What to Watch this Week (10-16 Apr)
The best things to watch this week on the big screen, the small screen and your laptop screen, including Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul and the eighth film from the Fast and Furious franchise
Better Call Saul
This prequel to Breaking Bad may be lighter, but it’s no less gripping. Vince Gilligan’s tale of how Bob Odenkirk's James McGill – a low-level lawyer living and working out of a crummy office in a nail salon – became Walter White's seedy, fast-talking attorney has been a delight so far, and is equal to the acclaimed series from which it was spawned. With the introduction of Breaking Bad’s villainous mob boss Gus Fring, this new season might even see Better Call Saul surpass what has come before. Season 3, episode 1 is on Netflix now
The Handmaiden
We wouldn’t have picked Korean provocateur Park Chan-wook – the guy famed for his Vengeance Trilogy, which includes Oldboy – to be the director to make a wonderful lush romance based on Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith, but we’re glad he has. Shifting the story from Victorian England to 30s Korea, Chan-wook creates a heady, formally beautiful brew of melodrama and menace. If you get the chance, try and track down the even better director’s cut, which is playing in some venues. Released 14 Apr by Curzon Artificial Eye
Fast & Furious 8
Does the Fast and Furious series still have gas in the tank? Early reviews suggest it's a yes. Charlize Theron plays this instalment’s villain, while pretty much all of the “family” is accounted for, including franchise mainstay Vin Diesel, the back-from-the-dead Michelle Rodriguez, cop turned criminal Dwayne Johnson, and the series’ relative newbies Jason Statham and Kurt Russell. There are also some wonderful new additions to the cast, like Helen Mirren as Statham’s character’s Cockney mum.
Expect the usual mix of ridiculous twists, audacious stunts and plenty of familial bants. Sadly, distributors in the UK have gone for the prosaic Fast And Furious 8 over the US’s adorably preposterous title: The Fate of the Furious. Released 14 Apr by Universal Pictures
Mulholland Drive
Pieced together from a rejected TV pilot, this is David Lynch's wild and intoxicating take on Hollywood’s dark underbelly. It all begins as a tantalising mystery as the glamorous Laura Elena Harring finds herself stumbling through the eponymous address with amnesia following a car crash. With the help of a kindly wannabe actress (a brilliant Naomi Watts) she tries to patch her scrambled memories back together, but the deeper she dives into the mystery the less explicable things become, before Lynch’s film splinters off into even more confusing, but no less thrilling, territory. Rereleased 14 Apr by StudioCanal
Swiss Army Man
Did you miss the film where Daniel Radcliffe played a farting corpse? Fear not, for now you can relive the flatulence in the comfort of your own home. Released on Blu-ray and DVD by Lionsgate