From Rise of the Rockstar Chefs to La Bola Negra: the week in rave reviews
Summed up in a sentence After detailing their journeys to culinary stardom and their infamous feud, Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay are reunited to beef it out (and Heston Blumenthal is there, too).
What our reviewer said “It’s a tasty tale of pan-throwing, precision plating and the obsessive pursuit of perfection. If you enjoy watching angry men grating truffles and tweezing micro-herbs, Christmas has come early.” Michael Hogan
Pick of the rest
Blue Planet III
BBC iPlayer; available now
Summed up in a sentence David Attenborough, who is now 100 years old, presents a third wondrous series about the weird and wonderful life in our oceans – including shrimp sawing off a starfish’s arm!
What our reviewer said “If we stop requiring it to be another landmark and appreciate it as just another wildlife series, Blue Planet III is a corker. Its excellence is a bright flash of hopeful defiance, and if it often falls into familiar patterns, that familiarity is a comfort.” Jack Seale
Further reading Blue Planet III features cloudier footage to prove authenticity amid AI boom
Stick
Apple TV; available now
Summed up in a sentence In the second season of this feelgood golfing comedy, Owen Wilson’s ageing pro Pryce Cahi is in the midst of a midlife crisis when he considers coming out of retirement.
What our reviewer said “Stick is the sort of chummy hangout show you need in your carefully curated weekly culture roster, a half-hour indulgence that’s like twisting open a cold one and sinking into a couch. It washes all those prestige dramas and dark documentaries down nicely.” Jack Seale
Black Doves
Netflix; available now
Summed up in a sentence Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw return in this highly entertaining, if slightly ludicrous, espionage thriller – with added Ambika Mod as a new assassin.
What our reviewer said “Knightley is perfect as the kind of middle-class woman for whom disingenuous social performance is simply a way of life, whether they’re really a gun-toting spy or not. Ben Whishaw is magnetic as her beloved hitman pal Sam, an increasingly weathered sprite-like figure who offs people with a sweet melancholy that makes you feel as if he’s the real victim.” Rachel Aroesti
You may have missed …
Yaga
HBO Max; available now
Summed up in a sentence Heated Rivalry’s Hudson Williams plays two parts in this head-scrambling folk horror, with Carrie-Anne Moss as a mysterious woman who may or may not be a witch.
What our reviewer said “Yaga is such a quirky, hit-and-miss endeavour, so dependent on individual taste and the amount of goodwill in the room at any given moment that everyone should give it a shot. It’s got something – I just can’t say precisely what.” Lucy Mangan
Film
If you only watch one, make it …
La Bola Negra
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Threading together three stories from distinct eras, this narrative triptych tells the complicated secrets over generations of gay sexuality in Spain.
What our reviewer said “Handsomely produced, lovingly detailed and confidently constructed, a rich and rewarding movie.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading ‘It’s the gay Titanic!’ Inside La Bola Negra, the maximalist queer spectacular bound for Oscars glory
Pick of the rest
I Play Rocky
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Making-of tale of Sylvester Stallone’s Hollywood triumph, which took the actor from bit parts to Oscar glory, an even more mythic story than the original movie.
What our reviewer said “As the man himself, Anthony Ippolito is an eerie likeness of the young Stallone. It’s almost a cine-seance: the same face, the same seductively slurred voice, the same ox-adjacent physique.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading How did a fishmonger who starred in an adult movie make Rocky? The film about Sylvester Stallone’s amazing triumph
Ramayana: Rise of a Legend
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Based on the ancient classical poem about Rama, the avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. India’s most expensive film ever is a spectacular, huge-scale epic.
What our reviewer said “With its giant canvas and some truly beautiful sunset skyscapes, this very enjoyable film has a little of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and even Disney’s The Lion King.” Peter Bradshaw
One in a Million
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Deeply moving film following a Syrian mother and daughter over a decade, Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes capture a family transformed by displacement and freedom.
What our reviewer said “It’s a wrenchingly immediate demonstration of the neglected flip side to discussions of how immigrants alter host countries – and how the immigrants themselves are also changed in the process.” Phil Hoad
Further reading ‘Children were wearing fake life jackets’: one Syrian family’s terrifying, 10-year journey
Raise the Red Lantern
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Gong Li is superb as the “fourth mistress” navigating the intimate political savagery of her husband’s compound in Zhang Yimou’s 1991 drama.
What our reviewer said “This is a thrilling, fascinating study in intimate political savagery and a ruthless competition for the right to exist.” Peter Bradshaw
Books
If you only read one, make it …
Alexander: God, King, Man by Edmund Richardson
Reviewed by Ioan Marc Jones
Summed up in a sentence This biography of Alexander the Great, conqueror of the ancient world, this week won the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction.
What our reviewer said “It is a riot from start to finish, driven by exquisite prose and captivating stories, full of horror and violence, but laced with wonder and comedy.”
Further reading ‘Blockbuster’ history of Alexander the Great wins £50,000 Baillie Gifford prize
Pick of the rest
American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee
Reviewed by Sarah Crown
Summed up in a sentence The Pachinko author follows a Korean family’s drive for education.
What our reviewer said “This is the novel as luxurious full-body experience: in its patient tracking of the highs and lows of its characters’ lives, and in the compassionate realism with which it observes them, it reminded me of nothing so much as George Eliot’s Middlemarch.”
Further reading ‘I thought, if I’m going to die, I’m going to write a book first’: Pachinko author Min Jin Lee
A Life in Fragments by Marina Litvinenko
Reviewed by Luke Harding
Summed up in a sentence Twenty years after her husband’s murder, the widow of the poisoned Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko tells their story.
What our reviewer said “She brings her dead husband back to life – not as a tragic figure, hurtling towards a grisly public doom, but as a loving partner, softie dad and incorrigible optimist, who always saw the best in people.”
Pay Attention by Laura Kuenssberg
Reviewed by Gaby Hinsliff
Summed up in a sentence The BBC presenter and former political editor on the crisis in contemporary politics.
What our reviewer said “This is a serious and earnest book, not a gossipy insider’s tale, focused on the failures of governance that have radicalised what she argues isn’t naturally a radical country.”
You may have missed …
The Rouse by China Miéville
Reviewed by Stuart Kelly
Summed up in a sentence This 1,200pp epic of cold war politics and paranormal intrigue has won the Goldsmiths prize.
What our reviewer said “Rather than classifying Miéville with ‘the new weird’, he ought to be compared to Roberto Bolaño – maximalist, dense, disorienting and discomfiting, reflecting how surreal our reality seems to have become.”
Further reading ‘He was destined for this award’: China Miéville wins Goldsmiths prize for 1,200-page novel
Albums
If you only listen to one, make it …
La Roux: Old Flames
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Warm production and kinetic 00s R&B disguise some heavy moments in a twist on the breakup album from synth-pop star Elly Jackson.
What our reviewer said “Refreshingly, Jackson seems more interested in journeying to the other side of heartbreak than relitigating it”. Alim Kheraj
Pick of the rest
Enrico Rava Fearless Five With Joe Lovano: Corners
Out now
Summed up in a sentence The Italian trumpeter’s group – featuring an old friend – rip through originals and free improvisation, with a heavy Miles Davis influence.
What our reviewer said “Balancing cliffhanging late-Miles street-corner funk, sumptuous choral ensemble sounds, classic-jazz horn balladeering and free improv is a tough challenge – but this evocative set more than rises to it.” John Fordham
Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra: Stravinsky – The Firebird
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Rattle’s third recording of the Russian master’s fairytale may well be his best.
What our reviewer said “All three Rattle recordings are of the complete score from 1910, though this latest interpretation is the swiftest, knocking several minutes off his previous readings and aided by an ideally natural acoustic. The gains are apparent not just in the dramatic thrust he achieves but in the diaphanous textures.” Clive Paget
Bassvictim: Peace + War
Out now
Summed up in a sentence The combustible US-Polish duo channel witch house and electroclash in their fourth maximalist project in just two years.
What our reviewer said “Peace + War is at its most exciting when the rough demo-like quality of its sound evokes a sense of teeming chaos. When layer after layer of vocals, spoken word and random interjections give you the impression it was recorded in the middle of a particularly messy house party.” Alexis Petridis
You may have missed …
Gilla Band: Pugnello
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Your favourite band’s favourite band unleash a thrilling and relentless 42 minutes of monstrous noise.
What our reviewer said “You could view it as a suitably anxious, unpredictable soundtrack to anxious, unpredictable times; you might equally find it exhilaratingly cathartic.” Alexis Petridis
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