Is The Breakfast Club really the best high school movie ever made? The US magazine Entertainment Weekly thinks so. So, on the occasion of a new box set of the John Hughes teen movies, we thought we'd better find out. And who better to assess the film's merits than Tom Perrotta, author of the (we think) really rather better Election?
Earlier this year the band White Lies were the centre of what music writing rules compel us to refer to as an "industry signing scrum". They emerged intact with a record deal, and the goodwill of everyone who felt Editors and Interpol hadn't cornered the market in Joy Division-inspired gloom. Chris Salmon caught up with them.
From the very new to the oh, so old. This month saw the 50th anniversary of the first true British rock'n'roll TV show. John Pidgeon tells the story of Oh Boy! and talks to the stars who were created by Jack Good, the impresario behind the show - Cliff Richard and Marty Wilde.
That's not all. Toby Young used to think Joe Pesci's performance in Goodfellas was brilliant acting. Now he's not so sure — in fact, he argues, the real creative forces in the movies are not the actors or the directors, but the producers.
Plus: Robin Denselow talks to Franz Ferdinand and Femi Kuti about the latest series of Africa Express gigs; Hadley Freeman talks to The Office's Rainn Wilson ahead of his new movie, The Rocker; John Patterson works out what we can learn about Godard and Scorsese from their respective histories of cinema.
And there's more … Laura Barton's Hail, Hail, Rock'n'Roll; Julie Christie on The Animals Film; Rosie Swash on Arthur Russell; all the week's movies reviewed; and the most comprehensive CD roundup of any newspaper. Happy reading.
