Much-imitated life-swapping comedy from '83, back when John Landis was a hot name. Street chancer Eddie Murphy and stockbroker Dan Aykroyd switch places after a nature-versus-nurture debate, with Jamie Lee Curtis as Aykroyd's love interest. Doesn't aim to be anything other than broadly funny, and so largely succeeds, though it hasn't aged too cleverly.
The two albums of Woody Guthrie songs recorded by Billy Bragg and Wilco and released as Mermaid Avenue (Volumes One and Two) are already alt. country classics. Kim Hopkins' documentary film follows Bragg around America in search of Woody. Archive footage of the great man is interwoven with Bragg performing some 20 songs, alongside guests including Natalie Merchant. Films about making albums seldom do the music justice. Man In The Sand breaks the pattern.
DVD EXTRAS: Bonus audio tracks, discography.
The Beatles, The Doors, The Bee Gees, Curtis, Kris and Willie etc, are treated to a first-class passage to heaven thanks to Green's matchless ability to inhabit his material. Buy it for yourself, soul brothers and sisters.
The Prisoners
IN FROM THE COLD
BIG BEAT
The Prisoners spearheaded an early '80s Medway garage scene that spat in the eye of synth-pop ubiquity. Their fourth LP was released just as their parent label, Stiff, went bust in 1986.