Review: Home entertainment

CD
Lady Gaga: The Fame
3/5

Who wouldn't want to be famous?

All your problems cease to exist, and you're transported to a world of glitter, parties and wardrobes that cross timezones. And all you need to do is to eat some bugs on reality TV.

While it feels like we've been discussing nothing else for a decade, New York electro-pop rising star Lady Gaga wants to bring her two cents to the table.

Gaga has already earned her stripes writing for the likes of the Pussycat Dolls, who she'll accompany to The O2 this month. And mainstream critics haven't been this excited about new talent since they swooned over Mika last year.

This musical celebration of "how anyone can be famous" is caked with retro glitter and sultry floor-filling sass from the Madonna and Kylie playbook. Single Just Dance is upbeat and bouncy, Starstruck is undeniably catchy, and Poker Face booms with hollow synth.

The '80s love-in stretches a little too far in Paparazzi, which appears to be channelling Berlin's Take My Breath Away. And the polished production is occasionally kneecapped by banal lyrical references.

The Fame may not be ground-breaking, but it'll be all over your radio for months.
John Hill

DVD
Somers Town (12A)
5/5

Somers Town is the greatest corporate promo ever filmed.

Okay, it's hardly facing fierce competition, unless you count Blade Runner's skyscraper-high Coca Cola endorsements. But This Is England's Shane Meadows has taught a lesson to cynical critics like myself who thought no good could come from taking the corporate dollar.

Somers Town is a touching but not manipulative tale of growing up, set in the shadow of London's re-developing St Pancras station. Eurostar stepped up with funding, but there's nothing forced about the film itself, which is possibly the best offering of 2008.

This Is England's Thomas Turgoose is again superb as Tomo, a Nottingham fugitive who pairs up with naive and shy Pole Marek (Piotr Jagiello) for a series of dodgy money-making schemes.

There's an odd mix of warmth and melancholy running through the piece. Meadows succeeds in wringing a smile out of the bleakest situations, and the vulnerable charm of the young leads makes this an extremely effective yet unassuming tale.

Somers Town is a rare example of a slice-of-life film that isn't full of itself, and would rather put a smile on your face than show off its worthy realism.
John Hill

BOOK
Haunted London Underground - by David Brandon & Alan Brooke
3/5

Plague pits, tragedies and ghost stations feature in this authoritative look at the other-worldly realm of subterranean spectres.

Authors David Brandon and Alan Brooke, clutching each other’s hands no doubt, explain the eerie cries of the forlorn and lost (the ghosts not the passengers) that echo through the tunnels of one of the oldest railway systems in the world.

Examples include the screams of teenager Anne Naylor who was murdered in 1758 at Farringdon Station and the unearthly wails of the children lost during a terrible accident in Bethnal Green Station in 1943 – the biggest civilian loss of life during the second world war.

The authors examine defunct railway stations, trapped in amber as the world moves on around them – some becoming shops and others leaving just fading signage as a memorial.

This is not an indulgent gore-fest but a solid addition to the ever-expanding Haunted London series.
Giles Broadbent

GAME
Mirror's Edge
3/5

Welcome to what will be one of this year’s most unique releases.

50 per-cent platform game, 50 per-cent first-person title and 100 per cent stylishly cool, Mirror’s Edge is like nothing else you’ll have played.

You take control of Faith, an athletic information runner who ferries information across Edge City – an apparent paradise that’s actually censored and repressed at every turn.

Runners exist on the fringes of this totalitarian society, and that makes for some sublime parkour gameplay; sprinting across rooftops, sliding through neon-lit sewers and leaping gaps between buildings – often while bob-weaving away from the bullets of the chasing police pack. It’s exhilarating stuff.

Mirror’s Edge is short, and shooting isn’t its strong point – but on the flipside, you rarely need to stand and fight, while time trials and online leaderboards will have you returning to find the fastest lines through the amazing-looking levels.

It’s a must-play then, that makes you feel like originality in games might not be dead after all.
Mark Scott, GAME