This week's cultural landscape offers an exciting mix of returning favourites and compelling new releases, with the final season of Netflix's supernatural phenomenon Stranger Things leading the charge alongside Richard Linklater's Broadway breakup drama Blue Moon featuring a career-best performance from Ethan Hawke.
Television Highlights
The much-anticipated return of Stranger Things dominates this week's television offerings, with the blockbuster sci-fi series beginning its final chapter as Hawkins residents prepare for their ultimate battle against Vecna's forces from the Upside Down. According to Guardian reviewer Jack Seale, the four episodes function as a five-hour action-comedy-horror movie, with each story element given luxurious room to breathe and develop.
Beyond the supernatural drama, several other notable television releases deserve attention. BBC iPlayer's Poison Water presents a damning documentary about 1980s Cornwall residents who experienced Britain's largest mass poisoning through contaminated tap water, featuring new interviews that bring this historical injustice startlingly into the present.
Disney+ offers two significant additions: the digitally enhanced rerelease of The Beatles Anthology, described as a meticulously assembled collage of all available Beatles footage, and Chris Hemsworth: A Road Trip to Remember, which sees the Hollywood star embarking on an emotional journey through his childhood haunts with his father, who's battling dementia.
Cinema Standouts
In cinemas, Richard Linklater's Blue Moon emerges as the must-see film, featuring Ethan Hawke delivering what Peter Bradshaw calls a terrific performance as lyricist Lorenz Hart spiralling into despair following his professional split from Richard Rodgers. The film explores the rarely depicted overlap between romantic and professional failure.
Other notable cinematic releases include Pillion, a BDSM biker romance starring Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling that blends humour with touching character drama, and the latest Knives Out mystery, Wake Up Dead Man, which sees Daniel Craig returning as private detective Benoit Blanc in a story with religious undertones and an impressive supporting cast including Josh O'Connor and Glenn Close.
For those interested in meta-commentary on the true crime genre, Charlie Shackleton's Zodiac Killer Project offers an amusing and insightful critique after the filmmaker's original documentary about the 1970s serial murderer was abandoned.
Literary and Musical Offerings
The book world sees the release of The School of Night by Karl Ove Knausgård, the latest instalment in the Norwegian author's sprawling series of supernatural existentialism that continues his philosophical preoccupation with death and what might lie beyond comprehension.
Other noteworthy publications include Elizabeth Goldring's magnificent portrait of Tudor court painter Hans Holbein, Alice Jolly's The Matchbox Girl exploring the ethics of Dr Asperger in second world war Vienna through the eyes of a mute autistic girl, and Waterstones' book of the year winner The Artist by Lucy Steeds, which combines romance, puzzle and poetry in post-war Provence.
Music enthusiasts should seek out the deluxe reissue of The Return of the Durutti Column, whose delicate experimentation sounds remarkably contemporary despite being recorded in the post-punk early 1980s, while HTRK's String of Hearts offers brilliant genre-agnostic covers and remixes of the veteran duo's gloomy, sensual songs by artists including Sharon Van Etten and Stephen O'Malley.
Meanwhile, Swedish band The Hives prove they're still at their snarling best twenty-five years after their first UK tour, with new material that stands strong alongside their classic hits during live performances.
