Reviews

A labour of love—or perhaps of jealousy—for writer/director Yvan Attal, who stars in this French farce as a journalist convinced his movie-star wife's having an affair with Terence Stamp. She's Charlotte Gainsbourg, Attal's real-life wife, so maybe it's all good therapy for him. For the rest of us, it's lively for half an hour, then the frisson fades.

Underrated comedy-drama from Chuck & Buckteam. Jennifer Aniston's fine as a frustrated store-worker who cheats on pothead John C Reilly with Jake Gyllenhaal, in another Holden Caulfield-type role. The feel reminds you of James Mangold before he went shit.

Kathryn Bigelow's Cross Of Iron, basically, with Harrison Ford's Soviet submariners the embattled equivalent of James Coburn's Wehrmacht platoon, both groups of men fighting for their lives in films that perhaps unsurprisingly failed to make a huge impression at the box office. Terrific in parts, with imperious turns from Ford and Liam Neeson, Bigelow handles the action stuff brilliantly though comes close to mawkishness in a tear-stained coda.

Credit Atomic Kitten for one thing—their version of "Eternal Flame" is partially responsible for this Valley High reunion. Susanna Hoffs' acting career (with her mum) is a thing of the past, so the chief Bangle has motivated her crew to come up with an assured, if airbrushed, female power pop disc that's loaded with tooth-kind melodies: "Stealing Rosemary" and "Single By Choice" are instant brain worms. Whether demand for the Bangles' cute Cali cool exists today is open to debate. Hurrah for big hair, anyway.

Oregon rockers graduate from grunge to gadgetry

Dark'n'heavy gem from Swedish gloom merchants

Unremarkable second LP from corporate-minded Californian rockers

Leland, Mississippi blues legend still sounding as freshly minted as ever

The Electric Slide Guitar King's boisterous re-recordings of '50s sides

As everyone knows, glam rock in the UK was begat by Bowie, Bolan and Ferry, then ruined by bandwagon-jumping brickies in mascara. Well, yes and no—some of this rubbish was great fun, as compilers Bob Stanley and Phil King hereby recognise. And while the correct response is probably to chuckle at its tackiness, some of us, behind closed doors, will be punching the air and stomping along with surreal enthusiasm.