TV
If you only watch one, make it …
Alien: Earth
Disney+; available now
Summed up in a sentence Ridley Scott’s terrifying space franchise finally gets its TV version: set on Earth.
What our reviewer said “These aliens are the classic nightmare fuel updated and sharpened and, when they strike, they leave behind the sort of oddly beautiful tableaux of torn corpses we haven’t seen since Hannibal.” Jack Seale
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Further reading ‘It’s the best monster ever invented’: Noah Hawley on bringing Ridley Scott’s Alien to TV
Pick of the rest
And Just Like That
Now; available now
Summed up in a sentence We finally bid to Carrie Bradshaw and co as their midlife spin-off draws to a close in a cacophony of self-discovery … and plumbing problems.
What our reviewer said “The weirdest reboot of them all ended with a whimper, as though the anaesthetic was finally wearing off and we were all collectively coming to.” Hannah J Davies
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Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser
Netflix; available now
Summed up in a sentence The horrific 00s US weight-loss reality show gets a documentary probing – and does not emerge well.
What our reviewer said “The stories it tells are powerful enough to stick in the memory, as warnings from recent history.” Phil Harrison
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Further reading ‘We are obsessed with weight’: Bob Harper on life as a trainer on The Biggest Loser
In Flight
Sky Documentaries; available now
Summed up in a sentence Katherine Kelly stars in this bleak thriller about a flight attendant forced to smuggle drugs to ensure the safety of her imprisoned adult son.
What our reviewer said “The claustrophobic nature of it all, the endangerment of hapless innocents and the reminder of the evil that spreads untrammelled across space and history are a cluster of superb selling points.” Lucy Mangan
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You may have missed …
My Mom Jayne
Sky Documentaries; available now
Summed up in a sentence A touching, beautiful and sad biopic of film star Jayne Mansfield, created by the daughter who lost her mother to a car crash aged three.
What our reviewer said “My Mom Jayne is tender rather than schmaltzy, compassionate rather than hagiographic and an evident labour of love for all involved.” Lucy Mangan
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Film
If you only watch one, make it …
Materialists
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Dakota Johnson is torn between wealthy new suitor Pedro Pascal and broke ex Chris Evans in Celine Song’s anti-capitalist romcom.
What our reviewer said “Unlike Johnson’s Lucy – who tells her clients she can’t just magically produce ideal mates or, like Dr Frankenstein, build them – Song can effectively do exactly this in her imaginary world, and place Lucy with an ideal man.” Peter Bradshaw
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Further reading The heart triumphs over all things: why ‘anti-capitalist romcom’ Materialists isn’t just a fantasy
Pick of the rest
Motherboard
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Smartphone self-portrait of family life in which documentary-maker Victoria Mapplebeck stitches 20 years’ worth of footage into a home video love letter to her son.
What our reviewer said “It is confessional, and hyperlocal in its 4K-rendered detail; it is a richly satisfying, humane, sympathetic study at the end of which I felt I knew Victoria and her son as well as if they lived next door.” Peter Bradshaw
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Together
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Real-life husband and wife Dave Franco and Alison Brie play a couple put to the ultimate test in a slickly made codependent-relationship body horror.
What our reviewer said “There’s something refreshingly blunt about what Together is trying to say about the dangers of codependency, a film too busy having fun to waste time writing a self-satisfied dissertation.” Benjamin Lee
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Further reading ‘We’re in a healthy relationship!’ Alison Brie and Dave Franco on gruesome body horror Together
Oslo Stories Trilogy: Love
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Grownup relationship drama, the second film of Dag Johan Haugerud’s absorbing trilogy, in which a doctor wonders if her gay colleague’s approach to dating would work for her.
What our reviewer said “A gracefully grownup and breezy relationships drama that explores modern dating with wit and wisdom.” Peter Bradshaw
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Now streaming …
Eight Postcards from Utopia
Mubi; available now
Summed up in a sentence Mosaic of moments compiled by award-winning auteur Rade Jude from 1990s Romanian TV ads frantically flogging everything from sausages to laxatives, showing the country’s newfound passion for capitalism.
What our reviewer said “Sometimes Jude and co-director Christian Ferencz-Flatz take out the audio entirely so we can just focus on the eerie garish images in silence. Freeze-frames show us the quasi-porn ecstatic closing of eyes at the moment of taste.” Peter Bradshaw
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Books
If you only read one, make it …
Frankly by Nicola Sturgeon
Reviewd by Libby Brooks
Summed up in a sentence Scotland’s former leader reflects on her time in power.
What our reviewer said “There are moments of bracing honesty. She reveals she came close to having a breakdown after giving evidence at the UK Covid inquiry, and a lengthy passage on her pregnancy loss is almost unbearably intimate.”
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Further reading Salmond, independence strategy and sexism: what we’ve learned from Nicola Sturgeon’s book
Pick of the rest
Katabasis by RF Kuang
Reviewed by Beejay Silcox
Summed up in a sentence An infernal twist on the campus farce: David Lodge with demons.
What our reviewer said “A tale of poets and storytellers, thinkers and theorists, art-makers and cultural sorcerers. This is a novel that believes in ideas – just not the cages we build for them.”
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Further reading Rebecca F Kuang: ‘I like to write to my friends in the style of Joan Didion’
The Adversary by Michael Crummey
Reviewed by Erica Wagner
Summed up in a sentence A prize-winning take on a biblical tale, set in 1800s Newfoundland.
What our reviewer said “Crummey is a wise and unsparing writer whose understanding of human foibles retains a scrap of empathy even for his blackest creations. The bloody denouement is well earned.”
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Chasing the Dark: Encounters With the Supernatural by Ben Machell
Reviewed by Dorian Lynskey
Summed up in a sentence The adventures of 20th-century ghostbuster Tony Cornell.
What our reviewer said “This elegantly thrilling yarn encompasses the broad history of paranormal research in the UK.”
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Alexandrian Sphinx by Peter Jeffreys and Gregory Jusdanis
Reviewed by Michael Nott
Summed up in a sentence A biography of the enigmatic queer poet admired by EM Forster and Jackie Onassis.
What our reviewer said “In this deeply researched and engaging biography, Jeffreys and Jusdanis brilliantly recreate his world – and investigate his place within it.”
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You may have missed …
Flesh by David Szalay
Reviewed by Keiran Goddard
Summed up in a sentence Longlisted for the Booker prize, this is a brilliantly spare portrait of a man buffeted by forces beyond his control.
What our reviewer said “A consistently phlegmatic and passive participant in the events of his life, István has something of the existential wayfarer about him.”
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Albums
If you only listen to one, make it …
Cass McCombs: Interior Live Oak
Out now
Summed up in a sentence With existential lullabies and ritualistic stomps, tear-jerking odes and ballads worthy of Sinatra, US indie’s steadfast storyteller makes a wonderfully unhurried double album his best yet.
What our reviewer said “The very best of the ballads is Missionary Bell, a song whose melody is so simple and expressive you can scarcely believe it hasn’t always existed.” Ben Beaumont-Thomas
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Pick of the rest
Benedicte Maurseth: Mirra
Out 22 August
Summed up in a sentence With rhythmic repetitions and rustling textures, the Norwegian hardanger fiddle player evokes the traditional music and ecological harmony of her country.
What our reviewer said “Nysnø Over Reinlav (Fresh Snow Over Reindeer Moss) includes field recordings of 13 animals, including gyrfalcons, whimbrels and wolverines, alongside producer Morten Qvenild’s fluttering piano.” Jude Rogers
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Rise Against: Ricochet
Out now
Summed up in a sentence The punk veterans’ hulking 10th album mixes the blood and guts energy of their early years with high-sheen recording.
What our reviewer said “Vocalist Tim McIlrath finds the middle ground between Strike Anywhere and Creedence Clearwater Revival more often than you might think possible.” Huw Baines
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Ravel: Complete Orchestral Works II
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Ludovic Morlot creates a shimmering web around soprano Fleur Barron’s lucid vocals in Trois Poèmes, on an album that also showcases Shéhérazade and Don Quichotte.
What our reviewer said “It is the Mallarmé miniatures that shine most brightly here, with Morlot carefully teasing out the instrumental strands of the accompanying ensemble.” Andrew Clements
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