Orlando

Sally Potter's supremely vivid take on Virginia Woolf's tale of a 400-year search for love and freedom. Tilda Swinton switches centuries and sex with enormous serenity, while Quentin Crisp proves an inspired Virgin Queen A visual feast with few equals.

Real Women Have Curves

Mildly engaging Mexican comedy concerning female empowerment; a kind of My Big Lardy Greek Wedding for liberals. Should our heroine work to feed the poor folks, or follow her dream of further education? Will she learn that true beauty comes from within and body size isn't everything as we arrive at the dénouement? At least it hasn't got Rosie Perez screeching through it.

Swimming Pool

OPENS AUGUST 22, CERT 15, 102 MINS An uptight, emotionally constrained English lady crime-writer and a sexually aggressive Provençal bombshell, given to walking around butt naked: in his latest movie, François Ozon deals in archetypes. But having created characters who border on cliché, he then proceeds to subvert them by adding other, unexpected layers to their personalities.

Equus

Peter Shaffer's play is stripped of its stage trappings by director Sidney Lumet, exposing many of its failings—primarily Shaffer's preposterous, ponderous script. Admittedly, Peter Firth is believable as the disturbed boy with a quasi-religious fetish for horses, but Richard Burton's dreadfully hammy as his psychiatrist. Jenny Agutter supplies the gratuitous nudity.

The Lady Vanishes

A '70s remake of the Hitchcock classic, with Angela Lansbury as an English nanny kidnapped on a German train on the eve of WWII. Can dizzy US heiress Cybill Shepherd foil this Nazi plot with the aid of rugged news photographer Elliott Gould? It might have worked if they'd played it straight; instead, they go for screwball comedy, and it's a disaster.

Respiro

Sicilian family saga

So Squalid Crew

Consummate, witty and wicked conmen caper

Less Is More

Haunting, minimalist road movie takes left-field Drugstore Cowboy director back to his roots

Broadcast – Haha Sound

Initially introduced to the world via Stereolab's Duophonic label, Broadcast have perhaps benefited from their relative cultural isolation (they're based in Birmingham) to cultivate a brand of avant-indietronica that is truly unique. Broadcast deploy an arsenal of electronic devices both antique and modern to complement and scar Trish Keenan's often unnervingly childlike vocals. In a world supersaturated with electronica, Broadcast are nonetheless bold, rare and crucial.

The Ruts – 999

Two punk outfits of varying quality anthologised
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