Reviews

Capricious duets from two top players

BRMC buddy rides Britpop-fuelled rocket

Sheffield's ever-quirky modern dance troupe refine their chilly club choons

Collection of early work from German techno duo

Long overdue reissued twofer of pioneering US country-bloozesters

Rough and heartfelt beginnings of legendary renegade

Slo-mo drama starring ageing French heartthrob

Indie tyro Doug Liman (Go!) takes a gripping premise (amnesiac superspy is hunted by CIA while seeking clues to his own identity), an efficient leading man in Matt Damon, and a raft of stellar supporting players including Brian Cox, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen and Franka Potente, and delivers a confident if ultimately soulless knockabout thriller.

The culmination of a sell-out 2002 tour sees a middle-aged Williams return to his maniacal roots, musing on Michael Jackson, the Puritans and Viagra, among other topics. However, his breakneck delivery, camp mannerisms and array of accents (including a dismal Winston Churchill) only emphasise, rather than conceal, the weakness of his material. And the "Joe I'm Pregnant" routine is shamelessly lifted from Sam Kinison.

It's not hard to see why the second version of Hollywood's infamous morality tale of the tortured love between a rising starlet (Judy Garland in her best role outside of Oz) and her older, alcoholic has-been suitor (the impeccable James Mason) is generally regarded as the best. George Cukor's Technicolor palette and Ira Gershwin's music are the ideal accoutrements for what is basically camp melodrama at its most sumptuous.