centre), it’s immediately clear the Ryman's aged wooded interior suits the band's old world sound - much better than the cold oppressive arenas that have become their common habitat. Two songs originally recorded in nashville – a shaky "Lay Lady Lay" and a rambunctious "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" - makes Bob's longstanding special Music City connection explicit early in the set. Just as striking a tribute to outré country tradition is his stage garb – imperious wide-brimmed, purple hat, spangly chartreuse guitar strap and accompanying glitter flecked purple cravat and bible black, hanging judge suit. A rapturous "Working Man Blues" and a "Tangled Up In Blue" with Bob blowing poignant, electrifying harp confirm the band's abiding heat. Bob aside, tonight's man of the match is drummer George Recile - his fiery thrash and rimshots blazing a ferocious trail. At least he is - until local resident Jack White turns up. Confined to barracks with the cancellation of this winter's White Stripes tour, White is a vortex of anger and frustration, spitting out the lyrics, slashing at his axe on "One More Cup Of Coffee" and "Outlaw Blues" (the previous night’s show had featured Jacl on the first-ever live version of “Meet Me In The Morning”, from Blood On the Tracks).. The latter is being played for the first time ever onstage and White's intensity - a lusty mule, running crazed, feverish circles around the stage – never lets up. Finger pointing Bob chuckles, conducting his performance from behind the organ.White's guitar lines have a sizzlingly warped ferocity, like Neil Young of old. It is a singularly charismatic performance, the first time I've ever seen anyone on a stage with Dylan usurp the maestro. Dylan's delight makes it seem that a long lost grandson has joined his band and one can almost hear the sound of Elvis Costello - responsible for a particularly egregious, solo acoustic support set that had people feeling to the bars - spitting teeth at the side of the stage. White evidently energises Bob further - a delicate but horny "’Til I Fell In Love With You" and brilliantly rephrased “Memphis Blues” ensue. The magisterially haunted "Ain't Talkin'" towers over everything, however - confirmation that at 66 Bob looks and sounds as potent as he has at any point in his career. An invective-filled "Ballad Of A Thin Man", a joyfully unbounded "Thunder On The Mountain" and tear-inducing "I Shall Be Released" bring the show to a close. There's a mass standing ovation long after Dylan has left the stage and outside an applauding crowd slow walk the tour coach up the hill, a response that emphasises the fact that fortonight and forever more he has made a home from home in Music City. GAVIN MARTIN Set lists Ryam Auditorium September 19 2007 Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat Don’t Think twice, It’s All Right Watching The River Flow You’re a Big Girl Now The Levee’s Gonna Break Spirit On The Water Desolation Row Working Man’s Blues #2 Things Have Changed Most Likely You Go You’re Way (And I’ll Go Mine) Meet Me In The Morning [with Jack White on electric guitar] Highway 61 Revisited Nettie Moore Summer Days Masters Of War Thunder On The Mountain Blowin’ In The Wind Ryman Auditorium September 20 2007 Cat’s In The Well Lay Lady Lay I’ll Be Your baby Tonight Working Man’s Blues #2 High Water (For Charlie Patton) Spirit On The Water Tangled Up In Blue One More Cup Of Coffee [with jack White on guitar and vocals] Outlaw Blues {with Jack White on guitar and vocals] ‘Til I Fell In Love With You When The Deal Goes Down Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again Ain’t Talkin’ Summer Days Ballad Of A Thin Man Thunder on the Mountain I Shall Be Released

There’s barely a dry eye in the corner of the Electric Ballroom where I’m standing when as part of the taped music that introduces Mick Jones’ Carbon/Silicon, Joe Strummer’s lovely, wistful “Willesden To Cricklewood”, the dreamy closing track of Joe’s ‘comeback’ album, Rock, Art And The X-Ray Style, plays over the PA. A lot of manly throat-clearing is then drowned out by a stentorian orchestral blast that replaces Joe’s autumnal melancholy and fair startles everyone, not least Mick Jones, who's now standing on stage, smiling nervously at cohort Tony James as the orchestral surge reaches an appropriately dramatic climax, which makes Mick laugh. “Good evening,” he says, and then in reference to the now-subsiding musical bombast that has preceded his remarks adds: “I do hope we’re not bigging ourselves up too much.” And with this, Carbon/Silicon, launch, as we are prone to say, into “The Magic Suitcase”, from their forthcoming debut album, The Last Post, which we review in the new issue of Uncut, on sale next week. Six months ago, I saw Carbon/Silicon play a fantastic set in Mick’s studio in Acton, about 30 people crammed into a tiny, sweltering place, the band no more than a couple of feet away from where I was standing in the front row, only a mixing desk between them and the whooping audience. Tonight’s show, surprisingly, is a wholly more sedate affair – maybe it’s the fairly modest size of the crowd and a muted sound, but things never seem entirely to get going, the crowd perhaps yearning for something they’ve heard before (and I’m thinking they’d be somewhat keener to hear, say, “White Riot” than “Love Missile F1- 11”, although I could be mistaken). In the event, the set’s drawn entirely from the new album – which means airings for what you can imagine soon will be much-anticipated crowd-pleasers like “Action Zulus”, “The News”, “What The Fuck”, “Really The Blues” and the admirably pounding “Why Do Men Fight?”, one of tonight's indisputed highlights. Mainly, these songs are still being played in – the band a bit short of match practice, after only a few festival appearances this summer. I’m sure they’ll sharpen quickly when they start gigging in earnest and the occasional flatness of tonight’s show will very soon be forgotten as these songs assume a more volatile momentum. As it is, there are plenty of great moments and, by God, it’s a gas to see Mick back onstage, looking brilliant, and so thoroughly enjoying himself. “Comrades! Peers! Contemporaries! Critics!” he announces before a great version of “War On Culture”, smiling, simply happy to be here. “You don’t know what it’s like to be back.” We smile back, as happy as him, Tony James similarly beaming, men on a mission, soon, you suspect, to be accomplished.

The arrival of a new Wes Anderson film is pretty much always a cause for celebration in the UNCUT office. He's a master of dry, melancholic comedies and a meticulous visual stylist, with a fine ear for music and who's surrounded himself with a peerless roster of actors -- Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and Gene Hackman among them -- who faultlessly bring his peculiar, poignant stories to life. It's perhaps emblematic of Anderson's universe that, in the production notes handed out at last night's press screening for The Darjeeling Limited, Anjelica Huston describes her character in the film as "something of an action hero nun." I am also warned, half-seriously, by the film's press officer to prepare for the continuous use of Peter Sarstedt's ballad "Where Did You Go To (My Lovely)" over the soundtrack. Oh, and Bill Murray crops up for the opening five minutes in a mute cameo. Adding an extra level of quirk to the proceedings, The Darjeeling Limited is preceeded by a 10 minute short, Hotel Chevalier, a two-hander between Schwartman and Natalie Portman set in a hotel suite in Paris, one-liners zinging like a Howard Hawks' comedy. It's the first glimpse we get of Schwartzman (who also co-wrote Darjeeling with Anderson and Roman Coppola), as Jack Whitman, the youngest of three brothers, whose fumbled attempts to reconnect with one another forms the narrative arc of Darjeeling. Anderson's films -- Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou -- occupy themselves with the strength/fragility of relationships, usually within the family unit. I was surprised at how soft (in a good way) Darjeeling is, how sweet the estranged brothers' struggle to bond is. Alongside Schwartman, there's Adrien Brody making his debut for Anderson as middle brother Peter, with the director's long-term collaborator, Owen Wilson, rounding out the family as eldest brother Francis. We know that all three boys are grieving their father's death, and there are still issues with their mother (Huston) who never attended his funeral and is now the "action hero nun" in a monastery in the Himalayas. Compounding this, Jack is vainly trying to extricate himself from a failing relationship; Peter is unsure how to react to imminent fatherhood; Frances is physically damaged, recovering from a motorbike accident, his face partly obscured by bandages for the duration of the film. At Frances' request, the three meet on board The Darjeeling Limited, a train travelling across the desert of Rajasthan. There, Frances plans, they'll embark on a more spiritual journey of their own, which will culminate with meeting their mother. To shoot on the train, Anderson and his crew borrowed 10 coaches from India's Northwestern Railways, gutted them and build their own interiors, a striking palette of traditional Indian colours and Art Deco designs every bit as extraordinary as Steve Zissou's ship, the Belafonte, in The Life Aquatic. There's also wonderful images of bright saris and the parched yellow desert; a flashback to grey, windy New York looks like the colour's been leached out of the world. I'm struck by how much I fell for the relationship between the three brothers. If I have one recurring complaint against Anderson it's that sometimes his films are too detached for me to fully engage with -- it was certainly the case with The Life Aquatic. But there's something charming about the way the three brothers' squabble (Jack, at one point, having to mace Frances and Peter to stop them from kicking the crap out of him); they seem to regress into a childhood world of scraps and arguments that's quite endearing. But it's not all funny. There's a pretty grim tragedy down the line, and it's the way the brothers' deal with it that eventually brings them closer -- tho it doesn't necessarily provide the resolution they're after. It's certainly not on a par with Tenenbaums, I've got to say, which still stands as Anderson's masterpiece in my book. But it's certainly a very charming way to spend 91 minutes. The Darjeeling Limited plays at the London Film Festival on November 1, and opens in the UK on November 23.

After a week off, holed up in the Cotswolds since you ask, it's been a busy time for film screenings. I went to see The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford on Tuesday, this time on a proper 35mm print rather than the beta tape I saw a few months back, and tonight there's Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited that I'll hopefully blog about tomorrow. Last night, though, our album reviews editor John Robinson and I went to see American Gangster, at close to three hours as epic as it gets, with Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington manfully chewing chunks out of the scenery in late Sixties/early Seventies' New York. Ridley Scott, as a director, is someone I admire greatly. Admittedly this is an opinion based largely on Alien and, especially, Blade Runner, and for every great film, there's the clang of a bollock being dropped with Matchstick Men or A Good Year. Part of Scott's problem, I think, is that as a former ad director he's naturally more drawn to mood, style and the technique of film making, rather than the direction of actors. Kingdom Of Heaven, for instance, looked fantastic -- he really got into the box of CGI tricks for the battle sequences -- but whatever compelled him to cast the feckless Orlando Bloom in the lead was sheer madness. His constant returns to Blade Runner -- a tweak here, a new print there, a digital makeover, a new cut -- has turned it into the DVD equivalent of Dark Side Of The Moon, and what's apparently his Definitive Edition of that film is due out on DVD in December. Anyway, when Scott works his best is when he can get on with the behind camera stuff and let good actors deal with the other bits. Which is fortunate, then, that he's got two on board for American Gangster. I should point out now that Allan has some fairly amusing views on Russell Crowe -- it stems, apparently, from the fact that Bud White is one of his favourite characters in literature and he thought Crowe got him completely wrong in LA Confidential. We're both agreed, though, that he's on cracking form in Master And Commander. Crowe is something of a man's actor. Recalling his close friendship with Richard Harris and Oliver Reed, forged on the set of Gladiator, you sense he'd have been right at home back in the Sixties and Seventies, drinking and roistering away with the Harris/Burton breed of carousers. You could easily see him propping up a movie like The Wild Geese, for instance. But Crowe does like to see himself as A Proper Actor these days, developing his range in movies like A Beautiful Mind (schizophrenic math's genius), Cinderella Man (washed up boxer) even A Good Year (City man goes native in rural France). They're all pretty below par movies, but taken on their own terms those central characters all offer plenty of meat for an actor. He's actually pretty subdued in American Gangster, as NY Detective Richie Roberts, struggling to bring down Denzel's crime boss, Frank Lucas. His story plays out in parallel to Lucas', Roberts' marriage gradually falling apart and Lucas raises a successful empire. In fact, both these actors are big enough to sustain their own narratives with equal weight, only meeting towards the end of the picture (it's not quite Al and Bob in Heat when they do, but hey). Washington is never less than a compelling presence on screen. I never really quite got him until Training Day, where I'll happily wheel out an adjective like "incendiary" to describe his performance. Here, he's brooding, occasionally chilling, driven and prone to swift and shocking bursts of violence when he doesn't get his own way. It's quite easy to see why American Gangster's got its 156 minute running time. It needs room for both these two characters' stories to breathe. Scott's next is with Crowe also, Nottingham, about Robin Hood no less, with Crowe as the Sherriff. Quite why the world needs to see this, I don't know -- we've had quite enough versions of this story down the years. I'm far more interested in his movie *after* that (due 2009, according to the Interweb), an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's brilliant Western novel, Blood Meridian. Scott once told me that he's always wanted to make a Western. As a kid, growing up around Newcastle, he used to go and watch oaters at his local cinema, and that pretty much got him into the movies. As a big fan of McCarthy, and Blood Meridian especially, it'll be interesting to see what he does with it. It's a violent, horrific story -- Peckinpah meets Bosch, about bounty hunters and killers and, unsurprisingly, something of a favourite round these parts. American Gangster opens in the UK on November 16.