Don't let the cheesy title put you off, because Jammin' with the Blues Greats, essentially a roadshow headed up by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, is quality stuff, managing to convey all the virtues of the music without sacrificing one ounce of the atmosphere of what must have been an extraordinary gig. It's pretty much impossible to identify any one contributor as outshining the others, given that there are as many takes on the music here as there are practitioners, but it's worth noting Mayall's ongoing commitment to the form as the Bluesbreakers deliver "An Eye for an Eye", "Room to Move" and several other tunes. Buddy Guy and Junior Wells get a couple of numbers ("Messin' with the Kid" is wonderful), BB King gets three and Etta James just one. However, despite everyone getting the opportunity to cut loose on the finale ("CC Rider Jam"), the whole circus is totally upstaged by the 83-year-old Sippie Wallace, who is gently led onstage, leans on the piano and sings "Shorty George" with the kind of conviction that makes everyone else look like upstarts.

On the DVD: Jammin' with the Blues Greats is presented in 4:3 aspect ratio and has only one extra feature, a John Mayall discography. --Roger Thomas

Salted pork shanks as leitmotiv in Jamón Jamón a dark comedy about an absurd love triangle: this is what post-Franco cine is all about (food and sex). Spanish tortillas (i.e., potato omelets) are also big in this one. Director José Juan Bigas Luna is intelligent, wry, and--despite the formulaic narrative that melodrama must essentially contain--unpredictable. At times his film exudes a certain Almodóvar flavour, but there is an edge, perhaps even heavy-handedness, to the dark humour that is either Luna's success or his downfall. The film garnered the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, after all. Try to follow: sexy Penelope Cruz (Belle Epoque) is growing up with her mother outside town on the wrong side of the highway. Together they run a truck stop where cars and life literally race past. Cruz is in love with Jordí Molla, by whom she is pregnant, but Molla's bourgeois mother, played by Anna Galiena (Being Human), thinks he can and should do better (of course, neither Cruz nor his mother knows of the erotic, avian interludes Molla enjoys on the side.) To save her son from the lower classes, Galiena hires Javier Bardem, a muscular, pretty man (whose regular consumption of the pork he distributes for a living has enhanced his sexual appeal) to pursue Cruz. The dark comedy finds a proper ending to the triangle in a grotesque but comedic landscape of death. This is not a cookie-cutter movie but rather one that will resonate with both your light and dark sides. After each surprise, you'll chuckle, feel guilty, and chuckle again. --Erik Macki, Amazon.com