CDs/DVDs
Blu-ray: Mildred PierceTuesday, 28 February 2017
Joan Crawford’s towering, lauded and Oscar-awarded lead performance in Michael Curtiz’s powerful 1945 film Mildred Pierce has the potential to diminish appreciation of the film as a whole. It can be watched for her career-reviving depiction of the... Read more... |
CD: Temples - VolcanoMonday, 27 February 2017
Temples’ debut album, 2014’s Sun Structures, was an instant and surprise success. Within weeks of its release, the Brit-psych outfit were headlining major venues for the first time. Sun Structures went UK Top 10. Tame Impala had opened the door and... Read more... |
DVD: De PalmaSunday, 26 February 2017
When Carrie White’s hand jumps out of the grave to drag Amy Irving’s character to hell, the shock is Psycho-intense. Carrie’s director Brian De Palma had, though, put equal care into the seconds preceding it, as Irving leaves the house to a score... Read more... |
CD: Sleaford Mods - English TapasSaturday, 25 February 2017
Sleaford Mods have had an amazing run. The duo are prized by their fans for their ultra-basic set-up – a guy with a can of lager standing by a laptop, and a guy ranting – but few would have imagined them almost making the Top 10. Yet that’s exactly... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Train to BusanFriday, 24 February 2017
With its familiar scenario of massed zombies on the offensive against the living, South Korean blockbuster Train to Busan stands or falls on the fresh twists in brings to the table. For director Yeon Sang-ho’s first feature with live actors –... Read more... |
CD: Alison Krauss - Windy CityThursday, 23 February 2017
An album to please old fans and make new ones, Windy City is a peach – even at first playing it feels like slipping in to a worn-in pair of jeans or boots, a comfy ol’ fit. And that’s because the songs are country classics and in our musical DNA.... Read more... |
CD: José James - Love in a Time of MadnessWednesday, 22 February 2017
At least you always get something different from José James. Originally sprung to fame for blending jazz and hip-hop, this album has little of either, but according to his blurb, touches on R&B, soul, pop, electronica, folk, gospel and funk.... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Crying GameTuesday, 21 February 2017
Does a review of a 25-year-old film need a spoiler alert? Much of the success of The Crying Game – its 1992 release earned both six Oscar nominations and huge box office returns (although not enough to save its producers from bankruptcy) – is... Read more... |
CD: Brian Jonestown Massacre – Don’t Get LostMonday, 20 February 2017
Any listeners who may have been concerned that Anton Newcombe’s last few years of sobriety might result in him turning down the psychedelia and tip-toeing towards the mainstream can breathe a sigh of relief. Don’t Get Lost is yet another cracking... Read more... |
DVD: The Spring River Flows EastSunday, 19 February 2017
There’s rich irony in the timelining of 1940s Chinese blockbuster The Spring River Flows East. Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli’s melodrama dates its 14-year timespan – events unroll from 1931 to the end of the war in 1945 – with reference to the... Read more... |
CD: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - The TouristSaturday, 18 February 2017
There was a time, a decade or so ago, when US indie bands would adopt such idiosyncratic names it almost felt like a ploy to stop them selling out. No band epitomised this trend more than Brooklyn's Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. But... Read more... |
CD: Vera Lynn - Vera Lynn 100Friday, 17 February 2017
She hasn’t sung a note in a year or too and her regular appearances at veteran reunions have come to an end. In 2015 Dame Vera Lynn wasn’t well enough to attend the 70th anniversary celebration of VE Day. But she is still among us and on 20 March... Read more... |
