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A video essay examines our most private moments.

Strap on your thinking caps for this one, film fans, because it’s a doozy.

According to director Nicolas Roeg (The Man Who Fell to Earth, Don’t Look Now, The Witches), mirrors are cinema in all its glory and in fact the essence of the medium. See, mirrors are the only time we truly look at ourselves; photographs of us are from other perspectives, for other people or posterity, and as such we don’t show our real faces in them, we show projections of who we think we should be or how we think we should feel in a certain situation. But the mirror isn’t public, it’s private, it is us alone with ourselves and thus the way we look into mirrors, into ourselves, is different from every other face we show the world.

The mirror is an eye, Roeg...

Julian Casablancas has another new solo album, "Tyranny," with his band The Voidz, and you can hear the whole thing in full now. The Strokes' frontman combined with a new backing band The Voidz (bassist and keyboardist Jacob “Jake” Bercovici, guitarist Amir Yaghmai and guitarist Jeramy “Beardo” Gritter) for this sophomore set; his first solo set "Phrazes for the Young" came out in 2009. "Tyranny" was teased initially with the two tracks “Human Sadness” and “Where No Eagles Fly." It hits shelves -- physical and digital -- on Sept. 23 through Casablancas' own Cult Records. The Strokes' most recent album, "Comedown Machine," was released last year; it peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard 200 album sales chart. Cult Records had another big week this month, as the label released Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O's solo album "Crush Songs." Here is the "Tyranny" tracklist: 1. Take Me in Your Army 2. Crunch Punch 3. M.

In 2012, Against Me! lead singer Laura Jane Grace came out as transgender, making her one of the highest-profile music artists to have ever done so. As she made her medical transition, she and her band worked to complete "Transgender Dysphoria Blues," their hard-heeling sixth studio album. I heard Grace refer to the 2014 album at one point as having catchy songs about "a dark thing," and considering the title and the punk band's propensity to leave in their rough edges, one can start to imagine. But there's something that I adore about "Transgender..." that goes well beyond what you could call simply "bravery" -- an overused but noble term about being personal, to airing of laundry. It's dauntless, in its takedown of the ugly, gender-dominated cultures in an eyebrow-blazing speed with heavy, dark things. "Drinking with the Jocks" is one of these, skidding to a halt and setting fire to things in only 1:50 time.

Riffing on Terek Puckett’s terrific list of director/actor collaborations, I wanted to look at some of those equally impressive leading ladies who served as muses for their directors. I strived to look for collaborations that may not have been as obviously canonical, but whose effects on cinema were no less compelling. Categorizing a film’s lead is potentially tricky, but one of the criteria I always use is Anthony Hopkins’s performance in Silence of the Lambs, a film in which he is considered a lead but appears only briefly; his character is an integral part of the story.

The criteria for this article is as follows: The director & actor team must have worked together at least 3 times with the actor in a major role in each feature film, resulting in a minimum of 2 must-see films.

One of the primary trends for the frequency of collaboration is the...

In 1987, the actor wasn't keen on theatre audiences eating chocolates

In 1987 I met Gary Oldman backstage at Chelsea's Royal Court, where he was playing a corporate raider in Caryl Churchill's Serious Money. Oldman provided tea and cheese sandwiches, then let me watch his makeup being applied.

"Mentally I'm not in London at the moment, I'm in North Carolina working on Nic Roeg's Track 29," he admitted, Cheshire cheese crumbling on to his battered corduroy trousers. "This morning I discovered a shooting schedule in the mail. I'd been hoping the scene in which I assault Theresa Russell would be in week six, but it's the first scene on the first day."

Prick Up Your Ears, in which he played Joe Orton, was shortly to be released, and he explained how he'd "spent many an evening in curry houses drinking Guinness" to look "older, fatter and queenier", whereas to portray...

Countless films starring Gary Oldman could be summarized as so: Not too great, but Gary Oldman’s performance is fantastic. His ability to churn out one convincing character after another, in countless scenarios, has established him as one of the most versatile actors out there, and one always worth watching. That said, Track 29 falls into that aforementioned of Gary Oldman films; we get a focused, nuanced performance from Oldman as a mysterious young man whose obsession with a woman he believes to be his mother is both his deepest desire and her conflicted fantasy. He steals the show with each scene, but to be fair he has very little competition thanks to Theresa Russell pouring the melodrama on thick and a great, but mostly absent Christopher Lloyd.

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Disc Dish recently spoke with actress Theresa Russell on the eve of the release of Track 29, (DVD $14.98, Image Entertainment, available on Feb. 21, 2012), the 1988 comedy-drama in which she stars alongside Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Christopher Lloyd (Piranha) and Sandra Bernhard (Dinner Rush).

Written by Dennis Potter and directed by Ms. Russell’s then-husband Nicolas Roeg (The Man Who Fell To Earth), Track 29 is an eccentric fantasy-reality juggler if ever there was one. In it, she portrays Linda, a bored housewife who becomes captivated by the handsome young hitchhiker Martin (Oldman), who suddenly “drops” into her life. After Martin claims that he’s the child that she gave up for adoption after a teen pregnancy, Linda must deal with a series of increasingly bizarre events, which may or may not be transpiring solely in her own lonely head.

Not a great film but far from a forgettable one,...

DVD or Blu-ray? Redbox or Netflix? Streaming? Get your home entertainment options settled before midnight on Saturday, Februrary 11 -- because that's when "Breaking Dawn," the latest installment of "The Twilight Saga," arrives in stores. We've got the highlights and lowlights on the week's new releases, plus an exclusive preview of the Blu-ray debut of Disney's "Lady and the Tramp." Moviefone's Pick of the Week "Project Nim" What's It About? This documentary from the Academy Award-winning filmmaker behind "Man on Wire" chronicles Nim Chimpsky, a newborn chimp that was raised like a human for a controversial study on linguistics. See It Because: If you're looking for a cute movie about cute animals doing cute things like cute babies, this isn't that movie; instead "Nim" is an honest and captivating look at the complex relationship between man and nature, and the too-simple definitions we try to apply to the animal kingdom. Also...

DVD Release Date: Feb. 21, 2012

Price: DVD $14.98

Studio: Image

Theresa Russell and Gary Oldman embark on a different kind of train ride in Track 29.

Gary Oldman (Sid & Nancy), Theresa Russell (Insignificance) and Christopher Lloyd (Piranha) star in the eccentric 1988 drama film Track 29, directed by Nicolas Roeg (Don’t Look Now) , Russell’s then-husband.

Unhappy with her barren marriage to her model train-loving surgeon husband (Lloyd), restless suburban housewife Linda Henry (Russell) craves something to awaken her lonely existence.

She soon becomes captivated with Martin (Oldman), a hitchhiker who drops in on Linda claiming to be the child she gave up for adoption after a teenage pregnancy. They spend time together trying to forge a bond, but bizarre events and behaviors make Linda wonder about this oddity who has shown up at her doorstep.

Executive produced by George Harrison and written by Dennis Potter (Pennies From Heaven, The Singing Detective), this DVD is the U.

Nicolas Roeg, London

Could Nicolas Roeg be Britain's greatest living film-maker? Don't Look Now recently topped a poll of greatest British films, and looking back at other greats from his 1970s/80s heyday, it's difficult to think of anyone who's taken cinema further. Films like Performance, The Man Who Fell To Earth and Walkabout (Jenny Agutter and other guests attend this Saturday's screening) still stir the senses with their cubist plotting, evocative imagery and radical subject matter, but this retrospective offers the chance to reappraise overlooked works like Eureka (surely the model for There Will Be Blood) or off-the-rails Dennis Potter collaboration Track 29. Even his ill-fated Ollie Reed-led Castaway has plenty to offer.

BFI Southbank, SE1, Tue to Mar 30

Future Cinema/Jamesons Cult Film Club, London

A good week for lovers of "augmented cinema" – for want of a better term. First up, Future Cinema (the team behind Secret Cinema...