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This Case Is Closed: The Enduring Enigma of Tom Verlaine

One of the great punk records is Marquee Moon by Television. Of course, that's a contradiction. There's nothing punk about Television really, except that they appear at the right time, in the right place, and Richard Hell is briefly in the band, and he has some claim to be the inventor of the punk look, with the spiky hair and the safety pins. But there is only one TV in Television, and Hell is gone long before Marquee Moon appears. Marquee Moon doesn’t need a category. It’s a record of jagged imagery in which the voice is a nagging shadow and the guitars - of Verlaine and Richard Lloyd - do the talking. Patti Smith compares Verlaine’s guitar to a thousand bluebirds. What they are talking about, I still can’t fathom. Marquee Moon is a timeless mystery. I talk to Tom Verlaine on the phone. This is probably better than talking to him in person. On a transatlantic phone line there is an excuse for the delays and the hesitations and the awkward silences. We are talking a full

Cass: Frodo Baggins, Margaret Thatcher And The Exploitation Of Violence, West Ham-style

Mike Leigh Watches Gavin And Stacey, Is Reminded Of His Younger Self, And Tries To Imagine What It Would Be Like To Be Happy

I'm An Ape Man, I'm An Ape-Ape Man: Another Disaster From Roland Emmerich

Shrek The Third: Recommended For The Burping And Farting Of The Ogre Babies. And The Wet Cat

Ocean's Thirteen: The Manliness of Men Being Manly In Vegas, In Sunglasses

Meet the new Bob: A new film accompanies DA Pennebaker's classic Dylan documentary Dont Look Back

Jindabyne: All Is Not Well In Tidy Town

Zodiac: David Fincher Batters America's Innocence (Again) While Indulging His Love Of All The President's Men

28 Weeks Later: From Simple Fear Of The Dark To Full-On Zombie Splatter, As Canary Wharf Becomes The New Baghdad

Spider-Man 3: Stuck in 1962, Nostalgic For An Age Yet To Come

This Is England: A Summer Of Tainted Love, Buckaroo and The National Front

Reign Over Me: Adam Sandler In A Bob Dylan Wig, Waving Not Clowning