Causeway review - megastar Jennifer Lawrence's passion project

★★★★★ CAUSEWAY Beautifully calibrated American indie portrait of long-term effects of trauma

Beautifully calibrated American indie portrait of the long-term effects of trauma

Causeway is being heralded as Jennifer Lawrence’s return to the kind of low-budget, low-key films that first brought her to critics’ attention, before the megastardom of The Hunger Games franchise. It’s also the first film that Lawrence has produced, with theatre director Lila Neugebauer taking the helm.  

Album: Taylor Swift - Midnights

★★★★ TAYLOR SWIFT - MIDNIGHTS Synthpop noir and superlative phrasing from an imperious pop star

Synthpop noir and superlative phrasing from an imperious pop star

Taylor Swift’s transitions have become imperious, from the woody hush of her collaborations with The National’s Aaron Dessner, Folklore and Evermore, to the remade reclamations of her early work. Working at pace, she has assembled an impregnable coalition of critical acceptance and creative range.

Cormac McCarthy: The Passenger review - abstruse, descriptive, digressive

RIP CORMAC MCCARTHY: THE PASSENGER Abstruse, descriptive, digressive

A good but typically obscure late-career novel from an American Great

Cormac McCarthy’s first books in over a decade are coming out this year, a month apart from one another. The Passenger tells the story of deep-sea diver Bobby Western, desperately in love with his perfect, beautiful, wildly intelligent dead sister, Alicia. Then, Stella Maris is her story, named after the asylum to which she commits herself.

Bob Dylan, London Palladium - busy painting his masterpiece

★★★★★ BOB DYLAN, LONDON PALLADIUM A night of concentrated spirits

A night of concentrated spirits as Dylan's 'Rough and Rowdy Ways' tour comes to town

It’s the second night of a four-night run at the London Palladium of the Rough and Rowdy Ways World Tour – no other Dylan jaunt has taken an album for its title – and it begins with a blast of symphonic violence from the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. The house lights fade to black, the symphony segues into a modal tune-up on stage, Dylan and his four-piece – second guitarist Bob Britt is not here tonight – barely visible in silhouette.

The Watcher, Netflix review - fear and loathing in the New Jersey suburbs

★★★★★ THE WATCHER, NETFLIX Fear and loathing in the New Jersey suburbs

Real-life story put through the fictional blender by Ryan Murphy

Netflix can’t get enough of Ryan Murphy, whose list of productions with the super-streamer includes Halston, Ratched and recent hit Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Now here he is again with The Watcher, a teasing little mystery based on a true story about a couple moving into their dream home in New Jersey only to be confronted with anonymous threats and hair-raising goings-on.

Hopper: An American Love Story review - a dry view of a much richer subject

★★ HOPPER: AN AMERICAN LOVE STORY A dry view of a much richer subject

The inscrutable American artist gets the cinema treatment in a conventional biography

This rather disappointing documentary about the great American painter Edward Hopper (1882-1967) has such a dry parade of experts and such a slow linear narrative that it leaves plenty of time to be frustrated by all that’s been left out.

Amsterdam review - Christian Bale lights the way into a fuzzy misfire's kind heart

★★★ AMSTERDAM David O Russell's all-star period crime puzzler finds success in failure

David O. Russell's all-star period crime puzzler finds success in failure

Amsterdam is a multi-faceted anti-fascist shaggy dog story, like Jules et Jim scripted by an off-form Thomas Pynchon. Though it falters in many major ways, David O. Russell’s not especially funny, tense or well-acted spiritual sequel to American Hustle is carried by an enviable cast and benign, off-kilter charm.

Inside Man, BBC One review - strong cast trapped on a sinking ship

★ INSIDE MAN, BBC ONE Steven Moffat's continent-jumping mystery can't get its act together

Steven Moffat's continent-jumping mystery can't get its act together

Screenwriter and showrunner Steven Moffat is renowned for some of his work, especially Sherlock, but other stuff not so much (I direct you towards Dracula or The Time Traveler’s Wife). When the history is written, Inside Man is liable to languish at the dog’s-breakfast end of the Moffat canon.

Album: The Bobby Lees - Bellevue

★★★★★ THE BOBBY LEES - BELLEVUE A very welcome rock’n’roll pick-me-up from Woodstock NY

A very welcome rock’n’roll pick-me-up arrives straight out of Woodstock NY

Unless you’re one of the infamous 1%, you might be forgiven for recently spending a bit of time searching for a booster to reinvigorate your mojo before a seriously difficult winter kicks in. Well, assuming that your electricity supply hasn’t already been cut off by profiteering greed heads, the Bobby Lees’ new album might just do the trick.