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TV
If you only watch one, make it …
A Toxic Love Story
Netflix; available now
Summed up in a sentence An astonishing true-crime story about the Anaheim Craigslist case – and who was behind the harassment of a couple that led to one of them being attacked by a rape fantasist.
What our reviewer said “Keeps you watching, goggle-eyed and barely breathing, until the end.” Lucy Mangan
Pick of the rest
Secret Lives of Gypsy Wives
Channel 4; available now
Summed up in a sentence A reality show following TikTok influencer and member of the Traveller community, Trewley Precious, as well as her three sisters and mum.
What our reviewer said “They are like the Kardashians if Kris’s pod people had a sense of humour, irrepressible energy, charm and an abundance of affection for each other.” Lucy Mangan
You may have missed …
Wrestling With Trump
Channel 4; available now
Summed up in a sentence Munya Chawawa heads to the US to investigate the link between Donald Trump’s style of politics and WWE.
What our reviewer said “Punchy, passionate and weirdly uplifting.” Lucy Mangan
Make That Movie
Channel 4; available now
Summed up in a sentence Last One Laughing finalist Sam Campbell delivers one of the funniest shows of the year, with this mockumentary about a director who makes awful films.
What our reviewer said “So ostentatiously silly that it deserves to be paraded around the streets.” Stuart Heritage
Further reading ‘People are like: you’re a crackpot’: how Sam Campbell became comedy’s oddball superstar
Film
If you only watch one, make it …
Ask E Jean
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Engrossing film by Ivy Meeropol following former star columnist E Jean Carroll, now in her 80s, as she battles Donald Trump through a still-unfinished series of legal disputes.
What our reviewer said “The sheer creepiness of Trump is what is so striking: with nauseating contempt, he proclaimed that she ‘wasn’t his type’ – as if that airy claim has anything to do with it.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading E Jean Carroll receives $5.6m owed by Trump after court releases damages
Pick of the rest
Flavors of Iraq
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Powerful animation portraying experiences of a French-Iraqi journalist Feurat Alani, with vivid childhood memories of 80s Baghdad and anecdotes about his father, a prominent leftist exile.
What our reviewer said “The film is at its strongest when Alani is a child, and the film is surely inspired by the Iranian animation Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It has urgency and muscular force.” Peter Bradshaw
On the Sea
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Away from the disapproval of their Welsh fishing community, two men embark on a passionate affair in Helen Walsh’s poignant drama.
What our reviewer said “There is sincerity and force to this well-intended, well-acted Brokeback drama of forbidden love from writer-director Helen Walsh, who is that rare and valuable figure in the arts world: a novelist who is of equal status as an original film-maker.” Peter Bradshaw
Nostalgia
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence A scholar has an existential crisis while researching the life of a composer in Tarkovsky’s deeply mysterious and profound Italy-set cine-poem from 1983.
What our reviewer said “It is about alienation and belonging, a film whose title means a yearning not simply for a lost time or lost place but for something, anything, else – with a profound anguished sense that the here-and-now of existence is unsatisfactory.” Peter Bradshaw
Now streaming …
The Dink
Apple TV; available now
Summed up in a sentence Jake Johnson plays a delusional ex-tennis player who has to switch to pickleball, the sport he loathes, after injury in engagingly silly comedy.
What our reviewer said “Inevitably for any comedy about tennis, John McEnroe has a funny walk-on, playing himself and commentating with baffling intensity on the climactic on-court confrontation between Johnson’s Dusty and his nemesis Andy Roddick.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading ‘New Girl was so scary I had to stop smoking pot’: Jake Johnson on perseverance, pickleball and Prince
Books
If you only read one, make it …
Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead
Reviewed by Xan Brooks
Summed up in a sentence The final part of the Harlem Trilogy reaches the gritty 1980s.
What our reviewer said “This set of shaggy-dog crime capers is also a story of New York through the decades.”
Further reading Colson Whitehead: ‘When I read Invisible Man I thought maybe there’s room for a Black weirdo like me’
Pick of the rest
A Sudden Flicker of Light by David Thomson
Reviewed by Peter Bradshaw
Summed up in a sentence A wild ride through movie history.
What our reviewer said “It’s a straightforwardly rapturous, rhapsodic celebration of the extraordinary adventure of cinema in the 20th century and beyond, with an old-fashioned feel.”
These Wild English by Nicola Wilding
Reviewed by Fiona Sturges
Summed up in a sentence A woman sets out to understand why her mother turned to the far right.
What our reviewer said “Writing in thoughtful and elegantly understated prose, she digs into the roots of Sandra’s dissatisfaction, telling a story that spans three generations.”
On Thin Ice by Charlie Walker
Reviewed by Charlie Gilmour
Summed up in a sentence The story of a camping trip to Siberia gone horribly wrong.
What our reviewer said “Armed with a flare gun, a can of pepper spray and a dagger for protection from the wolves and bears, Walker spends weeks trudging along ice roads by day, shivering in his tent at night.”
Air by Christian Kracht, translated by Daniel Bowles
Reviewed by Houman Barekat
Summed up in a sentence The Eurotrash author’s new novel shuttles between digital modernity and a fantasy world.
What our reviewer said “The reader experiences the book in a state of absorbed bewilderment: how on earth will these two narratives come together?”
You may have missed …
A Truce That Is Not Peace by Miriam Toews
Reviewed by Blake Morrison
Summed up in a sentence The bestselling author’s memoir of family tragedy and comedy, out in paperback this month.
What our reviewer said “This book is a triumph – a meditation on writing, suicide, guilt and silence, and an illustration of why she’s one of Canada’s most admired writers.”
Albums
If you only listen to one, make it …
Charli xcx: Music, Fashion, Film
Out now
Summed up in a sentence A slippery search into selfhood that hits just as hard as Brat.
What our reviewer said “That slipperiness turns out to be the essence of another gorgeously astute and disarmingly deep album about the instability of identity – not just as a vanguard songwriter striving for evolution, but how much we can ever know one another, or even ourselves.” Laura Snapes
Further reading Brat pack: Charli xcx’s 20 best songs – ranked!
Pick of the rest
The Strokes: Reality Awaits
Out now
Summed up in a sentence A perfect marriage of mayhem and melody on their best album in years.
What our reviewer said “If Casablancas sometimes sounded like he was going through the motions on The New Abnormal, Reality Awaits retrofits the madcap experimentalist side of the Voidz to cleaner, more tuneful production.” Shaad D’Souza
Tyla: A*Pop
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Old-school pop superstar transports us back to more carefree times, with her voice nimbly traversing genres and reference points.
What our reviewer said “As a bold statement of intent for an old-school superstar, it’s close to top marks.” Michael Cragg
Further reading ‘It’s sunny, with music bumping, and everyone in ripped clothing’: how Tyla set a new pop mood
Beethoven: The Last Three Sonatas/Mitsuko Uchida
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Live recording where the music emerges as if new, with no sense that this music needs a mediator.
What our reviewer said “Instead, it’s as if she is turning over leaf after leaf of the music, and simply handing us what she finds there: from Beethoven, through Uchida, to us.” Erica Jeal
The Zarabanda Variations
Out now
Summed up in a sentence US composer Keir GoGwilt’s collaborative album uses poetry and atonal music to trace the roots of Spain’s sarabande dance.
What our reviewer said “This is by no means an easy album, with the several spoken-word interludes from poet Edgar Garcia often containing confounding references, but its instrumentation is virtuosic and its scope is remarkable.” Ammar Kalia
On tour
Bruno Mars
Wembley Stadium, London, 25 & 28 July; touring the US, Canada and Mexico, 21 August to 8 December
Summed up in a sentence Half seedy club, half church service as the diminutive singer answers fans’ prayers in a show that leans more on stage presence than pyro and pageantry.
What our reviewer said “Mars sings every line like it’s his big solo, head thrown back, neck vein popping. He has a great voice, strong and supple, but when every vocal is delivered as a knockout, it punctures the effect.” Kate Solomon
