21 Bridges review - police corruption thriller sets a cracking pace

★★★★ 21 BRIDGES Police corruption thriller sets a cracking pace

Chadwick Boseman heads strong cast as he leads a manhunt in Manhattan

Thanks to a powerful cast and crisp direction from Brian Kirk (Game of Thrones, Luther), 21 Bridges drives home its story of good cops, bad cops and a Big Apple rotten to the core with bulldozing force. Centre stage is Chadwick Boseman as Andre Davis, a detective renowned for showing bad guys no mercy.

High Society: Cannabis Café, Channel 4 review - pointless investigation into drug-taking

★★ HIGH SOCIETY: CANNABIS CAFÉ, CHANNEL 4 Pointless investigation into drug-taking

Watching people get high for no purpose

This was the first of a two-part investigation into... well, I don't know what. The voiceover of High Society: Cannabis Café said it was an experiment “to test the alleged benefits of weed” and the people featured all had “a personal motivation for getting stoned” as they visited an Amsterdam coffee shop, where dope is sold legally.

A Million Little Pieces review - addict's anaemic redemption

★★★ A MILLION LITTLE PIECES Sam Taylor-Johnson nods to rehab success, at cinematic power's expense 

Sam Taylor-Johnson honourably emphasises rehab success, at cinematic power's expense

The high, crackhead days of James Frey (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) are over in five adrenalized minutes, as he dances naked to the Smashing Pumpkins, then tumbles insensibly backwards from a ledge.

Niall Griffiths: Broken Ghost review - Welsh visions of hope and loss

★★★★ NIALL GRIFFITHS: BROKEN GHOST Mysticism, grunge and satire meet in the enchanted hills

Mysticism, grunge and satire meet in the enchanted hills

The trend-hopping taste-makers who run British literary publishing have lately decided that “working-class” writing merits a small dole of their precious time and cash. To assess how long this latest patronising fad may last, check out the availability of James Kelman’s fiction: three decades of ground-breaking modernist work by a scrupulous innovator, now all but buried by Penguin, and largely consigned (a couple of titles apart) to second-hand limbo.

Euphoria, Sky Atlantic review - teenage nervous breakdown

★★★★ EUPHORIA, SKY ATLANTIC Gen-Z drama pushes the envelope of sex, drugs and emotional turmoil

Gen-Z drama pushes the envelope of sex, drugs and emotional turmoil

Being a teenager used to be fun, allegedly, but for the young cast of HBO’s controversial new hit series Euphoria it looks more like a nightmare ride through a theme park of bad trips.

CD: Soundwalk Collective with Patti Smith - The Peyote Dance

Peyote, poetry and a voyage to the otherworld with Patti Smith

Soundwalk Collective is a multi-disciplinary audio-visual collective founded by Stephan Crasneanscki, a musical psycho-geographer and field recorder, the source material of his works drawn from specific locations: in the case of The Peyote Dance, it's the Sierra Tarahumara of Mexico, also known as "Copper Canyon", and as spectacular a wilderness as you can imagine.

Rocketman review - fabulous musically but a tad miserable too

GOLDEN GLOBES 2020 Taron Egerton wins Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for 'Rocketman'

Elton John settles old scores and pulls out all the stops

Rocketman opens with its hero in flamboyant stage costume stomping into a drab group therapy session. Pulling the sparkling horns off his magnificent head-dress and shuffling his feathered wings into a seat, Elton John demands of his fellow addicts, ‘How long is this going to take?’ The intimidated counsellor replies, ‘That’s really up to you’.

Birds of Passage review - mesmerising Colombian family saga

★★★★ BIRDS OF PASSAGE The marijuana boom of the Seventies from the standpoint of the Wayuu

The marijuana boom of the Seventies from the standpoint of the Wayuu

“Do you know why I’m respected?” demands Ursula (Carmiña Martinez), a Wayuu matriarch in La Guajira in northern Colombia, of Rapayet (José Acosta), who wants to marry her daughter Zaida (Natalia Reyes, soon to star in James Cameron’s Terminator reboot). “Because I’m capable of anything for my family and my clan.”