In the early 1980s, Georg Dreyman (a successful dramatist) and his longtime companion Christa-Maria Sieland (a popular actress), were huge intellectual stars in (former) East Germany, although they secretly don't always toe the party line. One day, the Minister of Culture becomes interested in Christa, so the secret service agent Wiesler is instructed to observe and sound out the couple, but their life fascinates him more and more.

The film follows three young men and their time spent in the French suburban "ghetto," over a span of twenty-four hours. Vinz, a Jew, Saïd, an Arab, and Hubert, a black boxer, have grown up in these French suburbs where high levels of diversity coupled with the racist and oppressive police force have raised tensions to a critical breaking point. During the riots that took place a night before, a police officer lost his handgun in the ensuing madness, only to leave it for Vinz to find. Now, with a newfound means to gain the respect he deserves, Vinz vows to kill a cop if his friend Abdel dies in the hospital, due the beating he received while in police custody.

Kit Carruthers, a young garbage collector and his girlfriend Holly Sargis from Fort Dupree, South Dakota, are on the run after killing Holly's father who disagreed with their relationship. On their way towards the Badlands of Montana they leave a trail of dispassionate and seemingly random murders. A very intriguing narrative without judgements, and lacking the usually sensational approach of this genre. Very good acting and directing, and beautiful photography. The script was based upon the true story of the Charles Starkweather and Caril-Ann Fugate murders in 1958.

Ginastera's choice of concerto instruments was mainly conventional; he wrote one concerto for violin and two each for piano and cello. Yet the fact that he also produced a concerto for harp shouldn't seem uncharacteristic; it can convincingly be considered a close relative of the guitar, and the guitar was essential to the Argentine folk music that so fascinated Ginastera. He wrote his Harp Concerto during a period when he was consolidating folk influences into a more rugged contemporary language………

Ernst Krenek (1900-1991) was a prolific, stylistic chameleon of a composer, who made 'good enemies' on all sides and remains hard to evaluate. This is a valuable collection of three concertos involving the violin, played with impressive assurance by Peter Rosenberg, who is joined by his brother Gabriel (they were a prize-winning duo) in the Double Concerto Op 124 of 1950, perhaps the most attractively accessible of the three. The compact first concerto Op 29 (1924)…….

Peter Grahame Woolf @ musicweb-international.com