From This City Is Ours to Macklemore’s Free Palestine tour: the week in rave reviews
Summed up in a sentence Four people share their shocking testimonies of what happened when the dictator gave Asians 90 days to leave Uganda.
What our reviewer said “There is a happy ending, of sorts. Bharti, Paresh, Harminder and Maz never stopped missing the country they were born in, but they made a new home in Britain, and they made Britain better: it would be hard, for example, to calculate the size of the debt we owe Bharti for her 40 years as a social worker safeguarding children in care. Every minute of Escaping Idi Amin contains an urgent lesson to learn.” Jack Seale
Pick of the rest
This City Is Ours
BBC iPlayer; available now
Summed up in a sentence James Nelson-Joyce returns in this terrifically acted, high-stakes crime drama in Liverpool – and it’s as lovable as it is bloody.
What our reviewer said “We can expect more of the following: convoluted drug deals conducted over congealing ragu; shouting; tiny-skulled henchmen with chests of astonishing bulbosity, as if someone had squeezed their legs like tubes of toothpaste and all the meat had been forced up to their armpits; beards.” Sarah Dempster
The One About Matthew Perry
Netflix; available now
Summed up in a sentence The star’s friends and family celebrate his life – and give respectful insight into his troubles as well as his career triumphs.
What our reviewer said “It remains at heart a simple, sad story. But this unexpectedly candid, thoughtful, genuinely intimate film gives it nuance and depth, and a voice to wider sorrows – including what a shame it was that Perry could not enjoy his talent or appreciate the joy it gave as fully as his audiences always did.” Lucy Mangan
Further reading The hidden life of Matthew Perry: ‘He would say: I need to stop and get help’
You may have missed …
Lupin
Netflix; available now
Summed up in a sentence The French super-thief returns for a fourth series; the budget is bigger, the stakes are higher and there are lots of Houdini-style twists and thrills to be had.
What our reviewer said “Omar Sy, whose performance is magnetic as always, has graduated to co-showrunner and wants to lean harder into the show’s “superhero”-like qualities. These include tech and set pieces which undoubtedly add a sprinkling of Marvel.” Micha Frazer-Carroll
Further reading Lupin’s Omar Sy: ‘We wanted to show what the French are capable of’
Film
If you only watch one, make it …
A Gentle Monster
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Disquieting drama with Léa Seydoux as a wife and mother whose life unravels when police arrive to investigate her husband.
What our reviewer said “This is a bleak, pessimistic film with two excellent lead performances.” Peter Bradshaw
Pick of the rest
I Love Boosters
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Supercool outlaw women go shoplifting in Boots Riley’s frantic caper in which Demi Moore’s haute-couture maven attracts the attention of a gang of Robin Hood style clothes robbers.
What our reviewer said “An entertaining, if very exhausting fantasy-caper about the fashion biz, a madcap mile-a-minute melee of unadulterated ker-aziness. You might need a couple of ibuprofen and a lie down afterwards.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading Boots Riley: ‘Theft is not outside of capitalism, it’s what it was built on’
Wicker
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Intriguing folk-horror romance with Olivia Colman as a depressed and bullied fisher who gets the answer to her dreams: an Alexander Skarsgård made of wicker.
What our reviewer said “It occupies a strange and intriguing Venn-diagram overlap between macabre horror and sentimentality. Yet devotees of bucolic British screen-scariness will note that it is, after all, about a wicker man.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading ‘I saw the script and went: oooh!’ Olivia Colman and Alexander Skårsgard on their steamy folk-horror movie Wicker
Peter Asher: Everywhere Man
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Backstory of modest music industry veteran Asher who started out as one half of pop duo Peter and Gordon, and went on to produce acts such as James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt.
What our reviewer said “Asher by any standards carved an amazing path through it all, making the absolute most of being in the right place at the right time.” Andrew Pulver
The Devils
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Ken Russell’s 1971 possessed-nuns tale stars Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave giving the performances of their lives in a film that highlights the violence of power.
What our reviewer said “It comes from an era when movies, playing in high-street cinemas, still had the power to shock, to position that shock in the polite cultural mainstream and to compel serious discussion about whether that shock – or, conversely, a ban – was justified.” Peter Bradshaw
Books
If you only read one, make it …
On Another Planet They Can Save Me by Lieke Marsman
Reviewed by Edward Posnett
Summed up in a sentence The extraordinary posthumous memoir of a Dutch poet.
What our reviewer said “Marsman’s language is so beautiful, and her textual references so original: she cites Leopardi, Pasolini, Alanis Morissette, Robert Musil, Spinoza, Euripides, Wittgenstein and William James.”
Pick of the rest
Gilgamesh: A New Verse Translation by Simon Armitage
Reviewed by Philip Terry
Summed up in a sentence The poet laureate takes on the ancient Mesopotamian epic about the adventures of a demigod king.
What our reviewer said “Armitage’s tactile, visceral version is a tour de force, combining careful scholarship with poetic verve and deft linguistic meldings.”
The Mystery of What Befell in the Ditch by Thure Erik Lund, translated by David M Smith
Reviewed by Sukhdev Sandhu
Summed up in a sentence Long thought untranslatable, a portrait of a breakdown by the man Karl Ove Knausgård considers Norway’s best living writer.
What our reviewer said “This is a universal story of modernity and its discontents, but Lund is at pains to give it a specifically Norwegian dimension.”
Emperor of Nothing: The Making of Larry David by Blake J Harris
Reviewed by Dorian Lynskey
Summed up in a sentence The definitive biography of Seinfeld creator Larry David.
What our reviewer said “In 1992, just before it became the biggest show in America, he told friends, ‘Honestly, I would rather spend a year in prison than do another season of Seinfeld. It would be peaceful. Nobody would make me write anything.’ He was only half joking.”
Under Fire by Humza Yousaf
Reviewed by Fiona Sturges
Summed up in a sentence The former Scottish first minister on his family’s Gaza ordeal.
What our reviewer said “Under Fire is most powerful when Yousaf gives full vent to his anger at the unfolding genocide in Gaza and articulates not just the plight of his in-laws, but the barbarity of Israel’s actions.”
You may have missed …
We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad
Reviewed by Sandra Newman
Summed up in a sentence This follow-up to the cult horror-satire Bunny has been shortlisted for the Wodehouse prize for comic fiction.
What our reviewer said “Awad is here to show us that romantasy can be serious literature, and nothing can really be too camp.”
Albums
If you only listen to one, make it …
Radie Peat: No Human Tongue Can Tell
Rough Trade; out now
Summed up in a sentence Collecting traditional songs of female struggle and strength, the Irish singer invests them with staggering power.
What our reviewer said “John ‘Spud’ Murphy’s production brilliantly brings out earthy, granular details, from the sucking-in of air through Peat’s concertina bellows on Cailín Deas to the disruptive thwack of Eleanor Myler’s drums.” Jude Rogers
Pick of the rest
Kali Malone: Burning Song
Ideologic Organ; out now
Summed up in a sentence The US artist takes a newly compact approach to her craft, and trades technical composition methods for pure emotion on another sombre masterpiece.
What our reviewer said “The heavy opening notes of Map the Path are solemn yet startlingly direct for Malone, feeling for the first time as if she’s lifting her fingers from the keys and shaking the listener by the shoulders.” Laura Snapes
Igor Levit: Resistance
No Silence/Sony; out now
Summed up in a sentence The German pianist performs these works by Beethoven and Schoenberg – linked by Napoleon – with his characteristic exquisite touch, in interpretations full of poetry.
What our reviewer said “Levit rightly sees Liszt’s piano realisation as a masterwork in and of itself and his dramatic interpretation is full of poetry, often surprisingly gentle, and with breathtaking pianissimos … In a time of bullies and despots, this is essential listening.” Clive Paget
The Big Moon: Forever
Fiction; out now
Summed up in a sentence After frontperson Juliette Jackson lost half her hearing, she wrote sad songs and felt frustrated. So she pivoted, writing herself a happy ending. The results are joyfully convincing.
What our reviewer said “The album’s sense of finding joy in sometimes difficult circumstances crystallises on the wonderfully titled You Remind Me That I’m Dying (And That It’s Good to Be Alive), those words providing what may well be this year’s most bittersweet euphoric chorus.” Dave Simpson
On tour …
Macklemore’s Free Palestine tour
Reviewed at 3Arena, Dublin, 26 October
Summed up in a sentence Several unannounced guests feature on the first European date of the rapper’s sold-out benefit tour, including video messages from Mark Ruffalo and Cynthia Nixon.
What our reviewer said “There’s something very striking about the fact that the local artists who’ve heeded Macklemore’s call to help out are evidently committed to the cause behind it: you never get a sense of anyone rocking up in order to grab brownie points or reflected glory.” Alexis Petridis
Further reading If you really hate it when music and film stars do politics, here’s the answer: give us politics that works
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