BBC Four’s new series Sound of Cinema: The Music that Made the Movies is shocking. The overwhelming majority of arts-based TV consists of programmes consigning specialist knowledge/presenters to the sidelines in favour of dumbed-down, easily digestible generalisations mouthed by all-purpose TV-friendly faces. But this three-part series is fronted by, gasp, a composer who uses insider knowledge to hook and hold the viewers.

One of the most mystifying of working relationships is that between an artist and model. For any sitter the experience must be tiring, if not tiresome, but for the artist their compliance is as integral as paint or clay; one may become famous, while the other remains anonymous, the silent partner in a work of art; there’s also the fact that, in the most common permutation, the arrangement involves a man staring for hours at a naked woman, without reproach – and where else can you find that? Well, filmmaking.

In the remarkably meagre annals of Formula One movies, there are only two scores to beat, to wit: John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix (from 1966), a fictional story which used oodles of real racing footage, and Asif Kapadia's spellbinding documentary Senna (2010). Ron Howard's Rush slots in somewhere between them, being derived from the true-life Seventies rivalry of Niki Lauda and James Hunt but consciously shot and written like a drama.

We learn from the front titles of Pieta that it’s Kim Ki-duk’s 18th film, and it won the Korean director the Golden Lion award at last year’s Venice film festival, against strong competition. Viewers may be asking themselves a rather different question, however, namely how much do we actually look forward to a new movie from Kim? We’re a decade on from one of his masterpieces, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, with its meditative visual beauty, but that one was very much the exception in the director’s oeuvre to date.

How we look at and value art, the stuff we accumulate around us, and our daily surroundings; how we look at and communicate with each other (or avoid doing so in the digital age); and if we do or don't see: these are some of the themes explored in Museum Hours, an immersive docufiction made in Vienna by the experimental, socially progressive Brooklyn filmmaker Jem Cohen.

The question of what makes a romance click on screen – what combination of elements goes into creating that indefinable spark between two projected faces – is one of the most eternal for filmmakers. David Lowery’s wistful, lyrical neo-Western has just over 10 minutes to make you invest in doomed lovers Bob (Casey Affleck) and Ruth (Rooney Mara) before fate and justice do them part, and succeeds with breathtaking ease.

The news that Richard Curtis will not direct any more films after About Time (which he also wrote) was met with sadness in some quarters and undisguised glee in others. Curtis co-wrote Blackadder, Not the Nine O'Clock News and Mr Bean, created Comic Relief and is an all-round good egg, but none the less stirs up real venom in those who find his other creation, the modern British romcom, sickeningly sweet.

“Hannibal Lecter meets Jason Bourne”: that’s how director Ryuhei Kitamura unbeatably sells No One Lives’ indestructible serial killer hero. But his film is at its most interesting before it’s clear who Driver (Luke Evans, pictured below) is, or where we stand with anything that’s happening.

Paolo Sorrentino's latest opens with a Japanese tourist keeling over at the mere sight of an ancient Roman vista: he takes a snap and wipes the sweat from his brow before his fatal fall to the floor. As the Small Faces sang in "Itchycoo Park", for this gentleman at least, "It's all too beautiful." The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) is a love letter to Rome, in the vein of and as grandly ambitious as a Fellini, but don't be fooled by the title. Sorrentino's sixth narrative feature isn't merely a celebration of the city's already much celebrated beauty.

Michael Bay’s fleet-footed, queasy crime-comedy stars Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson and Anthony Mackie but the less you know, the more you might like it. This is because the more you know, the less it seems an acceptable source of entertainment. Not that Hollywood and movies in general have any qualms about morality, ethical behaviour or what constitutes "entertainment": we shouldn’t laugh at the cry of “She’s in the attic!” when discussing an actress’s bad performance as Ann Frank, but, unfortunately, we do. Terrible stories often grip us the most.

So, let’s get the true horror out of the way first. Pain & Gain is based on a series of articles written by Pete Collins and published in Miami New Times in 1999. (In 2013, Collins wisely timed the publication of his book on the case around the film’s release date.) He tells of a gruesome crime – torture, kidnapping and murder – by some bodybuilders at a particular gym in Florida. The real story is pretty horrible. Look it up if you must.

Shalhoub is completely compelling if not totally heartbreaking

However, the film itself is a bright, breezy, cartoon-like take on cruel and stupid things people do to get rich. Three hapless bags of muscle (Wahlberg, Johnson and Mackie) want more out of life. Daniel Lugo (Wahlberg) is whipped into an idiot’s frenzy by the great lifestyle enjoyed by Victor Kershaw (Tony Shaloub, pictured below), one of his new personal training clients. So, naturally, Lugo decides to extort all of Kershaw’s wealth. Accomplices are Adrian Doorbal (Mackie) a 'roids-impotent bodybuilder and Paul Doyle (Johnson), an iron-pumping Christian ex-addict ex-con who reluctantly becomes part of the threesome after he beats up a priest.

Botched tries at kidnapping Kershaw culminate in a horrendous attempt to kill him. He survives, but having already signed his money over to the criminals. As the police don't believe him, he engages Ed Du Bois III (Ed Harris) for justice. Meanwhile, the trio have blown all their money and decide to do this whole thing all over again to a phone sex magnet and his wife… You can see where this is headed, only now there’s dismemberment, accidental death and more. This story is so bizarre it almost seems normal because anything goes in crime comedies. Besides, we know all the actors.

Pain & Gain is funny. The cast is wonderful. Shalhoub’s Kershaw is completely compelling if not totally heartbreaking. Johnson is absolutely adorable as the chunky, tried-his-best-but-not-quite overgrown manchild. Mackie is tremendous too, with a nervy, crazy energy, lopsided logic and comedy chops we haven’t seen before. Supporting cast includes Ken Jeong and the omnipresent Rebel Wilson. Bay's pace is so dizzying it's almost nauseating: will this bizarro-world story ever end? Pain & Gain is painful, mad and sad - an enjoyable yet guilty pleasure.

Overleaf: watch the trailer to Pain & Gain