7 February 2003

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This week the panel discussed:

Hidden - Photographs by Paul Seawright

What he is doing, this phrase "peripheral vision" - he's looking to the side of the conflict and you're seeing it out of the side of your eye

Mark Kermode

Click here for the review

Paul Seawright took pictures of the last war in Afghanistan, after Osama bin Laden and the Americans had gone.

He apparently used 128 rolls of film, but the exhibition contains a tiny proportion of that, consisting of only ten images.

These feature the aftermath of battle - once all the combatants had apparently gone home.

Punch-Drunk Love

It throws away Philip Seymour Hoffman, to me, as far as I'm concerned, it throws away Emily Watson. She doesn't do anything.

Miranda Sawyer

Click here for the review

No frogs falling from the sky this time. The panel discussed the new film from the director of Magnolia, a romantic comedy with Adam Sandler.

The film is much shorter than Paul Thomas Anderson's usual epics, and it is based entirely around the musical soundtrack.

But are fans of Boogie Nights and Magnolia going to be disappointed?

Constable to Delacroix exhibition

Sometimes when you look at a country's painters it will tell you more about it than its writers

Bonnie Greer

Click here for the review

The putative cross-channel conversation between English and French 19th century painters, is on show at Tate Britain.

But the exhibition provides some confusion, by including other painters, which distract from the main theme.

Some visitors will be disappointed that the exhibition only features a copy of iconic work The Raft of the Medusa - featured, as any good 80's era film reviewer would tell you, on a Pogues' album.

Operatunity

What the ENO want is somebody, the equivalent of Martine McCutcheon, to sing in the ENO. And they can't get that, so they have to trawl 'round the country

Miranda Sawyer

Click here for the review

An insight into the television talent show for opera singers that is looking for a mature, and presumably, more talented version of Will Young, with bigger lungs...

Is it harder to stomach the summary dismissal of people with real talent?

And has the reality TV format run its course?

Friday's panel was:

• Bonnie Greer
• Mark Kermode
• Miranda Sawyer

Newsnight Review, BBC Two's weekly cultural round-up, follows Newsnight on Friday evenings at 23:00 GMT.