Here's A thought for you: imagine the sound of one hand clapping along to the bongo-drum beat of nothingness. In other words, nothing new for uber-hipster, Jim Jarmusch, also one third of a trinity (Coppola, Anderson) currently spearheading the happysad Bill Murray revisionist movement. Murray fails to make an appearance in Down By Law, but if it's any consolation, you still have the innocuously grizzly Tom Waits doing his thing – joined by pretty-boy mobster, John Lurie, and the perpetually-confused Roberto Benigni, they play a group of convicts on the run, after having escaped from a New Orleans prison.

To all those who bemoan Clint Eastwood's decision to "get in touch with his feminine side" (as it was put at an Oscars party I recently had the pleasure of attending): sorry, but strike up another victory for the vagina-era. To all those who don't take film-watching as a quantifier of their testosterone-levels (besides, didn't all the greatest indulgences of square-jawed masculinity [Hawks, Hemingway, etc.] ultimately frame it as a tenuous aspiration, rather than brute fact?): rejoice, for Mr Eastwood has returned, bringing with him that haggard, glory-horse level of craftsmanship that remains just about all but lost today.

Reviewed by Kim Lesch

AMONGST the throng of genuinely boring romantic films that seem to be permanently cropping up, Ae Fond Kiss provides a startling alternative: an impressive modern retelling of the age old 'star crossed lovers' story.

Fast approaching its first birthday as a new-and-improved Mediaplex, TIM WONG spoke to The New Zealand Film Archive's Rebecca Adams about relocating premises, Radio With Pictures and indoor-outdoor flow.

Daniel Gordon's documentary of two young girls training for North Korea's "Mass Games" took him into rare, uncharted territory. It screens as part of this year's World Cinema Showcase. MARCUS STICKLEY reviews.

At the World Cinema Showcase 2005: MUBARAK ALI rejoiced in the anime classic Whisper of the Heart, part of a Studio Ghibli retrospective; TIM WONG ducked for cover viewing Breaking News and The Brotherhood of War, two very different bullet ballets from Hong Kong and Korea; while KIM LESCH wallowed in the sounds of Red, White & Blues, one third of The Blues Collection on show.

Mike Nichols/USA/2003; R4 (2-disc)
Warner Bros/HBO, NZ$39.95 | Reviewed by John Spry

THERE HAVE been many portrayals of Angels in cinema over the past hundred-odd years, but possibly none more enigmatic and original as the entity Emma Thompson portrays in this moving tribute to a group of people caught in a web at once unseen but always present in their lives. My immediate thoughts turn to the omni-prescient Angel played by Bruno Ganz in Wim Wenders' 1987 film Wings of Desire when the subject of Angels come up, and I found myself revisiting this film after viewing Angels in America.

Matthew Barney/USA/2002; R4
Accent/Palm Pictures, NZ$49.95 | Reviewed by Tim Wong

MATTHEW BARNEY is my kind of artist. Well, sort of. A high-school football jock, an Abercrombie & Fitch commercial, a Hugo Boss endorsement, he's everything the art world should detest – and yet has critics and peers falling to their knees, either in glowing admiration, or from deep vein thrombosis. You see, Barney's most exclaimed work – the bulbous, 5-part Cremaster Cycle – weighs in at just under 7 hours in duration. When viewed back-to-back, with periodic breaks, that's almost 10 hours and one very raw behind.

Josh Schwartz/USA/2003; R4, (7-disc)
Warner Bros, NZ$79.95 | Reviewed by Tim Wong

RECENTLY, I stooped so low as to describe The O.C. as a "Californian handjob". Whatever that's supposed to mean or infer, I'm not entirely sure, but I do know that I intended it as an endearment in the sincerest, strangest sense. And although it might appear that I loathe the series with a vengeance – taking elongated sentences, for example, to butcher its numerous teen-opera clichés, bathed in the affluence of white people with big houses, walk-in wardrobes and champagne on-tap – I'm actually transfixed by the whole keeping-up-appearances thing. Returning with a new series in February, The Complete First Season arrives with impeccable timing to DVD, allowing closet-O.C. addicts like myself to relive the many guilty pleasures of a show that's almost bad enough to be good.