Dick Richards:"Farewell, My Lovely" (1975)

Soaked in period detail, the third remake of Raymond Chandler's eponymous novel is fascinating to look at if a mite leisurely in pacing. Gumshoe Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) is hired by mountainous criminal Moose Malloy (Jack O'Halloran) to find a former girlfriend. Raymond Chandler had many qualities as a writer but reverence was hardly one...

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Lee Hazlewood:"Trouble Is a Lonesome Town" (1963)

Trouble Is a Lonesome Town was Lee Hazlewood's first proper solo album, following his prosperous late-'50s partnership with Duane Eddy and prior to his mentoring and making of '60s boot-walker Nancy Sinatra. Hazlewood considered it a "writer's album" from which other artists could cull songs, but Trouble is a perfectly legitimate effort in its own...

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Milos Forman:"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975)

Milos Forman had proven his talent for astute social comedy in such earlier Czech films as Loves of a Blonde (1965) and The Firemen's Ball (1967), and his adept treatment of Cuckoo's Nest's metaphorically loaded conflict fulfilled the promise of an immigrant observer of American culture indicated in his first U.S. feature, Taking...

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Sleater-Kinney:"The Hot Rock" (1999)

Expectations for Sleater-Kinney's fourth album were stratospheric, with the raging, tuneful feminist catharsis of Call the Doctor and Dig Me Out having garnered near-universal critical raves and outlandish media hype. Afraid of falling into a predictable rut, though, the band bravely pushed its range of expression into more...

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Wong Kar-Wai:"In The Mood For Love" (2000)

In the Mood for Love is a lushly romantic, intensely sensual film, even though the two principals rarely so much as hold hands onscreen. The leads are photographed to emphasize their movie star looks, and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Maggie Cheung each give the sort of performance in which a glance or gesture means more than much of the dialogue. Director...

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Pavement:"Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" (1994)

It may be a bit reductive to call Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain the Reckoning to Slanted & Enchanted's Murmur -- not mention easy, considering that Pavement recorded a song-long tribute to R.E.M.'s second album during the Crooked Rain sessions -- but there's a certain truth in that statement all the same. Slanted & Enchanted is an enigmatic masterpiece,...

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Joel Coen:"Blood Simple" (1984)

A tribute to American film noir, Blood Simple was the Coen Brothers' remarkably confident film debut. It introduced the world to the brothers' dark and enjoyably warped vision, setting the tone for their later and increasingly famous works. Blood Simple also established the Coens as some of the most innovative filmmakers of their generation, featuring...

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Dusty Spriengfield:"Dusty in Memphis" (1969)

Already a well regarded pop singer, British blonde Dusty Springfield landed in Memphis in 1969, and the stage was set for her finest hour. Dusty In Memphis is a beautiful marriage of immaculate production work, classy string-heavy arrangements, a great band of session players, and truly wonderful vocals (by Dusty and the Sweet Inspirations, whose...

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Hal Hartley:"Trust " (1990)

Hal Hartley's second excursion to absurd suburbia, Trust offers audiences the surreal farce and deadpan wit that Hartley made his calling cards. It also offers a surprisingly touching romance, marked by wry irony and universally resonant concerns, centering on trust as a substitute for love. Trust also works as a calm, unforced, deeply precise...

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Miles Davis:"Ascenseur Pour l'Échafaud" (1958)

Jazz and film noir are perfect bedfellows, as evidenced by the soundtrack of Louis Malle's Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud (Lift to the Scaffold). This dark and seductive tale is wonderfully accentuated by the late-'50s cool or bop music of Miles Davis, played with French jazzmen -- bassist Pierre Michelot, pianist René Urtreger, and tenor saxophonist...

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Steven Sheinberg:"Secretary" (2002)

Maggie Gyllenhaal's first starring role provides her with the opportunity to explore a rather demanding character, which she performs with depth and humor in Secretary. As Lee Holloway, she portrays a young woman with a strange addiction to pain, but remains engaging and easily empathized with. Lee's endeavors in the "real" world, after a youth...

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De La Soul: "3 Feet High and Rising" (1989)

The most inventive, assured, and playful debut in hip-hop history, 3 Feet High and Rising not only proved that rappers didn't have to talk about the streets to succeed, but also expanded the palette of sampling material with a kaleidoscope of sounds and references culled from pop, soul, disco, and even country music. Weaving clever wordplay and...

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Alfred Hitchcock:"The Birds" (1963)

The Birds features a classic Alfred Hitchcock setup: average people placed in circumstances turned upside down. And of course, there are the requisite dark insinuations and strange psychological underpinnings. Though we're never sure why the birds are rising up, their behavior seems to be a response to humankind's complacency and arrogance. It's...

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Neu!:"Neu! 75" (1975)

After a three-year break, Neu! members Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother buried their differences temporarily, and reunited for another go at the "motorik" sound they had developed with their debut in 1971. The strange tension and presentation of Neu! 2 and the emergence of their former band Kraftwerk may have precipitated the reunion, but, whatever...

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Jean-Luc Godard:"Pierrot Le Fou" (1965)

Based on Lionel White's novel Obsession, Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le Fou (1965) transforms a story about a couple on the run into an existential romance and an essay on the possibilities of film. With no script, Jean-Paul Belmondo's and Anna Karina's flight to southern France becomes a spontaneous series of incidents that reflect on romance, aesthetics,...

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The Black Keys:"The Big Come Up" (2002)

On paper, two Ohio white guys forming a drum-and-guitar blues duo seemed like the last thing the world needed in 2002. Fortunately, the guys revisiting the tried and true were guitarist-vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney a.k.a. the Black Keys. With the former's blown-cone distortion and slinky riffs, and the latter's positively Bonham-esque...

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William Friedkin:"To Live and Die in L.A." (1985)

William Friedkin's crime thriller, based on a book by U.S. Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich, concerns an arrogant Secret Service official who wants to get his man at any price. Willem Dafoe plays Eric Masters, an ultra-smooth counterfeiter who has managed to sidestep the police for years. He is so up-front about his dealings, in fact, that...

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Curtis Mayfield:"Superfly" (1972)

This soundtrack to the flash and clever Superfly is as pleasing and pretty in your living room as it is mingled with the images that it aurally represents. In fact the anti-drug message on the record is far stronger and more definite than in the film, which was diluted by schizoid cross purposes. Superfly, the film, glamorizes machismo-cocaine...

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Zooey Deschanel and Ben Gibbard Split Up

This isn't a good time to be part of a famous indie-rock couple: Just weeks after Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore announced they were separating, She & Him's Zooey Deschanel and Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard have split up, too. Us Weekly reports the dissolution of the rock'n'roll union was "mutual and amicable," and a source told...

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U2 'Achtung Baby (Super Deluxe Edition)'

U2 weren't known for their ambiguity, but by 1991 they'd turned into a teenager: pissy, confused, quitting sports they were good at. From Achtung Baby on, panoramic ballads sat side by side with mini-rebellions masquerading as "art," peaking with 1993's Zooropa, also included here, featuring Bono's drag-queen falsetto on "Lemon." Repackaging it...

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Florence And The Machine - 'Ceremonials'

In the 19th century, society had a method for sweeping women whose behaviour was deemed strange and unusual under the carpet: they’d be spirited away to places with large lawns and high walls, and left to keep counsel with sprites and faeries on a brainful of laudanum. Thankfully, in the liberal and enlightened 21st century, we now recognise that...

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