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F&M Playlist

Our music team pick the songs or albums, old or new, they just can't turn off
Pop music as branding? Shh ...

Tom Ewing: Pop does intuitively what brand managers work for years to learn – it creates vivid images and distils ideas into single hits of feeling

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'It's OK to embarrass yourself' – Nick Cave and the return of Grinderman

With one band Nick Cave has a carefully built musical legacy. With his other, he can visit his 'lower self' and make chaotic noise. Alexis Petridis meets Grinderman

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The Jim Jones Revue brings you rock'n'roll resurrection

Yesterday's sound today: how Jim Jones and Rupert Orton turned the clock back to 1955. By Steve Jelbert
Readers recommend songs about assassination: The results

Paul MacInnes: America dominates this week's list, but there's room for the rest of the world to mourn the untimely deaths of heroes everywhere
Director Marc Webb: Why I'm a student of the Graduate

The Graduate has a film language all of its own, and a style so seductive that, as a filmmaker, it is hard not to imitate it – as Marc Webb, director of 500 Days of Summer, admits
Readers recommend – the results: songs with jokes

An eclectic set of nominations from a horribly subjective topic

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How wrestling is taking over the movies

Wrestling stars are muscling their way into cinema multiplexes – but can WWE really beat Hollywood on its own mat? Barney Ronay goes ringside

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Jennifer Lawrence: a shot of Kentucky spirit

There's an Oscar buzz growing around 20-year-old Jennifer Lawrence. Jane Graham meets a determined self-starter

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After the Party: Music and the Black Panthers

Musicians don't often end up on FBI watch lists, but the Last Poets did, thanks to their links with the Black Panthers. Dorian Lynskey looks back at a time when pop and politics collided as never before

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Certified Copy

Juliette Binoche stars in the first film Abbas Kiarostami has made outside Iran. Peter Bradshaw finds it very odd indeed
Perestroika

Sarah Turner's challenging art film is a stream of consciousness memory-jogger, says Peter Bradshaw

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Splintered

A low-budget British horror film in the style of Hollyoaks. By Phelim O'Neill
Why Did I Get Married Too?

This comedy-drama about upscale African-Americans is a little too self-satisfied for its own good, writes Andrew Pulver
The Switch

Jennifer Aniston stars yet again as a woman who can't find love, in yet another sickly rom-com, writes Peter Bradshaw
SoulBoy

Despite a nice performance from Martin Compston, this teen drama set in the 70s northern soul era is entertaining but a bit too predictable, writes Peter Bradshaw
No Impact Man

This eco-documentary about living a low-impact lifestyle is undermined by irritating devices and ersatz drama, says Peter Bradshaw
The Last Exorcism

This yarn about a priest who uses exorcism as a form of therapy is a neat and scary little horror film – it's enough to restore your faith in the genre, writes Phelim O'Neill
Jonah Hex

The acclaimed graphic novel about the mysterious, scarred old West bounty hunter has become a muddled, inept film, says Phelim O'Neill
Dinner for Schmucks

A Hollwyood remake of a French film about a sadistic dinner party game becomes a crass comedy that completely blows Steve Carell's funnyman credibility, says Peter Bradshaw
22 Bullets

Jean Reno stars as a gangster who survives being shot with the eponymous number of bullets in a revenge yarn that goes way, way over the top, writes Catherine Shoard
Bonded by Blood

Yet another Brit-gangster film version of the Rettendon Range Rover murders; this is as shoddy and cliched as the rest of them, writes Xan Brooks
Cherry Tree Lane

Paul Andrew Williams finally makes a decent follow-up to London to Brighton, with this low-budget home invasion movie that plays on middle class fear of youth, writes Peter Bradshaw

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Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin

The stylistic links between Gershwin and Brian Wilson are there in theory, but that doesn't make this horrible, ersatz album a remotely good idea, writes Michael Hann
Click to Download: Arcade action

Between headlining triumphs and online video ingenuity, it's been a good week for Arcade Fire, says Chris Salmon
Hurts: Happiness

Hurts have the backstory and the image down pat, but the songs just don't stick, says Alexis Petridis
Ray Lamontagne and the Pariah Dogs: God Willin' and the Creek Don't Rise

Ray Lamontagne's rasping voice is a perfect match for these songs of heartbreak and trauma, says Dave Simpson
Roots Manuva Meets Wrongtom: Duppy Writer

Roots Manuva makes another excursion into dub, with brilliant results. By Will Dean
Brandon Flowers: Flamingo

What was written as the new Killers album is now their singer's solo debut, and despite having its moments, it's hard to love, writes Caroline Sullivan
The Like: Release Me

Mark Ronson lends his 60s production stylings to a feisty second album from this Californian girl group, writes Michael Cragg
Stromae: Cheese

This slinky French-language rap album from Belgium makes an oddly appealing impression, says Caroline Sullivan

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Jure Pukl: EARchitecture

The young Slovenian saxist Jure Pukl's latest album is hooked into a taut, hip-hop-influenced contemporary American atmosphere, writes John Fordham
Kathryn Tickell: 'This is so much more to me than just a band'

Kathryn Tickell has played the pipes with shepherds, jazz trios – even Sting. But her favourite collaboration is with the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Ahead of their Prom, she talks to Imogen Tilden
Michael Formanek: The Rub and Spare Change

Bassist and composer Michael Formanek has an imposing CV, and this quartet has an all-star lineup, writes John Fordham
Michel Portal: Turbulence

This is a fine reissue from 1987, absorbing for the quality of the playing and the freshness of influences from Zappa to Zawinul, writes John Fordham
Atomic: Theatre Tilters Vol 1 and 2

This is an exhaustingly exhilarating, or even exhilaratingly exhausting live double album from the Scandinavian five-piece supergroup Atomic, writes John Fordham
Hassan Erraji: Awal Mara

This is an upbeat crossover set that continues the Moroccan multi-instrumentalist's fascination with fusing different styles, writes Robin Denselow
Fay Hield: Looking Glass

Fay Hield is a fine singer but the best songs here are those featuring her partner Jon Boden and his Bellowhead colleague Sam Sweeney, writes Robin Denselow

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John Eliot Gardiner: Monteverdi and me

As he gets ready to conduct the Vespers for the 19th time, John Eliot Gardiner explains how it was Monteverdi's masterpiece that made him choose a career in music

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Stephen Frears

David Thomson: Stephen Frears is an amused connoisseur. I can't dispute his estimate that the less money he's had at risk on a venture, the better it ends up
First sight: Big Deal

Woozy, druggy, sexy pop classicism from east London duo Alice Costelloe and kc Underwood