Reviews

Doyle Bramhall – Fitchburg Street

Stevie Ray's soul brother still going strong

Joan Armatrading – Lovers Speak

Mature collection of new songs from pioneering '70s singer-songwriter

Cursive – The Ugly Organ

Concept album about sexuality from Nebraska quintet

Blitzkrieg Flop

Flaky, star-studded homage to the late, great Joey, Dee Dee and Da Brudders

The Human League

The first two albums from Sheffield's poppiest electro pioneers, now remastered

Roy Ayers – Destination Motherland: The Roy Ayers Anthology

Definitive two-CD, 33-track compilation of jazz-funk vibraphonist's finest moments

Hell Is For Heroes

Marvel strikes cinematic gold again with dark and exuberant superhero blockbuster No 3

The Importance Of Being Earnest

A polite, prissy take on Wilde which seems to think he wrote for children. Rupert Everett and Colin Firth are there, of course, as a playboy and a country mouse, both posing as "Earnest" while ducking scenery-munching from the tragically overrated Judi Dench and, in the token Gwyneth role, Reese Witherspoon. Muffs every joke as lamely as a fifth-form production.

Q&A

Made in 1990 but in a Serpico-style '70s tradition, Sidney Lumet's Q&A pits Nick Nolte's corrupt Irish-American cop against Timothy Hutton's idealistic assistant DA. Quality old-school fare, marred only by over-emphasis on a sub-plot involving Armand Assante's gang boss and Nolte's odd moustache and high-heeled shoes.

The spaghetti western was flagging by 1970 when Enzo Barboni gave it a spoof shot in the arm with this breezy global smash and its sequel—now a one-disc double bill. Terence Hill plays the eponymous drifter with a lightning draw and an appetite for beans; Bud Spencer is his bear-like half-brother, Bambino, who dispatches opponents by thumping them on the head; a laid-back but lethal Laurel & Hardy favouring slapstick over ultraviolence.
Advertisement

Editor's Picks

Advertisement