Pia Driver

This new Christmas ballet film was conceived by Matthew Bourne and directed by his long standing film collaborator Ross MacGibbon. The film celebrates Bourne's power to imaginatively transform ballet, taking dance and dancers off the stage into studio, bringing together projections, animation, and an intimate shooting style to produce a distinctive new way of presenting dance on screen. Those who know Bourne's stage work will spot extracts from many of his biggest hits (including Swan Lake, Edward Scissorhands, and Nutcracker!), but for audiences less familiar with his work this is simply a journey through a series of magical worlds where stories are told through dance.

Deformed since birth, a bitter man known only as the Phantom lives in the sewers underneath the Paris Opera House. He falls in love with the obscure chorus singer Christine, and privately tutors her while terrorizing the rest of the opera house and demanding Christine be given lead roles. Things get worse when Christine meets back up with her childhood acquaintance Raoul and the two fall in love

During the first half of 2002, Kylie Minogue toured Europe and Australia. This DVD captures it. Live In Manchester is a good concert that explores Kylie's musical catalog rather well from her days as a manufactured pop tart princess to her current status as icon and electro-pop diva. The concert occurs in seven different acts meant to display Kylie in some of the different manifestaions she has adopted throughout her career. Cultural references are everywhere in this concert. There's a nod to Keith Haring, and many others from Staney Kubrick, burlesque, and sci-fi flicks. It's all hard to catch, but done very well.