TOP TEN... BOND BOOKS

Ahead of Friday's release of Quantum Of Solace, we reveal our top ten James Bond books...

1. Moonraker (1955)
They may share characters, locations and plots, but Ian Fleming and Albert Broccolli’s James Bonds are very different beasts indeed. On screen, Bond has always been something of a hollowed-out shell, a bombastic action man who rarely displays the depth, humanity and vulnerability Fleming allowed his 007 to show. Moonraker sees this point writ large. In celluloid form, Fleming’s third novel is a ramshackle Star Wars rip-off which is comfortably the weakest of 007‘s 21 cinematic outings. On the page, however, it’s a grounded, melancholic tale which presents the reader with a very human hero, one who doesn’t even leave Britain, never mind the planet. That means no hover-gondolas, no rocket ships and no grandiose scheme to take the human race into space, just a painfully bruised Bond sighing his way through paperwork, covertly working his way into Hugo Drax’s lair and falling in love with Gala Brand, one of Fleming’s most complicated leading ladies. In a melancholic twist, she fails to be wooed by Bond‘s dangerous lifestyle in the sombre finale, and instead returns to her normal, far safer life. How something so subtle and nuanced could spawn the abomination cinema screens witnessed is a mystery. Time for a remake, perhaps?

2. From Russia With Love (1957)
Coming after Diamonds Are Forever’s poor critical reception, Fleming intended this to be 007’s final outing, and wanted to give him a fitting send-off. He certainly did that. From Russia With Love is a triumph of a novel, perhaps the only Bond book to transcend its pulpy roots and rank alongside the more serious, less fantastical thrillers Fleming‘s peers created. Shot through with an air of death and finality, it spends the first half of its weighty page count deep in the bowels of SMERSH introducing us to the Russian organisation’s odious officials, primary among them those magnificent creations Rosa Klebb and Red Grant. Fleming’s portrayal of Grant as a cold, mechanical assassin is utterly chilling and perhaps the birth of the modern fictional serial killer, while his descriptions of Klebb ooze with grotesquery. However, it‘s the landscapes that steal the show, the renderings of Istanbul and the Orient Express (where most of the rest of the story takes place) dripping with foreboding menace. The novel culminates with a showdown between Klebb and Bond and a closing line that is among the best Fleming ever wrote. Thankfully, it would not be the last…

3. Doctor No (1958)
Doctor No is a novel written by an author brimming with confidence. Vindicated by the success of From Russia With Love, Fleming embarked on the fifth Bond novel reinvigorated, and what he created is a bright and breezy piece of work; a wonderfully simple, but still hugely satisfying, read set almost entirely in his beloved Jamaica. Before we get there though, we are stuck in London, and Fleming takes huge pleasure in the drabness of the capital, describing it as a windswept wasteland in which M stews as he grumpily hands Bond what he dismissively calls a “holiday in the sun”. As if to prove the point, Fleming describes the Jamaican-set passages in stunning terms. The island’s lush greens and deep blues pop from the page, the tropical warmth glows in every syllable and the lovely Honey Ryder seems so astonishingly beautiful it’s almost a let down to watch the film and see Ursula Andress rather than the angelic Venus Fleming describes here emerge from the sea. The ending, which involves a bizarre fight with a giant squid, almost undermines the whole endeavour with its ridiculousness. But Fleming’s prose is so rich and detailed that even the most absurd of sequences proves, like the book as a whole, utterly compelling.

4. For Your Eyes Only (1960)
Taken from the anthology of the same name, this melancholic short story was adapted almost verbatim for the 1981 film. Bond is tasked with assassinating a hitman, only to find his path obstructed by another assassin, who turns out to be the daughter of the people the killer bumped off. However, while the film is a rather drab affair, Fleming lights up the dark subject matter with some glorious descriptive prose. The opening scenes, in which the elderly couple are killed in their home in Jamaica, are filled with the same luxurious detailed descriptions of the island as Doctor No, only here Fleming indulges his love of the wildlife, describing one bird in detail so rich you‘re almost convinced the story will be about it instead of Bond. The rest of the tale takes place on the American-Canadian border and while there a lonely Bond reflects on why he is on this mission and what gives him the right to take the life of a man who has done nothing to harm him. Great, compact stuff, which, in an added bonus, comes sans the Maggie Thatcher cameo.

5. Casino Royale (1953)
Here’s where it all began. The book that defined an icon, made a name for its author and would go on to make cinema history, Casino Royale is the most legendary of Bond novels, and not just because it’s the first. Featuring devious villainy, tense card games and, naturally, a beautiful girl, it’s astonishing to think that (rubbish 60s spoof aside) it took over half a century to bring this story to the big screen. But it is perhaps a good thing that we had to wait so long. With any other Bond at the helm, a cinematic version of Casino Royale wouldn’t have worked. Bond here is too normal, too every day (he described himself as a civil servant) to have been properly fleshed out by Connery’s charm, Moore’s cheek, Dalton's intensity or Brosnan's suaveness. But Craig has a realism that illuminates the human, cynical (that iconic last line from the film is taken directly from the book), bruised, but still effortlessly cool Bond that Fleming describes here. Good thing too. Because Fleming's Bond will always be the best.

6. Live and Let Die (1954)
Perhaps the most controversial and dated of the 007 novels, Live and Let Die finds Fleming dropping the N bomb. Repeatedly. Deplorable certainly, but even in our politically sensitive times the frequent and highly unpleasant use of that particular word doesn’t make Live and Let Die any less enjoyable. A scuzzy, sweaty crime tale that features the grizzly meeting between Felix Leiter and a bunch of sharks that would inspire one of Licence to Kill’s best sequences, Live and Let Die is Fleming at his pulsating best. Sentence and chapter length are short, the words are never minced (frequently to the book‘s detriment), chosen as they are with huge precision for maximum effect, and the action is swift and punchy. Indeed, more than a spy book, Live and Let Die is an excellent action novel, one that comes with the obligatory bonuses of exotic locations, mouth-watering food and gorgeous women, including Solitaire, who comes across as a far more interesting character here than she does in the film. Another 007 outing that could (with careful censorship) benefit from a do-over.

7. The Spy Who Loved Me (1962)
If Live and Let Die displays Fleming’s racial ignorance, Spy Who Loved Me shows his ignorance towards women. An unusual interlude between Thunderball and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, this novella is barely about Bond at all, 007 not appearing until the final few chapters. Instead, we focus on Vivienne Michel, a luckless young woman who stumbles into trouble and has to be saved by the spy. The book proved highly controversial upon release, being reviled by critics for it lack of Bond and, more importantly, its line about women enjoying ‘semi-rape’. Even in context, a line like that is pretty unforgivable, but leaving such slips aside, SWLM is actually a pretty bold move, one that engrosses with its unusualness and complicated leading lady. The story was, of course, utterly changed for the screen, and it’s unlikely to ever be adapted wholesale. But characters and scenarios could be cherry-picked to form the basis of future films, particularly the grotesque mobster villains Sluggsy and Horror.

8. You Only Live Twice (1964)
The culmination of Fleming’s ‘Blofeld trilogy’, You Only Live Twice is a novel tinged with melancholy, the book where it really becomes clear that the Bond saga is gradually winding to an end. Dripping with death, this magnificently macabre story follows on directly from the devastating end of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and finds Bond tracking Blofeld down to Japan, where the SPECTRE head has set up a fiendish Garden of Death. Very different from the film in terms of plot, then, but the dubious race relations remain, with Bond, like in the film, disguising himself as a Japanese, and, even worse, Fleming portraying the people of Japan as death-obsessed crackpots. What stays with you though is the melancholy. The Land of the Rising Sun seems steeped in sadness for Fleming, and, as Bond ponders his future in the novel's closing pages, it's difficult not to feel a twinge of sadness for both the character and the author who created him.

9. Quantum of Solace (1960)
Those still wondering why this exotic title has been chosen for Bond 22 should read the short story it is borrowed from. Fleming sends Bond to a dinner party, where his only refuge from boredom is a story told to him by a fellow guest of government official Phillip Masters’ unhappy marriage to an air hostess. The relationship begins well, but gradually deteriorates and soon she is cheating on him. Humiliated and stripped of any kind of basic human compassion towards his one-time love, Masters cuts off relations with her and eventually leaves her with nothing. Bond leaves the party contemplating the story and concluding that real life is far more interesting than his fantastical adventures. Sounds like a great way to describe the series’ new direction to me…

10. Goldfinger (1959)
One of Fleming’s most uneven novels, Goldfinger would have been higher in this list had the final part measured up to the first two. Told in three segments, the seventh Bond novel is a blast for the most part, a tense double-header between Bond and Goldfinger in which each man tries to work out exactly what the other is up to without giving his own secrets away. Sadly, as we all know, the story does not come to a close in such style, instead exploding into a bombastic heist of Fort Knox which tests plausibility to its limit and turns on a huge contrivance, with Goldfinger forcing Bond to help him with his scheme when it would have been easier to just kill him. Baffling. Still, those first two parts are incredibly strong, finding Fleming at his bold best and Bond at most normal. 007 on the Tube? Shocking. Poshitively shocking.

WATCHING, READING, LISTENING TO

The staff of Entertainment Manchester reveal what's been entertaining them over the last seven days...

THE EDITOR

WATCHING: The last film I saw was The Strangers at the cinema. To be honest, we would rather have watched the similar Eden Lake, but that wasn't on anymore by the time we actually got round to going. The Strangers was well-made though and scary enough in a fairly obvious and predictable way, though it was rather unpleasant and pointless too. All in all, not bad, not great. The final episode of The Wire was much, much better, of course and a fitting finale to the best TV series I've ever seen.

READING: The House Of The Dead. No, it's not a novelisation of the arcade horror shoot 'em up or Uwe Boll's film adaptation, it's by Dostoyevsky and is a fictionalised account of his time in a Siberian prison. It's about as cheery as that sounds, but it's a great book so far and despite the subject matter it's very easy read. I finished by Sherlock Holmes odyssey a few weeks ago, just in time to discover that Guy Ritchie is making a Holmes film. Which is a really depressing prospect.

LISTENING TO: At the moment, lots of music by the genius that is Mike Patton. From his time as Faith No More singer to the quirky and fascinating Mr Bungle to the even more unconventional stuff he's done since FNM called it day, he's never less than interesting. One of his best projects has been the metal supergroup Fantomas, who have made some very unconventional music, like their collection of movie theme covers Director's Cut and the 74 minute single-track Delìrium Cordia, which is one of the scariest and weirdest pieces of music you'll ever hear.



THE WRITER

WATCHING: Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. It may be cheesy and silly when compared with some of today's cartoons, but this 1980s Spider-Man show is, for me, the finest animated adaptation of a comic book outside of the Fleischers’ 1930s Superman shorts. Our friendly neighbourhood wallcrawler teams up with Iceman and Firestar (the Amazing Friends of the title) to take on the likes of the Green Goblin, Kraven the Hunter and Doctor Doom in a series of fantastically outlandish adventures. I‘ve only watched three episodes so far, and Spidey has already stopped dinosaurs, a megalomaniacal pensioner and a bid to poison New York‘s water supply. Brilliantly, there are still two more seasons to come!

READING: In terms of reading, I'm really just getting to the end of the books I've been going through for the last few weeks. Goldfinger, which I'd heard ends quite poorly, is still going strong into the final few chapters, with Bond and Goldfinger now at complete loggerheads after playing cat and mouse with each other for the first two thirds of the book. Meanwhile I’ve finished Star Wars Expanded Universe novel Heir to the Empire. A sequel to Return of the Jedi, it takes place five years after the Battle of Endor and author Timothy Zahn has set things up nicely for follow-ons The Dark Rising and The Last Command by putting the New Republic on the brink of civil war by the end of this book. Cracking stuff.

LISTENING TO: After being unsure on the first few listens, I've finally come around to the new Bond theme. Another Way To Die doesn't rank alongside the best Bond songs, lacking the kind of memorable hooks Goldfinger, Nobody Does It Better and Live and Let Die have, but it does have a real sense of drama to it that means it should work well in the title sequence - and that is far more important than it being a good standalone single. Plus, it finishes with the words 'Bang, bang, bang, bang'. And anything that ends quite as boldly as that is undoubtedly worthy of a place in 007 history.

WATCHING, READING, LISTENING TO

The staff of Entertainment Manchester reveal what's been entertaining them over the last seven days...

THE WRITER

WATCHING: My love of the Star Wars: Clone Wars movie has reignited my interest in all things Jedi, so all my choices are Star Wars related this time around. First up, I’ve been watching the original Clone Wars TV series by Genndy Tartakovsky. Many fans reckon this is the pinnacle of the modern Star Wars era, and it’s certainly very, very impressive, Tartakovsky using the short cartoon format to strip the franchise back to its bare components of cool planets, bizarre aliens and kick-ass battles - basically all the things you want from a Star Wars story. However, many seem to have forgotten that there’s some pretty ropey dialogue in there as well, and while it is better than the film, it’s not quite the Empire Strikes Back of the present day.

LISTENING TO: In my review of The Clone Wars I described Kevin Kiner’s score as “workmanlike”, and I stand by that statement - to an extent. Kiner’s score is certainly not as good as John Williams’s work (naturally) and it takes quite a while to get used to the more run-of-the-mill, action oriented sound he‘s created. However, after a few more listens, the pounding war drums and rock guitars that inspired my original complaint actually mix quite well with Williams’s trademark themes, ensuring the more militaristic tone doesn‘t overshadow that distinct Star Wars sound too much.

READING: I’ve been considering delving into the vast expanded universe for a while now, and the film inspired me to pick up Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire. Set five years after Return of the Jedi, it’s the first in a trilogy of books in which the villainous Grand Admiral Thrawn attempts to overthrow the New Republic and restore the Empire’s control over the galaxy. In less capable hands, it could have been a retread of the films, with the plots being essentially similar, bar the role reversal of Empire and Rebellion. But Zahn’s intelligent development of the three core characters and creation of a host of new players, planets and conflicts means that this is every bit as good as the original trilogy.

THE EDITOR

WATCHING: Having only recently discovered the joys of Virgin On Demand (which isn't anywhere near as dodgy as that sounds), I've watched the entire first four series of Peep Show (across about four days), which I've always quite fancied watching without ever managed to catch it at the start of a series. It's really good, though my total immersion has affected me and made me have a load of internal monologues in my head, which isn't good. Other than that, there's The Wire (not long to go now) and Dexter, both of which are really good, obviously.

LISTENING TO: Autumn means Sinatra for me. As soon as the dark nights start to come in and the rain and the leaves start blowing around (earlier than usual this year, seemingly), I start to really REALLY love listening to Frank Sinatra's torch songs, which just seem to fit perfectly with the gloomy weather, making it all seem to cinematic and romantic (in a doomed sort of way). The same goes for Harry Nilsson's A Little Touch Of Schmilsson In The Night, which has the most gorgeous version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow you'll ever hear.

READING: My Sherlock Holmes odyssey continues and I'm still enjoying these stories a lot. I want to read some other books, but I still want to finish the Holmes stories, so I think I'll get through the remaining few books before moving on to somewhere else. Thankfully, the schools are back and the double trams have started again, so there's more opportunities to sit down and read, so I'm getting through them a lot quicker. Flipping kids...

TOP TEN STAR WARS MOMENTS

Ahead of the release of the new Clone Wars animated movie, our film critic gives us his top ten Star Wars moments...


1. Death Star Assault (A New Hope)
Vader’s paternal revelation at the end of Empire is probably the saga’s most famous scene, but it’s the end of A New Hope that best sums Star Wars up. From John Williams’s driving score to the brilliant effects of a young ILM, the destruction of the Death Star is just, well, it’s just awesome. There’s no other word to describe it. Even to this day, I still feel captivated as Luke fires that last gasp shot, still sense that deathly breath on the back of my neck as Vader homes in on his prey, and still jump for joy as Han swoops in right at the last second. It’s what cinema was made for, and nothing before or since has come close to matching its unique adrenaline rush.

2. “No, I am your father…” (Empire Strikes Back)
Well duh.

3. Battle of Hoth (Empire Strikes Back)
It’s the AT-ATs. The second those mechanical behemoths move gracefully through the Hoth fog, you know you’re in for something special. Beautifully crafted by ILM they’re probably the series’ most impressive effects achievement, and lend the Battle of Hoth a grandeur that most other Star Wars war sequences lack. Throw in vicious wampas, those nifty snowspeeders and the nicely tense relationship between Leia and Han and you have the perfect opening to the deepest and darkest of all the Star Wars films.

4. Darth Maul vs. Qui Gon and Obi Wan (Phantom Menace)
Arguably the coolest (though not necessarily the best) lightsaber fight in the saga, this is all about the visuals. Because while it’s impossible to invest much emotion in what’s going on - what with Qui Gon and Darth Maul being mere fillers designed to flesh out Episode I’s scant story - it’s still undeniably cool watching a big red evil guy fighting two Jedi with a double-ended lightsaber. And with John Williams whipping up a storm on the music front, you can even ignore Jar Jar Binks’s wacky antics and just sit back and enjoy some classic Star Wars escapism.

5. Zam Wessell Attacks! (Attack of the Clones)
For my money, Attack of the Clones is the best of the prequels, boasting as it does some of the finest action the modern trilogy has to offer. The coliseum battle, the Jango Fett versus Obi Wan fight, and the sight of Yoda arming-up for his duel with Count Dooku were all contenders for a spot on this list, but the chase for bounty hunter Zam Wessell takes the crown. Delivering both eye popping spectacle and some pretty well-written banter between Anakin and Obi Wan, it’s a great way to open the film and prime the audience for a long-awaited roller-coaster ride after the staid exposition of Menace.

6. Order 66 (Revenge of the Sith)
Lucas has often said that he thinks of Star Wars as a silent movie, and while that goes a long way to explaining the verbal diarrhoea he calls dialogue, it also contributes towards scenes like this. Palpatine is on his way to becoming Emperor and as he executes Order 66, the directive that turns the army of Clones against the Republic, Lucas shows us Jedi across the galaxy meeting their maker. The fact that their names are known only to the most ardent of Star Wars geeks doesn’t really matter. This is all about sound and vision, with Williams’s haunting music setting a tragic tone and the astonishing CGI vistas for once coming up trumps.

7. “How about…sister?” (Return of the Jedi)
Another example of Williams’s fine music, this is the high-point of the lightsaber battle between father and son that concludes Return of the Jedi. Trying to work out a way to finally lure Luke to the Dark Side, Vader turns his attentions to his friends and, in particular, his sister. His threat to seduce Leia encourages Luke to attack his father and Williams’s guttural music (in what is arguably the finest of his Star Wars scores) is suitably epic accompaniment for one of the series’ most emotionally-charged moments.

8. The Rebel Fleet (Empire Strikes Back)
Before The Dark Knight, this was the darkest ending any blockbuster had ever seen. A lot of its bleakness is due to the set-up, of course, with Han encased in carbonite, Luke’s hand located in Cloud City several hundred parsecs from the rest of his body and Chewie and Lando heading off to Tatooine to take on the might of Jabba the Hutt. But there’s also a lot to be said for the scene itself. Kersher shoots a simple wide shot which has Luke and Leia looking out into the bleakness of space, their futures undecided. Star Wars wouldn’t be this depressing again until Episode I.

9. Twin Suns (A New Hope)
It’s hard to believe that the guy who filmed this iconic shot of Luke staring meaningfully into Tatooine’s two suns is the same man who drenched the prequels in messy CGI, because what makes this sequence work so well is its simplicity. Stripped back to its bare components - just the scenery, the actor and the music - it’s one of the banner moments of A New Hope, and acts as a reminder of what Lucas seems to have forgotten: that he’s an incredibly talented visualist even without all his technology.

10. “Begun the Clone War has…” (Attack of the Clones)
As well as being jam-packed with action, Attack of the Clones is the only prequel which neatly connects with the original films (Sith is a little too ham-fisted for me). We see some of Anakin’s anger and arrogance bubbling up to the surface, the origin of Boba Fett and the start of the Clone Wars. Time will only tell if the campaign is worth fleshing out in the latest no-honest-this-really-is-the-last-ever-Star-Wars-film film, but the start is stunning stuff. Look at all those Clone Troopers…

THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT... ISAAC HAYES RIP

For most people of my generation, Isaac Hayes is the guy who played Chef in South Park and sang about his chocolate salty balls. Sadly, he's also the guy who seemingly couldn't take jokes about Scientology and quit the show because of it, amongst various rumours about exactly who was making his decisions for him. That was pretty much the last thing he did that hit the headlines, so it's a shame they were mostly negative, with accusations of hypocrisy from the show's creators, as he'd been happy to make fun of other religions, but drew the line when it came to his own.

But Ike won't be remembered for that in years to come, he'll be remembered as one of the greatest musicians ever to walk this earth, with his output from the late 60s to the late 70s breaking new ground for black culture. Even if you only know Theme From Shaft, you can appreciate just how incredible his talents were, as it's a song that shatters all kinds of boundaries and defies all kinds of conventions for the way it uses orchestration in the lengthy and famous intro.

The Shaft soundtrack was an incredible achievement, arguably making the film more famous and important than it actually deserved on its own merits, but his greatest work was probably the album Hot Buttered Soul, which demonstrated his ability to take pop songs and turn them into funk-soul epics. The album starts with Walk On By, lasting over 12 minutes and incorporating more great pop hooks than most artists can manage in their whole careers.

Across the next four or five albums, Ike proved himself time and time again to be a genius arranger and composer, even if many of his most famous tracks were covers. Along with David Porter, he co-wrote and performed on so many of Stax Records' biggest hits (like Soul Man, for example), and his legacy is an incredible one, even if his later work didn't match up to his golden years. Ike's gone, but he won't be forgotten.

WATCHING, READING, LISTENING TO

The staff of Entertainment Manchester reveal what's been entertaining them over the last seven days...

THE WRITER

WATCHING: The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. The Mummy franchise is one of the better Indiana Jones rip-offs and this second sequel to the 1999 original is a solidly entertaining piece of fluff - despite its flaws. Rachel Weisz replacement Maria Bello is a particular problem as she grapples unconvincingly with an English accent, while Mark Millar and Alfred Gough's screenplay is limp and uninspired. Still Brendan Fraser's on top charismatic form and there are enough wildly OTT action scenes to make this a worthwhile Friday night out.

READING: Goldfinger. Last summer I decided to work my way through all twelve of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, and I‘m currently on book seven: Goldfinger. I've heard that it gets a little silly towards the end (although it's hard to see anything being dafter than the giant squid at the end of Doctor No), but I'm only half-way through so far and at the moment it's quite a low-key head-to-head between 007 and Goldfinger. They've met twice, first in a Miami card game and then for a few rounds of golf, and Fleming has built a taut, gripping tale of two men trying to get the better of each other. Let's hope it doesn't slip quite as badly as its reputation suggests.

LISTENING TO: I've had two albums on my iPod recently: Coldplay's Viva La Vida and The Dark Knight soundtrack. The former is an entertaining but frustrating listen. It certainly has the variation that X&Y lacked and there are some fantastic songs on there. But it feels like the band are trying too hard to defy their critics and I'd prefer them to go back to the maligned but more satisfying 'indie schmindie' of Parachutes. Meanwhile, James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer have created another corker for The Dark Knight. It incorporates the epic grandiosity they perfected on the Batman Begins soundtrack, but fittingly for something Joker-related, it possess a vicious twist that cuts through you like a certain criminal's famous pencil trick.

THE EDITOR

WATCHING: No thanks to Richard Branson, I've been watching The Wire and Dexter on FX, which has now disappeared from Virgin's cable TV just after the new series of both of them had started. Thanks for that, Dicky. Luckily my parents are now recording them off Sky for me. The most recent episode of The Wire was awesome, and while Dexter isn't quite up to the high standards of the first series, it's still better than most other things out there.

READING: Taking a break from Sherlock Holmes, I read Grace After Midnight, the autobiography of Felicia 'Snoop' Pearson from The Wire, where she plays, erm, 'Snoop'. She was born a crack baby in Baltimore, grew up on the streets and was sent to prison for killing a woman in self-defence before getting spotted by the guy who plays Omar on the show and getting hired to basically play herself. Not your usual actor's story, then.

LISTENING TO: Sometimes, you can forget just how great an album really is, and I 'rediscovered' Curtis by Curtis Mayfield this week when it came up on my iPod. Every single track is genius personified, with powerful socio-political lyrics, funky soulful pop hooks and such dense and varied instrumentation that new sounds appear to you every time you listen to it. The man really was a legend.

TOP TEN TV SHOWS

With classic 90s TV show The X-Files returning to the big screen for a second time, The Editor lists his top ten programmes...

1 - The Wire

Those who love The Wire, REALLY love it, but the vast majority of people have never seen it and would probably give up after one episode if they did, scared off by the slow-moving storylines, lack of an obvious 'star' and tales of life on some of the worst and most violent streets in America. Fans compare it to Dickens, Tolstoy and Greek tragedies, which all sounds very pompous, but in the case of this show, it's the only way to describe it. The Wire tells the stories of a wide cast of characters in Baltimore, from the Mayor down to a homeless junkie, and it does so at its own pace and by its own rules. With some of America's top crime authors joining the show's creators (an ex-cop and an ex-journalist) each series is like a chapter in a novel, with a theme to each - the war on drugs, the plight of the working man, the machinations at City Hall, the failing school system and the media. The Wire really does live up to the hype and make everything else on the small or big screen look a bit cheap, easy and hollow by comparison.

2 - The Sopranos

The Sopranos would have been top of this list at the start of the year, but its drop to second is only a reflection of the incredible quality of its HBO stablemate, and the gap between the two is paper-thin. An awe-inspiring piece of TV drama, this show took obvious influences from the likes of Goodfellas and proceeded to spend six seasons bettering them in every way. A great cast - augmented by guest appearances from people like Joey Pantoliano and Steve Buscemi - and a great story told with style and class made for a show that redefined what kind of quality you could get on television. And its uncompromising approach lasted right up to the gloriously gutsy and controversial ending.

3 - Six Feet Under

The third HBO show in our top three, Six Feet Under is about death. People die in every episode and there's a funeral in pretty much all of them too, which probably makes it sound very morbid, but yet the first season had some very funny moments as the recently deceased offered advice (or abuse) to the members of the Fisher family (or at least, they did in their imaginations, there were no ghosts in Six Feet Under). Gradually, this faded out as it became more and more driven by the characters and their lives, but the black humour was still as important as the more emotional scenes in a show that could make anyone with a soul cry at least once an episode.

4 - The West Wing

Compared to the three shows above, The West Wing looks a bit cosy and old-fashioned, but that doesn't take away from how great it was, particularly at its peak. The first few seasons were a masterclass in snappy dialogue and 'making politics interesting', rattling along at such a pace that even if you didn't understand the minutae of American domestic politics, that didn't matter. With Martin Sheen as the ultimate liberal president and a welcome antidote to the real person doing the job, The West Wing may have gone into decline after creator Aaron Sorkin left, but even then it was still better than most.

5 - The Simpsons

Yes, another American TV show. They just seem to do it better. There's not a lot new that can be said about The Simpsons, and even though the quality has slipped over the years and the likes of South Park and Family Guy have offered challenges to its supremacy, it's still the best comedy on TV, animated or otherwise. Most importantly, it's also one of the most endlessly watchable shows around, a quick half hour of genius that can mostly be seen hundreds of times without losing its appeal or its laughs.

6 - Blackadder

The first British show to get on the list, Blackadder is the perfect example of British humour. It's intelligent, knowledgeable, sarcastic, cruel and not afraid to wear silly tights to get a laugh. The first series was a bit hit and miss, but once Ben Elton came on board and brought a sharper edge in place of the early surrealistic touches, Blackadder kicked into gear and taught us all we needed to know about life in Elizabethan Britain, Georgian Britain and World War I trenches.

7 - The Shield

On the face of it, The Shield is just another of those cop shows that are ten-a-penny on TV, but this is no CSI, NCIS or, indeed, The Bill. How many of those would be brave enough to have their hero shoot a fellow policeman dead in cold blood in the first episode? Vic Mackey treads a precarious moral line, fighting the bad guys and bloodthirsty gangs while not being afraid to get his hands dirty when it comes to dodgy dealings. Guest stars like Glenn Close and Forest Whittaker have come in during recent seasons to add further class to a show that has got better and better.

8 - Only Fools And Horses

Like The Simpsons, Only Fools And Horses is almost a victim of its own overwhelming success. It is so ubiquitous, so universally popular and so often repeated that it's almost becoming the kind of programme that you don't want to admit liking. But it is a remarkable programme that managed to be incredibly funny for a very long time as well as making you care as much about the characters as if they were in a moving drama series. The only shame was that they were persuaded to bring it back for three shoddy specials when the story had reached the perfect emotionally-rewarding conclusion back in 1996.

9 - Fawlty Towers

A few of these programmes have been guilty of going on for longer than they should have, but the ultimate example of a show living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is Fawlty Towers. With just 12 episodes ever being made of it, there are simply no weak links in the Fawlty chain, which is more than can be said for the hotel itself. The Office and Sacha Baron Cohen may have re-popularised 'cringe comedy' in the last decade, but John Cleese and Connie Booth perfected it here with set-pieces like the fire drill scene in The Germans.

10 - The X-Files

Unfortunately, The X-Files did go on too long for its own good, and Chris Carter and his creative team have to take the blame for including so many twists and turns in the show's alien mythology that you sense not even they knew what was going on at the end. However, the X-Files was often at its best when ignoring the aliens and letting Mulder and Scully investigate the darker fringes of American society, like the Fluke Man, the Peacock Family and Eugene Tooms, one of the scariest characters in any TV show anywhere, ever.

TOP TEN: CLOWNS

Clowns. In theory, they're zany and humorous beings designed to keep small children amused between the trapeze artist and elephant show at the circus. In reality, however, they're psychopaths hell bent on world domination. In honour of The Joker's return to the big screen in The Dark Knight, we look at popular culture's best clowns, and ask them all to kindly leave us alone.

1) Pennywise the Dancing Clown (It)
It's Halloween 1992, and the BBC is marking the occasion by showing both parts of the TV movie version of Stephen King's It on successive nights. Intrigued, the eight-year-old me, in all my youthful naivety, decides that a film starring a child-murdering clown is appropriate viewing and not at all a ticket to terror. But, after three hours of torment at the hands of that wretched beast, I learned my lesson. Not only could I not sleep properly, but I actually felt something…something sitting at the end of my bed, watching, waiting for its time to pounce. Thankfully, there was nothing there (I think), but my paranoia and lasting mistrust of clowns is testament to the power of Tim Curry's performance. Pitched perfectly between outrageous camp and spine-chilling menace, Pennywise is a fiendish creation who inserted himself into my head that terrible night in '92 and wouldn‘t bloody leave. Credit too should go to director Tommy Lee Wallace, who creates a fearful atmosphere with minimal budget, through a clever blend of long shots and extreme close-ups, meaning you never quite know where Pennywise is going to pop up. I watched the film back recently for the first time since 92, and Pennywise's first appearance between the bed sheets on little Lori Anne's washing line still made me shriek. Just a little bit mind. Honest.

2) Krusty the Clown (The Simpsons)
Right, let's cut to the chase here. Krusty is a legend and we all know why. So, let's just let the man speak for himself with a collection of Krusty's greatest quotes. "If this is anyone but Steve Allen, you're stealin' my bit!". "Now for my favourite part of the show....What does that say? Talk to the audience! Ugghhh, this is always death...". "Tonight I'm going to suck... [switches the cue cards] your blood!". "It wasn't my fault! It was the Percodan! If you ask me, that stuff rots your brain. And now a word from our new sponsor... [reads card] ...Percodan?! Ahh crap!" And finally, my particular favourite: "Hey! Hey! Hey! It's great to be back at the Apollo Theater!" [Krusty looks at the sign behind him that reads "Krusty Komedy Klassics" or "KKK" for short] "KKK?! That's not good. Unghhhhh."

3) The Joker (Batman)
Like Pennywise, The Joker has probably been expelled from the clown trade union because he's more obvious about his dastardly nature than the sly little bastards like. But he, also like Pennywise, probably just bumped them all off and took over the union himself. Just for the hell of it. It‘s not as if it‘d be difficult for The Clown Prince of Crime. Not content with having haunted Batman and the good people of Gotham for well over half a century, he's also killed Robin and paralysed Batgirl! All while laughing like a loon. No other supervillain got under his enemies’ skin like that. No other supervillain could. Because no other supervillain goes round dressed like a clown...

4) Xander's clown (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Buffy fought vampires, hell demons and werewolves many times over during the seven year run of the TV series which bore her name, but gladly evil clowns only crossed her path once. In first season episode Nightmares, she and the Scoobies are haunted by real-life incarnations of their worst fears. Willow has to perform Madame Butterfly in front of a packed house, despite not knowing a word of the opera, Buffy is turned into a vampire and comes across The Master for the first time, and Xander, well, poor old Xander gets lured by a trail of chocolately goodness into the clutches of a frightening clown he encountered at his eighth birthday party. As he proved in another Buffy episode, Hush, Joss Whedon understands that to be truly frightening you don’t need to talk, so the only sounds emanating from the mouth of this particular psychopath is a terrifying high-pitched giggle which, understandably, encourages Xander to leg it. However, our hero has the final say as he turns, thumps his foe in the face and says: "You were a lousy clown. Your balloon animals were pathetic. Everyone can make a giraffe!" HA! Take that clown!

5) The toy clown (Poltergeist)
As if that ruddy tree wasn't bad enough, director Tobe Hooper decided what he really needed to sell Poltergeist as the devil’s own film was a scary looking toy clown. For most of the flick, the little bastard mercifully just sits there. But then, once the evil has passed and the Freelings go back into their home (Why?! Why did they do that?!) the satanic little beast strikes. Disappearing under Robbie‘s bed, he bides his time, waiting for his owner to look under. Nothing. A thousand small children breathe a sigh of relief. But then…BANG! Out come the hands, up pops the head and from the back he drags the kid under. Thankfully, Jo-Beth Williams is on hand to save the day, but how long before it strikes again?!

6) Bubbles the Clown (The test card)
There are many things I can forgive the BBC for. Eastenders, BBC Three, Alan Sugar… all ok. Just about. But the old test card? Sorry, that’s just beyond the pail. For thirty years that gaudy image was put up every night after BBC One went off air, sitting there throughout the wee small hours begging an endless list of questions. Who is that girl? What is she doing? Will she ever win that game of noughts and crosses? But this isn't a top ten of confused little girls. The most important question is what the hell that clown is doing there? There doesn‘t seem to be any logic to it, it‘s just there. Waiting, patiently for its moment. Ruminating the attack, working out tactics, pondering weak points and biding its time until…the inevitable. She never grew up, you know, that little girl. In thirty years she never aged a day. We all know why….

7) Captain Spaulding (House of 1,000 Corpses/The Devil's Rejects)
"But he's just a psychopath in make-up," came my reply when The Editor suggested putting Captain Spaulding on this list. "Exactly," he said. Well, how could I deny that? Probably inadvertently considering the film is utter dreck, House of 1,000 Corpses director Rob Zombie discovered the ultimate and undeniable truth about clowns. They are, every single one of them, just psychopaths wearing make-up. Seriously, think about it. What kind of a person wakes up in the morning and thinks "I know, I'll slap on some deathly white make-up, smear a smile on my face, don some oversized shoes and then, dressed like this, go out and entertain children"? A dangerous and disturbed person, that's who. And that's why Captain Spaulding made it on the list.

8) James Bond (Octopussy)
Many would say that Roger Moore was a clown from the very start of his tenure as 007, but it took until his penultimate outing for him to finally go all the way and stick on the make-up, silly wig and floppy shoes. Here Bond is tasked with tracking a jewel thief, and his journey leads him into the path of an Afghan prince and his associate, the titular Octopussy. For some reason, he eventually stumbles his way to a circus where, dressed as a clown, he defuses a bomb. Jumping the shark? Sadly, the Bond series did that years before…

9) Ashes to Ashes clown (Ashes to Ashes video)
"Ashes to ashes/Funk to funky/We know Major Tom's a junkie/Strung out in heavens high hitting an all-time low". Quite what that has to do with the miserable clown that appears in the video is known only to David Bowie. The rest of us can just sit there trying not to look directly at him. He'll probably turn us into stone or something. Evil. Very, VERY evil.

10) Insane Clown Posse members (Insane Clown Posse)
The only thing worse than one insane clown is a whole posse of them. Making music. Rubbish music. Ten albums worth of it. Worst band of all time? Absolutely.

THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT... PIXAR'S SHORT FILMS

Everyone has a favourite Pixar film. The Incredibles, Toy Story, Finding Nemo…Their list of hits is seemingly never-ending and even the so-called weaker pictures like A Bug’s Life and Cars still have more heart, ideas and freshness in a minute of celluloid than most rival animation houses have in their entire output. But what about their short films? So often overlooked in favour of their famous features, Pixar’s shorts gave the company their big break back in the 1980s and still prove a treat for cinemagoers today.

It all began in 1984 when Pixar was still owned by Lucasfilm and specialised in computer hardware production instead cartoons. Looking to create something special to show off their latest developments at an industry expo, John Lasseter and a small team of computer boffins decided to make a short film and came up with Andre and Wally B, a minute-and-a-half long short about a weird, big-nosed creature and giant bee bickering in a glorious, autumnal forest.

The animation is crude by today’s standards, but it proved a story could be told with computer animation and three years later they followed it up with the famous Luxo Jnr. The simple story of a parent lamp who watches as his son plays with and then accidentally deflates a ball, it exhibits Lassester’s genius for generating a wealth of emotion - everything from joy and sadness to shame and sympathy - from characters who are comprised of little more than three or four geometric shapes stuck together.

He achieved a similar feat with the following year’s Red’s Dream, a three minute film about a red unicycle with unrealised ambitions of juggling, before 1988 flick Tin Toy, in which the titular plaything tries to escape the clutches (and slobbering mouth) of his infant owner, gave the company a huge shot in the arm by winning an Oscar. Again, Lasseter’s mastery of visual storytelling shines through, and while the animation is crude, they and the following year‘s Knick Knack proved the company had enough imagination to fill a full-length film, and so Toy Story was born.

At this point, Pixar could have abandoned their short film output and concentrated on features instead. But, understanding that shorts are the perfect arena to test new technologies and untried talents, they continued the tradition with 1997’s Geri’s Game, a sweet story about an old man playing chess against himself. The first time Pixar truly perfected human skin and movement, Geri’s Game was an important breakthrough that would later allow them to make human-centered flicks like The Incredibles and Ratatouille, and added a little complexity to the simple storytelling they had in Tin Toy and Knick-Knack.

Up next was the magnificent For The Birds, the story of a group of bullying little avians who get their comeuppance after picking on one of their larger cousins. Another important flick for Pixar’s technological developments, it helped pioneer the realistic feathers and fur that would be so important to Monsters Inc. More importantly from a non-geeky point of view, it is arguably their finest short film, with director Ralph Egglestone creating a rich, detailed and funny story, which is as satisfying as any feature, despite its short length.

With the DVD release of Monster’s Inc, Pixar branched out into shorts featuring characters from their existing films. Mike’s New Car, the self-explanatory short included on the aforementioned film’s DVD, came first followed by Cars’ Mater and the Ghost Light, Ratatouille’s Your Friend The Rat and, best of all, Jak-Jak Attack, the hilarious story of what happened at the Incredibles’ home when a young babysitter bit off more than she could chew with the heroes’ baby. Short but perfectly formed, they’re so good you wonder why Pixar haven’t produced more and turned them into a TV series. I know I’d tune in.

Yet there remains something special about the original shorts Pixar creates for their pre-feature entertainment. Their most recent offerings, music-tinted One Man Band and alien abduction caper Lifted, have again found the company producing funny, inventive and sweet films that prove perfect tasters for the movies they are attached to, yet manage to exist as masterful works of art in their own right.

For Wall*E, they’ve come up with Presto, the story of a magician and his rabbit battling for a carrot. It will last only a few minutes and probably be missed by a significant portion of cinemagoers who are still waiting in line for their popcorn and Coke. But, like all Pixar’s output, it will charm and delight those who are in their seats and act as another reminder of the humble origins of one of the finest studios, live action or animated, working today.

READING, WATCHING, LISTENING TO

Find out what has been entertaining the Entertainment Manchester staff this week...

THE EDITOR

WATCHING: I've mostly been watching Dexter over the last few weeks, cramming in all of the first series on DVD just in time to start watching the second on Sunday on FX, which has started very well. Now I'm on another race against time to watch the fourth series of The Wire in time for the fifth to start later this month. Filmwise, I saw Prince Caspian at the cinema last weekend, which was pretty dull and and long-winded. At least Warwick Davis got to be in it as he was in the TV show too, though playing a different character. Not sure the Narnia series can keep on going all the way to the end on the big screen...

READING: Having bought myself a box-seat of Sherlock Holmes books ages ago with a post-Christmas book voucher, I've finally got around to reading them, and am currently most of the way through the third one, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. They're great, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of them, particularly as they are quite easy to dip in and out of whilst on the tram...

LISTENING TO: I'm on a classic rock tip at the moment, with Motley Crue and Whitesnake both very popular. Dr Feelgood and Kickstart My Heart by the Crue are just awesome rock anthems and have been very useful in the last week to help kick Rock Star by Nickelback out of my head (thank you very much to whichever generic sofa company have that awful song in their terrible advert). And finally, there's Ronald Jenkees, the YouTube legend (look him up) and his ace version of the Rocky theme...



THE WRITER

WATCHING: Doctor Who. This season of Doctor Who has been the best since its return in 2005, and it got a suitably epic finale on Saturday. Well, according to me anyway. Many others found problems with the season-closer, complaining that the lack of regeneration and metaphorical rather than literal death of the assistant were cop-outs. Nonsense. The regeneration sidestep was perfectly legitimate (come on, this is sci-fi), and the ‘death’ of Donna was one of the darkest, most bleak endings to a mainstream TV show I think I’ve ever seen, offering up something far more tragic than a simple, straightforward death. There were minor issues, of course, with the Daleks being defeated a little too easily and Rose settling too quickly for the cloned Doctor. But when the episode also threw up a bonkers Davros threatening to destroy reality itself, the sight of the Tardis hauling a kidnapped Earth back to its original place and, best of all, German Daleks it just seems silly to nitpick. This was Russell T. Davies’s last season as show-runner, and he leaves the series, Saturday night telly and science-fiction as a whole far richer places.

READING: Indiana Jones comics. To coincide with the release of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Dark Horse have recently published two anthologies of their 1990s Indy comics, much to the delight of myself and geeks everywhere. It‘s not all good news though. With George Lucas preferring to set many of the established movie characters aside for future cinematic outings, these adventures sadly seem separate from Steven Spielberg’s films, and sometimes even from each other, with the use of different writers and artists for each tale making it difficult to build up consistency from one story to the next. The limited length of comic books also proves a hindrance, something not helped by the exposition that the complex, globe-trotting plots lumber each story with. However, they’re still rip-roaring entertainment, with the writers capturing Indy’s voice perfectly and the MacGuffins being unique enough to make sure these aren’t just nostalgic retreads of the films.

LISTENING TO: Radiohead: LIVE!!! Ok, this is a bit of a cheat considering the Editor and I went to see The Mighty Head (as absolutely nobody calls them) two Sundays back, but as I’ve listened to nothing of note since then it still counts. As was mentioned in the review, the casual-fan crowd was often unresponsive, but the band themselves were on top form, playing a perfectly-judged set with a fine balance of pre and post-Kid A tracks. As good as the likes of Paranoid Android, Just and Fake Plastic Trees were though, the gig really came alive for me when they played the more obscure stuff. The Gloaming, Bangers and Mash and Myxamaotosis are all more interesting tracks live than they are in album form, and it’s quite a sight watching Thom thrust all things thrustable and shoot the audience with an imaginary gun during the latter song. All in all, a fantastic experience…even if I did have a dirty hoodie thrown at me during the first encore.

TOP TEN: RADIOHEAD

With Radiohead playing at Lancashire County Cricket Ground on Sunday, The Writer and The Editor (who are both going) offer up their own Top Ten Radiohead Songs lists. And one of them couldn't even stick to just ten...

THE WRITER

1. No Surprises (OK Computer)
The glockenspiel, the video, the use on The Royale Family…there are so many reasons to love No Surprises (it also begins arguably the finest ending to any album ever, segueing perfectly into Lucky and then The Tourist). But the reason why No Surprises is at the top of this list, why it’s the greatest Radiohead song ever, is that it’s the finest example of what they do so brilliantly: filter their political interests through personal stories. In its mentions of “bringing down the government” and “handshakes of carbon monoxide”, this is every bit as angry a song as Electioneering. But unlike that track, No Surprises introduces us to an everyday protagonist. He’s sick of his job, yearning for a more simple life (“such a pretty house, such a pretty garden”) and concerned for his girlfriend (“you look so tired, unhappy”). The imagery Yorke creates in telling this character‘s story (hearts filled like landfills, handshakes of carbon monoxide, final fits and bellyaches) is some of his most evocative ever, and the simple chorus of “no alarms and no surprises, please” is heartbreakingly simple. By the end, he’s not describing some random guy any more, he’s describing you and I in our darkest hour. Yet, the song’s ultimate triumph is that it leaves you not with a feeling of despair, but one of hope and happiness. We all have “bruises that won’t heel”, and there’s something about hearing that in a song that’s deeply cathartic.

2. Motion Picture Soundtrack (Kid A)
I know what you’re thinking. ‘Well, this list is just a barrel of laughs’, right? But much like No Surprises, Motion Picture Soundtrack is a dark song (probably about suicide) with a hopeful edge. Musically a simple blend of acoustic guitar and organ, it introduces us to someone who has lost or split up with his girlfriend. The line “red wine and sleeping pills help me get back to your arms” seems to suggest our hero is going to commit suicide after his partner‘s death, but the reference to ‘sent letters getting burned’ points more towards a painful break up the protagonist has not yet got over. Whatever the reason for his unhappiness, he seems absolutely sure he will “get back where he belongs” and even if the final line does point almost unavoidably toward death, the little flurry of harp which joins it adds a positive flavour which allows the listener to leave the otherwise dark and apocalyptic world of Kid A with a sense of optimism.

3. Pyramid Song (Amnesiac)
So, that’s three songs possibly about death in the top three. I’d like to make it perfectly clear at this point that I am not some kind of death-obsessed nut case. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. What I like about these songs is that, despite their dark, brooding music, the lyrics are hopeful and positive. Pyramid Song is the most complex example. The opening line (“I jumped in the river…”) certainly points to a dark subject matter, but the rest of the track is beautifully upbeat. Our hero is shown “a moon full of stars” and “astral cars”, before going to “heaven in a little row boat”. Death, right? Nope. While on this journey, our protagonist is introduced to “all the figures I used to see”, “all my lovers” and “all my past and future”…And if he has a future, he’s not dead. Indeed, for me, this song isn’t about death at all, it’s a musical companion to It’s A Wonderful Life. Seriously! Like George Bailey in that film, our hero is given some divine intervention, shown his past, future, everyone he’s known and everyone he will ever know and told, ultimately, that there’s “nothing to fear and nothing to doubt”. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I was told that and then given the choice between life and death, I know what I’d choose.

4. Paranoid Android (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttNE-QZWR0c)
Ok, why is this some random demo version rather than the official recording on OK Computer? Well, one reason could be that I‘ve listened to Paranoid Android so many times that I‘ve become bored of it. It’s shocking, but a possibility. More than that though, ever since I found this early demo recording of the track on YouTube, I’ve just about preferred it to the OKC offering because it lends the song a completely different tone. For the most part, both versions are identical. A line here, a word there are different, but essentially they’re the same. Until, that is, the final section comes along. In the ‘rain down…’ chorus Thom sings ‘Hallelujah’ and adds an ‘Amen’ to the end, almost like a prayer, and the outro is longer and has Jonny Greenwood’s organ higher in the sound mix. A subtle difference perhaps, but it adds a more melancholic, less angry feel to the piece which turns Paranoid Android into a sad, plaintive cry for help. The official version remains fantastic, of course, but this one just has that little bit extra humanity that makes Radiohead a cut above the rest.

5. Fog (Knives Out B-side)
Here‘s another song that comes in two different incarnations. One, the second to be released, is on the Hail to the Thief-era ‘Com Lag EP’. It’s a simple, piano-led version of the song and apparently Yorke considers it the superior one. On this rare occasion, Thom, I beg to differ. For me, the best version of this magnificent track can be found on the B-side to the single version of Knives Out (itself a classic). Unlike most Radiohead songs, I have no clue what Thom is singing about. As far as I can tell, it’s something about small children, alligators and things going bad. What that has to do with fog I don’t know, but the track is on here mainly because of the music. It begins with some ambient noise, almost like wind blowing by outside. Then Colin Greenwood’s bass kicks in joined by some gentle tapping. Yorke’s vocals begin, before the guitars are put into the mix as well. The drumming becomes more insistent, the gentle lullaby sounds in the background grow louder and then, finally, it explodes into life. The Yorke solo version is wonderful too, but this is a cracking mix of OKC Radiohead and Kid A/Amnesiac Radiohead, and it’s a shame it never found its way onto an album.

6. True Love Waits (I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings EP)
Ah, now here’s a lyric I can understand. Probably one of the few straight-up Radiohead love songs, True Love Waits looked set to be one of their great lost classics as the band went years without ever being able to agree upon a releasable version. It became a firm fan favourite though and was often played live, leading to its release on the I Might Be Wrong live EP. Written from the point of view of a lovelorn protagonist begging his partner to stay with him, it’s a simple acoustic number that boasts some of Yorke’s finest lyrics. “I’ll dress like your niece to wash your swollen feet” is a curious but sweet expression of devotion, while “your tiny hands, your crazy kitten smile” is just plain lovely. But it’s the penultimate verse that is my favourite. “True love waits, in haunted attics, and true love lives, on lollipops and crisps.” It was apparently inspired by the story of a young boy, abandoned at home by his holidaying parents for a week, who got by on crisps and lollipops alone, and is another great example of the positive element to Radiohead’s songwriting that many overlook.

7. A Reminder (Airbag/How Am I Driving? EP)
You want an example of Radiohead’s genius, this is it. Yorke apparently wrote this song while bored one day. Yep, he wrote one of the band’s best songs out of boredom! A Reminder is based on an idea Yorke had about writing a song that someone could play back to a friend in their old age to remind them of their youth. It begins with disillusionment: the hazy sound of indistinguishable voices at a train station and some loose guitar strumming. But once Yorke’s vocal kicks it, it gains in pace as he sings: “If I get old, I will not give in. But if I do, remind me of this”. The second verse continues with the same affirming tone: “Remind me that once I was free, once I was cool, once I was me”. The music continues to build until it hits a crescendo in the fourth verse. Then, to finish us off, Yorke sings the song’s sweetest line: “If I get old, remind me of this, that night we kissed, and I really meant it. Whatever happens, if we’re still speaking. Pick up the phone, play me this song”. Whoever said Radiohead were depressing?

8. Reckoner (In Rainbows)
Bang up to date now with what I reckon (see what I did there?) is the best song off In Rainbows. Bizarrely though, I wasn’t very keen when I first heard it, thinking it was musically rather ho-hum. I know, sacrilege, right? What made it click for me was when I received my shiny-wonderful disc-box and read the lyrics, and suddenly what was a rather middle-of-the-road Radiohead number suddenly transformed into the heartbeat of the whole album. In Rainbows is Radiohead’s most humane and heartfelt work since OKC, and while a Reckoner sounds quite scary, the song is “dedicated to all human beings…because we separate like ripples on a blank shore”. With ethereal vocals sighing the name of the album in the background and the music hitting the high notes, I don’t think I’ve heard alienation and loneliness expressed in such a beautiful way.

9. Fake Plastic Trees (The Bends)
With its slow start, buildy-uppy (yes, it’s a word) middle and raucous end, Fake Plastic Trees arguably set-up the anthemic structure Radiohead would perfect on OK Computer and then shy away from on Kid A. It deserves its place on this list for that reason alone. But, as you might be able to tell from my choices, I’m a big fan of Yorke’s lyrics, and Fake Plastic Trees’ words make the song more complex than just a simple festival anthem. With its references to “green plastic watering cans”, “fake Chinese rubber plants”, and “cracked polystyrene men”, it seems like quite a cold, bitter song about the consumer culture of modern Britain and the obsession we have with superficial beauty. But there’s also a lot of empathy in there, with Yorke sympathising with the worn out plastic surgeon who always loses to gravity, the aforementioned polystyrene man “who just crumbles and burns” and the character at the end, who I’ve always read as being the plastic surgeon’s customer desperately doing herself over to keep hold of the man she loves, who melancholically repeats: “if I could be who you wanted…all the time”. They may be shy and withdrawn in public, but songs like this really do prove that Radiohead are a band of the people.

10. Big Boots (Man-O-War) (http://youtube.com/watch?v=EYAHxZfKiuA)
A sort of brother song to In Rainbows’ Nude, this unreleased track about adultery has now sadly been ditched by the band as unrecordable. Perhaps it’s a bit of a cheat to include it here then, but click the above link and tell me it’s not one of the band’s finest tracks. Musically they wanted to create something with a bit of a James Bond twist to it, and Big Boots would certainly sound great accompanying a Maurice Binder credit sequence. But it’s in the lyrics that the song is most interesting. Written, it seems, from the point of view of a very angry housewife who is about to take revenge on her adulterous husband, the song insists that “drunken confessions and hijacked affairs will only make you more alone” before threatening to “bake you a cake, made of all their eyes.” “What a nasty surprise,” she adds. No kidding. Fascinatingly, she also says: “You’re my man-o-war,” hinting she still loves him as part of some kind of mutually self-destructive relationship. With Bond going through a bit of a dark phase at the moment, and his relationship with women under particularly close scrutiny, this is exactly the kind of song the producers should be going for. Broccolis: find Thom Yorke’s number and demand he and the band finish it!

Honourable mentions (AKA: The Cop-Out Section): Just - The Bends (Sod off Mark Ronson!), Idioteque - Kid A (It’s a dance song. About the apocalypse!) , Like Spinning Plates - I Might Be Wrong EP (Piano led and better than Amnesiac’s version), Street Spirit - The Bends (Obviously), Melatonin - Airbag/How Am I Driving EP (Another reason to get this awesome collection), How To Disappear Completely - Kid A (One of Yorke’s most evocative lyrics), The Tourist - OKC (Best. Album. Closer. Ever), Anyone Can Play Guitar - Pablo Honey (No they can’t - I’ve tried), Myxamatosis - HTTT (does anybody know what this song is about?), How I Made My Millions - No Surprises single (released demo with Yorke’s wife cooking in the background. Reality TV for Radiohead fans), Thinking About You - Pablo Honey (“I still love you, still see you in bed, but I'm playing with myself.” Ahem), Analyse - The Eraser (Yes, it counts).

THE EDITOR

1. Fake Plastic Trees
For me, this is still the undisputed high point of Radiohead's career. Apparently recorded after they saw Jeff Buckley perform, it demonstrates perfectly the influence that he had on them on The Bends, the album that turned them from a decent indie rock band into something more special. Deceptively simple musically, but incredibly effective and with anti-consumerist lyrics that tread the line between 'good pretentious' and 'bad pretentious' perfectly, this is the song I would always choose to explain to someone why I like Radiohead.

2. Idioteque
The most successful of their experimental tracks from the Kid A/Amnesiac era, Idioteque manages to defy the convention of what a Radiohead song was supposed to be, whilst also being one of the catchiest and most memorable songs they've ever released. The lyrics were supposedly cut up and put together at random, and it certainly sounds like it, and that only adds to the mood of apocalyptic dread. Always a great live track, if only to see Thom Yorke's dancing, honed by hours of practice in the bunker...

3. Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Partly thanks to its astonishing video, this was the track that really introduced me to Radiohead, and was one of the first songs I ever tried to learn on the guitar. Like Fake Plastic Trees, Street Spirit is a really simple but effective song with one of the most instantly recognisable guitar riffs around. You can see why people might criticise it for being 'depressing' because of the way the 'fade out' refrain drags, but if that puts you off, you're missing out on a classic.

4. Lucky
This is where I get to mention Six Feet Under, as I tend to do in most of my blogs. Lucky was used in an incredibly emotive and cathartic scene involving the Fisher family stood around a bonfire of old possessions that they hadn't been able to sell in a yard sale, seeing their pasts literally go up in smoke. Even though it wasn't the song that was originally supposed to be used, this OK Computer track was perfect for the scene, but a song this powerful and classy would be great in any scene.

5. Paranoid Android
Radiohead at their prog-rock best, Paranoid Android is completely insane and one of the most uncompromising top five chart hits (their biggest UK hit) ever. One of their longest songs, with some of their heaviest guitar riffs, most beautiful melodies and most unintelligible lyrics, Paranoid Android is one of the bravest and best singles released in the 90s. A natural set-closer, I readily admit that I'll be disappointed if they don't play it on Sunday, even though I did hear it the last time I saw them.

6. No Surprises
Sure, the beauty of this song might be slightly tainted by the association of it with Dave and Denise Best on The Royle Family simpering over their little baby, but it's still another awesome OK Computer single. Like Street Spirit, it's a surprisingly simple repetitive melody that is devastatingly effective, showing that, for all of their reputation for making 'clever-clever' music, Radiohead can be at their best when keeping it simple.

7. Pyramid Song
Even though it got into the top five, Pyramid Song hardly had anything like the kind of impact on the general public as the singles from Ok Computer or The Bends had, but it's right up there (obviously) with their best tracks. Recorded during the Kid A sessions, but left off that album, it is beautiful, haunting, epic and unforgettable. To be honest, I can't write anything about it to match the stuff The Writer said, so I won't even try...

8. The National Anthem
One of the all-time great bass-lines (played by Thom Yorke apparently) gives The National Anthem a real hook and makes it one of the most instant tracks from Kid A even though it's also one of the most 'out there'. The fact that it combines the experimental electronic approach of so much of that album with obvious free-form Miles Davis/Charles Mingus jazz influences and still manages to be catchy and a live favourite just shows how great it is.

9. Nude
The fact that this is the only track from In Rainbows to make it into my list, even though In Rainbows is one of my favourite Radiohead albums, perhaps goes to show that it is a record that works best as a cohesive collection of tracks, rather than individual songs, so not many of them really stand out for me. Nude is the exception though, a gorgeous, gorgeous tune that apparently dates back to 1997, but sounds perfect in the finished form on In Rainbows. If they can make it sound that good live, it could be a highlight on Sunday.

10. Knives Out
The recurrent theme here of 'simple' songs ends with arguably the most straightforward track they've recorded since OK Computer. Famously, they agonised over it during the recording process because they were worried that it wasn't complex enough at a time in their career when they were trying to push the envelope: "We just lost our nerve," said Yorke." It was so straight-ahead. We thought, 'We've gotta put that in the bin, it's too straight.' We couldn't possibly do anything that straight until we'd gone and been completely arse about face with everything else, in order to feel good about doing something straight like that. It took 373 days to be arse-about-face enough to realise it was alright the way it was." It certainly is.

THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT... JOE DANTE

Zany, wacky, warped...they're not words you'd normally use to positively describe a film-maker, but when it comes to Joe Dante they're entirely complimentary. One of the most unique students of the Roger Corman school of film-making, Dante hit his stride with 1978's Jaws spoof Piranha after debuting in 1976 with Hollywood Boulevard, and has excelled in making irreverent, tongue-in-cheek horror/sci-fi films ever since. Here, we run down five of the best Dante efforts to get a clearer picture of the man who has taken on gremlins, psychotic toys and curtain-twitching neighbours...

The Howling (1981)
Following the success of Piranha, Dante stayed in the horror genre with The Howling. Written by Piranha scribe and indie legend John Sayles, it's a smart, sassy upgrading of werewolf lore which stars Dee Wallace as a newswoman who stumbles across a colony of the lupine beasts while on the trail of a serial killer. Released in the same year as John Landis's An American Werewolf in London, it received less acclaim than its brother film, but is an arguably more intelligent and complex affair, with Sayles's smart script neatly plundering the sexual and psychological undertones of lycanthropy and Dante placing more emphasis on suspense and scares than Landis's more gory picture. It spawned an amazing seven sequels (the first of which was subtitled ‘Stirba - Werewolf Bitch’), each one more absurd than the last, but don’t hold that against it…

The 'burbs (1989)
Ah the burbs. In all my years, I've never met anyone who doesn't like it. A classic tale of small-town paranoia, it stars Tom Hanks as an ordinary guy who suspects his neighbours may not be all they seem. Blending horror and science-fiction, it's a typically playful Dante film, but for once more credit must go to his writer, Dana Olsen, whose script plays its cards close to its chest and keeps you guessing as to what exactly is going on right till the very end. The ’burbs is also notable for having a fantastic use of the Universal logo. Once the company's name has moved from the screen, the globe remains and the camera zooms in closer and closer and closer, until finally we're on the street where all the forthcoming action will take place. It's a wonderfully off-kilter way to set up the movie and lets the audience know from the very start that something is very much amiss...

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
This space was going to be taken up by the original Gremlins film as it is - just about, in my opinion - the superior picture. However, it’s also more of a straight-up horror film, and with The Howling already taking care of that side of Dante's oeuvre, I felt it best to highlight his madcap, cartoony talents with this sequel. Phoebe Cates and Zach Galligan reprise their role from the first film, but they (and even the loveable Gizmo) play second fiddle to the Gremlins, who have now mutated into bats, spiders and Tony Randall-voiced cultural commentators. Dante subverts movie sequels by turning much of the film into a live-action cartoon and when the big finale comes, it’s not an action-packed special effects spectacular, but a Gremlin sing-along to New York, New York. What other director would give you that?

Small Soldiers (1998)
On one level, this tale of toys going on the rampage is exactly the same as Gremlins, but in terms of tone, Small Soldiers features Dante in a more melancholic mood. Starring the late Phil Hartman and a young Kirsten Dunst, it finds hyper intelligent soldier toys the Commando Elite waging war upon their peaceful alien counterparts the Gorgonites on a small suburban street. Although it boasts all Dante’s usual subversion (Denis Leary gives a great turn as the sleazy CEO whose company creates the toys) and spot-on movie references (the Gorgonites are played by Spinal Tap; Commando Elite by the Dirty Dozen), this is arguably his most mainstream and accessible film to date and, as it makes explicit the nostalgia which courses through all his films, Small Soldiers plays as well to wistful adults as it does to bloodthirsty kids.

Masters of Horror: Homecoming (2005)
Bringing us bang up to date, Dante has directed two episodes for anthology TV series Masters of Horror in recent years. The second of the duo is The Screwfly Solution, which I have yet to see, but it'll have to be something of a masterpiece to trump its predecessor Homecoming. Dante's most brutally satirical work yet, it's a zombie film in which the dead from the Iraq war return not to chomp on brains but to vote in a forthcoming election. Government officials tow the party line by insisting that the dead support the war that they died in, but soon the amount of deceased returning grows, putting one of the president's top advisors in danger...By turns sharp and melancholic, this is one of the most unique zombie films you'll ever see, featuring almost no bloody killings or brain eating. It's also a pretty original protest film, questioning not only the war, but the false rhetoric the government churns out to keep the public quiet. All in all, essential viewing which proves Dante is still one of the most interesting film-makers around, despite Hollywood’s seeming hesitance to give him work.

READING, WATCHING, LISTENING TO

Find out what has been entertaining the Entertainment Manchester staff this week...


THE EDITOR

WATCHING: Saw The Incredible Hulk at the cinema, which was alright. I was a big fan of the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno tv show and movies, and this doesn't really match the pathos of those, and nor does it aim as high as Ang Lee's Hulk, but it's pretty good for what it is, and you can't go too far wrong with the likes of Ed Norton, Tim Roth and Tim Blake Nelson in the cast. On on a completely different level, I'm now on Season Three of The Wire on DVD and it just keeps on getting better and better. The Incredible Hulk may have the special effects, the explosions and the smashing, but The Wire is the one that is truly epic.

LISTENING TO: Weezer's sixth album, erm, Weezer. Going back to the self-titled album approach, I'd hoped that they might bounce back from the mediocre Make Believe, but if anything, this is a further step in the wrong direction. Rivers Cuomo has been playing dumb for so long now, it's tempting to wonder whether he really has become dumb. Certainly that moustache begs a few questions. Other than that, the usual mixed bunch of White Zombie, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Live, Gun, Luciano and Leonard Cohen - in the hope that I might still get into his shows at the Opera House this week.

READING: Still Phra Peter Pannapadipo's Phra Farang tale of a British man's life as a Buddhist monk in Thailand. Coming to the end of it now and it's been a very good read with a good sense of humour and a great insight into a completely different world and way of life, Phra Peter's experiences are never dull, both as a 'fish out of water' travel guide and a book about Buddhism. His attempts to communicate in Thai are certainly always entertaining, as he describes the bewildered expressions of fellow monks as he explains that there are four elephants on top of his hut, when he was actually just trying to say that his roof was leaking. This is why everyone should just speak English...


THE WRITER


WATCHING: The Happening. Oh dear. Despite feeling let down by M. Night Shyamalan‘s recent films, I was cautiously optimistic that he would regain his form in The Happening after being impressed by the creepy trailers. Sadly, it’s his worst to date. A relentlessly silly thriller about a poisonous gas which forces people to commit suicide, The Happening is full of hamfisted direction, convoluted character motivations and reams of dreadful dialogue. An impressive cast led by Mark Whalberg and Zooey Deschanel could have saved it, but they‘re unique, often quirky, actors miscast in a film which calls for everymen, and seem wooden as a result. Hopefully, Shyamalan can regain his form one day, but he needs to ditch the big ideas, forget the convoluted plots and turn back to the complex character work that made The Sixth Sense and Unbreakeable so good.

LISTENING TO: She & Him - Volume One. Talking of the lovely Zooey Deschanel, I’ve been listening to extracts from her debut album this week. She’s been writing music all her life apparently, and been in a band - If All The Stars Were Pretty Babies, with fellow actress Samantha Shelton - for the last few years, but with She & Him (a collaboration with M.Ward), she’s finally got something released - and it’s pretty damn good. Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? is a fantastic bouncy summer tune, Sentimental Heart displays Deschanel’s talent with lyrics and Take It Back is a darker, more bruised love song than you‘d perhaps expect from an actor. This Is Not A Test is a little too country-schmuntry (yes, it’s a word!) for my liking, but all in all this is very promising, with Deschanel’s expressive voice proving that a history in acting can sometimes be beneficial to a career in music.

READING: Devil May Care. This has been written by Sebastian Faulkes in the style of Ian Fleming to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the Bond author’s birth, and some have suggested it reads like a pastiche of his work. Nothing could be further from the truth. The first 007 book to be released since 2002‘s The Man With The Red Tattoo, Devil May Care is certainly a perfectly studied replica of Fleming’s novels, but it’s original enough to stand on its own two feet. Bond finds himself in the Middle East crossing swords with the villainous Dr Julius Gorner while hunting down his new ladyfriend’s drug addict sister. Gorner has a vendetta against England, and his crimes are revenge for those the country committed during the Empire years, so there are some stinging attacks on England’s past that you get the feeling Fleming wouldn’t entirely approve of. Hardcore Bond fans may not be impressed by it either, but for me the political edge only adds more brilliance to Faulkes’ work. He’s updated a classic character, while at the same time staying true to his roots and, as obvious as it is to say this, DMC would make a great film.

TOP TEN SPRINGSTEEN SONGS

With Bruce Springsteen playing at Old Trafford this week, we preview it with our list of his top ten songs...


1 - Born To Run

Every legendary song needs its own legend, and Born To Run's comes from the story of how it was written. After two promising but commercially unsuccessful albums, Bruce Springsteen was in his last chance saloon as far as his music career was concerned. So he wrote a song about having one last shot at glory (a trademark - almost to the point of cliche - theme for him over his career). But it's not the lyrics that mark this out of one of rock music's all-time classics, it's the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to the music, clearly inspired by Phil Spector's Wall Of Sound, and climaxing perfectly with the few seconds where the song seems to fade away before exploding back to life, as thrilling as any other moment in music history.

2 - Thunder Road

Another Born To Run classic that is thematically close to the title track, Thunder Road is another 'let's get out of here' track, but stylistically it's very different. Starting with a plaintive piano/harmonica-led verse, it gradually builds up and manages to be very catchy despite lacking a traditional chorus. The lyrics are amongst Springsteen's best, not least the closing line "It's a town full of losers, we're pulling outta here to win", while throwaway lines like "You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright" (picked by Julia Roberts as the song lyric that described her most accurately) sum up his appeal to the everyman and everywoman of America (and the world).

3 - Atlantic City

"Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night, and they blew up his house too." As anthemic as any opening line in Springsteen's oeuvre, it comes from the most accessible track from his folky acoustic album Nebraska. Released in 1982 in between The River and Born In The USA, it stands out from both of those for its sparse instrumentation, mainly because he took the decision to release his 4-track demos as the album rather than the version he had recorded with the E-Street Band. Atlantic City is another tale of a young couple making an escape to the titular city, which was racked at the time by crime families (the 'chicken man' was a real mob boss named Philip Testa, who was blown up in March 1981) and general decline and despair. Basically, it's a less optimistic version of the two songs above.

4 - The River

Coming from the double album of the same name, this is one of his best downbeat songs, with the river acting a symbol of hope for the working class protagonist and his young girlfriend, but circumstances soon overtake them, leaving him with just his memories of that hope: "That night we went down to the river, though I know the river is dry, it sends me down to the river tonight." As for unfulfilled hope, does any line sum it up as well as this one: "Is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is it something worse?" A truly great song that may not have been a massive hit, but will always be remembered as one of his best.

5 - Highway Patrolman

Another song from Nebraska, this is one of his clearest examples of story-telling, so much so that Sean Penn actually made a film based on it (The Indian Runner). The highway patrolman is called Joe, and his unruly brother Frankie goes off to war in Vietnam while Joe stays home and marries their sweetheart Maria. When Frankie comes back, he gets in trouble at a bar and possibly kills another man before going on the run, with Joe having to chase him like any other suspect but eventually letting him escape over the border because: "Man turns his back on his family, well he just ain't no good."

6 - Racing In The Street

Coming after the optimism and yearning of Born To Run, you might have expected follow-up album Darkness On The Edge Of Town to be pretty upbeat, considering that Springsteen had enjoyed plenty of success and acclaim for that album. However, the follow-up's title said it all, as Darkness was full of stories of tragedy, failure and the loss of hope, none more bleak and affecting than Racing In The Street, "She sits on the porch of her daddy's house, but all her pretty dreams are torn, she stares off alone into the night, with the eyes of one who hates for just being born." If that sounds depressing, Springsteen's plaintive vocals and simple piano-led instrumentation make it even more of a dirge. But an incredible one and the first one to play anyone who thinks that there's nothing more to him than the anthemic rock of Born In The USA.

7 - Hungry Heart

During the late 70s, Springsteen wasn't too interested in recording upbeat poppy songs, prefering to focus on the darker side of life (see above), so whenever something commercial popped in his head, he gave it someone else instead. Patti Smith's Because The Night is one of the best examples of these, and Hungry Heart was meant to be too. He wrote it for The Ramones, but was convinced to keep it for himself. The lyrics are still fairly dark, about a broken relationship and a constant unfulfilled yearning for love, but he sugarcoats it with his poppiest production of all, echoeing the treatment he'd give to his tale of a bitter Vietnam veteran (Born In The USA) a few years later.

8 - Gypsy Biker

The newest song on this list, it comes from last year's Magic album and showcases the E-Street Band at their very best, with a pounding drumbeat, soaring harmonica and duelling guitars all creating a wall of noise to back Springsteen's tale of the homecoming of US soldier killed in action in Iraq. An outspoken opponent of Bush and the war, his lyrics here say it all: "The favored march up over the hill, in some fools parade, shoutin' victory for the righteous, but there ain't much here but graves." You can maybe see it as a kind of sequel to Born In The USA, with the betrayed veteran replaced by the hidden victim of a more media-savvy war.

9 - Into The Fire

A lot of American musicians tried to write songs about 9/11 in the years after it happened, but sadly a lot of them ended up like Toby Keith's braindead jingoistic rant Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue. Seven years after his last album, Springsteen returned (with the E-Street Band in tow for the first time in 18 years) with The Rising, an album partly written as a reaction to America's great tragedy. Of course, he did it well, with Into The Fire's heartfelt tale of a fire fighter's widow getting the tone and emotion right: "It was dark, too dark to see, you held me in the light you gave. You lay your hand on me, then walked into the darkness of your smoky grave."

10 - 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)

One of Springsteen's best love songs, Sandy is also the best track from his formative first two albums, and sees love conquer all in a troubled area (Springsteen's hometown in New Jersey). Musically, it's a lot more whimsical than most of what was to follow, with clear references to Van Morrison and a bit of a Gallic flavour too. Like most of second album The Wild, The Innocent And The E-Street Shuffle, it's a little bit rambling, but it's a rough gem whose sweetness is untarnished by the fact that a young Tony Blair used to listen to it while he was courting Cherie.

Top Ten Spielberg Moments

After nineteen years of waiting, the new Indiana Jones film is finally released this week, which of course means that the new Steven Spielberg film is released too. So, to celebrate the beardy legend‘s twenty-sixth movie, we've decided to dedicate this week's blog to the best bits from Spielberg's iconic oeuvre.

Now, we could fill this with the obvious suggestions: flying bikes, marauding dinosaurs, giant boulders, what have you, but that would be boring and predictable. So instead we're going to try to take a look at the less-celebrated moments from Spielberg's iconic films, not an easy task in a career as well-known as his. Wish us luck...

1) "I thought I'd lost you boy!" (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
Well, Indy had to be at the top didn't he? There are many well-known and not so well-known moments in the Indiana Jones series that could have taken top spot on this list, but for me it had to be this heart-wrenching scene between Indy and father Henry from Last Crusade. After busting his dad out of a marauding Nazi tank, Indy has apparently fallen to his death off the side of a cliff. Henry, Sallah and Marcus Brody peer over the edge hoping for a sign of life, but there’s nothing. All seems lost until Indy hauls himself back on to land and creeps up behind the trio to see what they’re looking at. Henry double takes, grabs his son and, with tears in his eyes, says: "I thought I'd lost you boy!" "I thought you'd lost me too, sir,” comes Indy’s reply. Last Crusade was one of the last times Spielberg told his familiar father-son subtext from the point-of-view of the son. Fittingly, it's one of his best.

2). Truffaut's connection (Close Encounters of the Third Kind)
A major part of Spielberg's genius is his ability to imbue seemingly silly stories with the kind of intelligence only peers like Scorsese and Coppolla are attributed with displaying. Close Encounters is his finest example of this. What for some is just a big science-fiction epic with funny little space aliens at the end is really a film about spirituality, the search for meaning and, above all, connection (one of the key themes in any Spielberg film). Nowhere else is this better conveyed than in Francois Truffaut's hand-signal conversation with the aliens in the film‘s closing stages. John Williams's music is, of course, majestic, as is Spielberg's orchestration of the scene, but it’s Truffaut’s acting that really makes the moment fly. The innocent joy on his face perfectly epitomises the wonder of much of Spielberg’s oeuvre.

3). Cadillac of the Sky (Empire of the Sun)
One of Spielberg's most overlooked films, Empire of the Sun finds the director focusing on themes of tolerance (another often-overlooked key idea), communication and respect. Based on JG Ballard's autobiographical novel, it's the story of Jim, a young boy who gets separated from his parents and put in an internment camp after the Japanese attack on Pear Harbour. In the typically Spielbergian way, Jim is obsessed with flying and this forms the basis of the film's best scene. Wandering through an aircraft hanger, Jim spots a Japanese plane and reverently approaches it. A Japanese officer sees him and arms his gun, ready to shoot the boy down. Three pilots arrive and Jim turns round to salutes them. They salute back and the soldier lowers his weapon. The scene then dissolves into a young Japanese boy playing with a toy plane, which he accidentally throws over a gate separating his side of the camp from Jim‘s. Jim picks it up and throws it back. A beautifully understated and too-often overlooked scene from one of Spielberg’s first out-and-out serious pictures.

4). Mary's breakdown (E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial)
Yes, E.T’s teary farewell is one of the most well-known scenes in film history never mind just Spielberg’s oeuvre, but it’s the peripheral action that I’m talking about here. Avert your attention from Elliott and E.T and you find some wonderful grace notes going on in the background with Elliot’s siblings, friends and, above all, his mother. Played by Dee Wallace, Mary is one of the more interesting female characters in Spielberg’s canon (he tends to focus more on men) and her reaction to E.T’s departure is heartbreaking. As her son says goodbye to the most important thing in his life at that moment, she sinks to the floors, tears in her eyes, looking on with a mixture of powerlessness and pride at the maturing Elliot. Another fine example of the often-overlooked subtlety and texture Spielberg‘s films are packed with.

5). Alex Kitner's death (Jaws)
Some say Spielberg can't do dark. The death of young Alex Kitner in Jaws proves otherwise. Coming early in the film, this scene is a master class in slowly building up tension, with Spielberg letting us know that the shark will attack but not who it will attack. Alex who, in an added twist of tragedy is only allowed to go back into the water after begging his mother, seems the least likely candidate, so when Jaws does sink his teeth into him you know the film means business. But it‘s the end of the scene that I want to concentrate on most here. Once the shark has taken his prey, we see concerned parents rushing into the water to collect their children. Blind panic is replaced by deathly silence as all but one return. The image of Mrs Kitner, alone on the shore, calling her son‘s name is one of the most quietly devastating scenes Spielberg has ever shot.

6). Anything Goes! (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom)
Raiders of the Lost Ark screenwriter Philip Kaufman apparently declined the offer to work on Temple of Doom because he felt it was too mean-spirited, and it's difficult to disagree. From the dubious humour of the banquet sequence to the heart-ripping of the Thugee temple, Doom almost entirely lacks the lightness of touch that made its predecessor so iconic. I say almost, because it opens with one of the series' best sequences. A glorious, Busby Berklely inspired musical number, it features the film's banshee in distress, Willie Scott, singing Cole Porter's Anything Goes in Mandarian. Spielberg has often said he one day hopes to make a full-blown musical, and this sequence has enough vim and vigour to suggest he‘s more than capable of pulling it off.

7). Restaurant conversation (Catch Me If You Can)
Many recent Spielberg films have focused explicitly on the parent's responsibility to their child, but Catch Me If You Can looks at the child's responsibility to the parent. Based on Frank Agbagnale’s autobiography, this 60s-set caper movie finds our hero trying to use the money he earns from his cons to help his divorced father win back his mother. Of course there’s no hope of that happening, and this scene, in which Frank has bought his father a new Cadillac which he can‘t accept due to a government investigation into his finances, is one of the film‘s most heartbreaking. Walken's performance is beautifully understated as he tells the story of how he and his wife first met and starts to work out what his son is up to. The character is later revealed to have died in a freak accident while running to catch a train. Maybe, Spielberg seems to be suggesting, he wouldn‘t have needed that train has Frank quit his fantasy life sooner and stayed behind to help his father ease his woes in a more realistic way.

8). Wonderment (Close Encounters of the Third Kind)
Spielberg himself has identified the scene in Close Encounters in which young Barry Guiler stands in front of the open door at his family home with an extra-terrestrial inferno blazing in front of him as the key image of his career, and it’s difficult to disagree: that moment embodies the wonderment and promise inherent in all Spielberg films. But Close Encounters also contains another key Spielberg shot, one which is perhaps more significant than the Barry scene. As the mothership prepares to take off at the film’s climax, the gathered scientists look on with wonder and awe. In three simple shots, Spielberg shows us their reactions, slowing tracking in on their awestruck faces. It’s a shot Spielberg has used to varying effect in virtually all his films, but this is my favourite example.

9). Viktor’s Matchmaking (The Terminal)
I’ve said it before in this blog and I’ll probably say it again, but just to make it totally clear The Terminal is so, so much more than just a silly romantic comedy. It’s a post 9/11 satire on immigration. Seriously! Think about it: Viktor Naborski arrives in the US from Krakosia and instead of being welcomed with open arms, he’s imprisoned in an airport which is covered from head to toe in ads. The country that once promised to take “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” has mutated into a world dominated by individualism, epitomised by Stanley Tucci airport head who is hoping to dupe Viktor into escaping the airport and ultimately being arrested so he can gain promotion. Spielberg contrasts this character with the thriving multi-cultural community within the airport, which consists of Hispanics, African-Americans and Indians. Working menial but important manual jobs, they are the heartbeat of the airport and in this wonderful scene Spielberg blends his political point with fun romantic comedy as Viktor hooks cleaner Enrique up with immigration officer Dolores.

10) Smoke Gets In Your Eye (Always)
Spielberg may be famous for science-fiction and fantasy, but it’s drama Always that is arguably his least grounded film. A remake of Victor Fleming's 1943 romance A Guy Named Joe, it finds Spielberg indulging his love of the falseness of movies. Nobody is as quick-witted as Richard Dreyfuss’s maverick aerial firefighter Pete, nor as humorously earthy as his friend and colleague Al (John Goodman), or as sweetly spunky as girlfriend Dorinda. Nobody, that is, except the inhabitants of movie land. A film drenched in the moxy and occasional schmaltz of classic Hollywood, Always is the kind of movie you wish you lived in, but sadly don’t; a point best typified by an early scene in which Dreyfuss surprises Hunter with a party to celebrate her birthday. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is played by a cheesy band; Hunter, clad in a beautiful white dress, offers to dance with the rest of the pilots, encouraging them to, in unison, run off to clean their soot-ridden hands and faces; and Goodman and Dreyfuss roam about the scene cracking a bunch of ridiculously quick-witted jokes. Wonderful stuff in an imperfect but warm-hearted flick.