Last Laugh at Dead Man’s Wire: Week in Rave Reviews | culture

television

If you only watch one, do it…

Last one laughing in the UK

Prime Video

Summarize in a sentence The triumphant return of the tirelessly funny TV show featuring comedians trying to make each other laugh – while keeping a straight face.
What our reviewer said “This series leaves me unable to laugh at least once every episode.” Rachel Aroesti

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Further reading Final Laugh Contestant Dianne Morgan’s Honest Playlist: ‘I was fascinated by Kate Bush and the Smurfs, so I had great taste’

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Inside the rage machine

BBC iPlayer

Summarize in a sentence Whistleblowers who previously worked at Meta and X reveal the shocking truth about the social media giants.
What our reviewer said “Seeing the machinations of these companies unfold in less than an hour, often by people who worked inside Zuckerberg’s factory or in the shift from Twitter to Lucy Mangan

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Eliminate plastic toxins

Netflix

Summarize in a sentence A stunning documentary that follows an epidemiologist’s attempt to help couples conceive by reducing their exposure to plastics – raising some truly troubling questions.
What our reviewer said “Do viewers of documentaries like this one really change their lifestyles after watching them? Plastic Detox makes it clear: we have to, and most of us have a lot of work to do.” Jack Seale

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border

BBC iPlayer

Summarize in a sentence The highly impressive final series of the BBC’s sharp send-up of UK boarding schools is all about sex riots, scandals and final exams.
What our reviewer said “There’s something about Boarders that feels so real.” Micah Fraser Carroll

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Maybe she was gone…

Magnificent funeral parlor

Channel 4

Summarize in a sentence Camp, a light and moving documentary about a charming funeral director who shakes up the death industry.
What our reviewer said “The Fabulous Funeral Parlor tries to make us feel something new about the most universal experience ever. And it succeeds.” Micah Fraser Carroll

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film

If you only watch one, do it…

Dead man’s wire

In cinemas now

Summarize in a sentence Al Pacino, Colman Domingo and Maihala excel in Gus Van Sant’s thriller based on the true events of 1977 when an Indianapolis businessman took his mortgage broker hostage.
What our reviewer said “The characters and performances of Pacino, Domingo, and Mihala further complicate the psychopathic issue, creating something surreal, bizarre, and often funny: a display, not of cold-heartedness, exactly, but an astute, professional sense that pity and fear were emotions that could only benefit the kidnapper.” Peter Bradshaw

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Further reading Gus Van Sant: ‘My assistant wanted to erect a statue of Luigi Mangione. My generation thought: This is murder.

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La Grazia

In cinemas now

Summarize in a sentence The Great Beauty director Paolo Sorrentino once again teams up with actor Toni Servillo, who plays an Italian boss who views a career of empty integrity amplifying the leader’s despair.
What our reviewer said “La Grazia is an elegant and quiet film, ruminative and mysterious. Like great beauty, it contemplates Romanita From the capital; Romanism, the way its history is written on its buildings for those who understand it. And the set pieces were stunning: Mariano is the guest of honor at a dinner for Italian mountain infantry veterans, Albini, and suddenly bursts into song with them. Peter Bradshaw

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Further reading Paolo Sorrentino and Toni Cervillo talk about smoking, cinema and secrets

Mid-winter holiday

In cinemas now

Summarize in a sentence A brilliantly acted film of rupture and ecstasy – directed by Polly Findlay and starring Lesley Manville and Ciaran Hinds – about the personal and religious turmoil of late middle age.
What our reviewer said “The film creates a space for Hinds and Manville to give substantive, intimate, and complex performances of the kind that most films (of any genre) do not allow for their protagonists, and Manville in particular is deeply moving.” Peter Bradshaw

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Further reading Lesley Manville’s Best Movies – Ranked!

Good boy

In cinemas now

Summarize in a sentence Jan Komasa’s tale follows a couple, played by Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough, who plan to retrain a delinquent teenager with a brutal regime in Kubricky’s absurd nightmare.
What our reviewer said “It’s a film that could have been made any time in the last 50 years, with high-level provocations and talking points that feel like something from the era of Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange or Oshima’s Max Mon Amour, or even Skolimowski’s The Shout.” Peter Bradshaw

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killer

In cinemas now

Summarize in a sentence A remake of the 1989 Hong Kong action film from director John Woo starring Chow Yun-Fat: a gun-toting melodrama of extreme violence and surreal emotion.
What our reviewer said “With The Killer, Woo has in a way become the Douglas Sirk of Hong Kong action cinema, in a gonzo melodrama borrowing from Magnificent Obsession… about the redemption of a killer who falls in love with a woman he inadvertently causes to lose her sight.” Peter Bradshaw

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books

If you only read one, do it.