Primate to Tyler Ballgame: The Week's Top Culture Picks & Reviews
This week's cultural landscape offers a thrilling mix of entertainment, from a brutal creature feature to critically acclaimed music and television. Based on the Guardian's best-rated reviews, here are the standout picks across TV, film, books, and albums that are capturing attention and praise.
Television Highlights
If you're looking for a must-watch TV show, Wonder Man on Disney+ is generating buzz as a rare gem in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This series follows a secretly super-powered actor navigating the world of superhero movies, with Lucy Mangan praising it as "a rather clever, tender and altogether wonder-ful thing." It's described as genuinely good, breaking the mould of typical superhero fare.
Other notable TV picks include the Take That documentary on Netflix, which offers a fantastically enjoyable dive into the boyband's history with ample nostalgia and unseen archive footage. Meanwhile, Clive Myrie's African Adventure on BBC iPlayer provides a joyful and educational travelogue across South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, and Morocco, showcasing the potential of celebrity travel shows to be moving and informative.
Don't miss Poison Water, a powerful BBC iPlayer documentary about north Cornwall residents' struggle with toxic water, bringing their fight for justice startlingly into the present with new interviews and insights.
Film Focus
In cinemas, Primate stands out as a concise and brutal chimp-gone-wild shocker directed by Johannes Roberts. At 89 minutes, this creature feature is paced like a rollercoaster, offering a grisly reminder of why chimps shouldn't be pets, with Benjamin Lee noting its slick execution.
Additional film recommendations include Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater's homage to Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, which recreates the making of the French New Wave classic. Is This Thing On? features Will Arnett in a Bradley Cooper-directed drama about divorce and comedy, while Strongroom delivers suspense as a 1962 British thriller about bank robbers. For streaming, The Wrecking Crew on Prime Video offers an action-comedy throwback with Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa as muscled siblings seeking revenge.
Literary Selections
For book lovers, Glyph by Ali Smith is a brave and playful tale addressing sisterhood, conflict, and mortality against the backdrop of the war in Gaza. Smith's skill in handling bureaucratic absurdity is highlighted as a key strength.
Other noteworthy books include Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash, a comic debut satirising conspiracy theories and dysfunctional families, and A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar, a thriller set in near-future Kolkata dealing with climate disaster. David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God by Peter Ormerod provides a religious reading of Bowie's work, and Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry offers a moving portrait of end-of-life, winner of this year's Nero prize for nonfiction.
Musical Moments
In the music world, Leonkoro Quartet: Out of Vienna is a top pick, with the young quartet delivering a fiercely alert account of Berg, Webern, and Schulhoff, capturing Vienna's prewar musical tensions with unflinching playing.
Album highlights also feature Tyler Ballgame: For the First Time, Again, the much-hyped debut from the LA singer compared to legends like Tim Buckley and Elvis, praised for his beautiful and emotive voice. Julie Campiche: Unspoken turns extended harp technique into intimate music, while Yumi Zouma: No Love Lost to Kindness sees the New Zealand dream-poppers experimenting with louder guitars. On tour, Lucinda Williams continues to impress at 73, with her Americana music radiating resolve and a newly burnished voice post-stroke.
This week's culture round-up showcases a diverse array of high-quality entertainment, from shocking films to profound books and captivating music, all vetted by top critics for your viewing, reading, and listening pleasure.
