Blu-ray: Get Carter

★★★★★ BLU-RAY: GET CARTER Super-cool Michael Caine is at his best in Mike Hodges's masterpiece of British cinema

Super-cool Michael Caine is at his best in Mike Hodges's masterpiece of British cinema

Director Mike Hodges's Get Carter (1971) has been praised as the best British gangster film. I would go even further, and put it up against the best gangster films of all time, on the same level as Lang’s The Big Heat (1953), Melville’s Le deuxième souffle (1966), Boorman’s Point Blank (1967), Polanski’s Chinatown (1974) and Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990).

Album: Jamie T - The Theory of Whatever

Indie-punker's first album in six years demonstrates a tragic lack of inspiration

When Jamie T first appeared in the early noughties, he was trumpeted by some who should have known better as the musical heir to Joe Strummer, while actually sounding more like a Kate Nash acolyte. Six years since his last album, The Theory of Whatever dips into a range of genres from dreary indie rock to low energy hip hop and acoustic ballads fuelled by a seemingly endlesss word-spaghetti of clichés.

Album: Ben Harper - Bloodline Maintenance

★★★ BEN HARPER - BLOODLINE MAINTENANCE Bluesy singer-songwriter star bares soulful side

Bluesy singer-songwriter star bares his soulful side with likeable results

Throughout the 1990s and the first decade of this century, Ben Harper achieved global stardom, although the UK was a territory where he never achieved lift-off. By contrast, in the US, Australia and much of Europe, he’s regarded as a heavyweight (he’s won three Grammys!).

Album: Kathryn Williams - Night Drives

★★★ KATHRYN WILLIANS - NIGHT DRIVES Folk renaissance woman expands her sonic palette

The folk renaissance woman expands her sonic palette with mixed results

Kathryn Williams’ creativity leaves most singers standing. She’s always up to something and it’s usually interesting. As well as multiple albums over two decades, including one themed around Sylvia Plath and another created with the poet Carol Anne Duffy, last year she had her first novel published, the ominous island-set tale, The Ormering Tides.

Album: Gareth Williams - Short Stories

★★★★ GARETH WILLIAMS - SHORT STORIES  Very fine trio album bears repeated listening

A very fine trio album which bears repeated listening

Maybe it’s inevitable that their fate is to receive just a fraction of the recognition they deserve. Gareth Williams is one of the crop of truly remarkable  – and now fully-formed  – jazz pianists from the UK born in the years 1968 and 1969. I can think of three of them – there may be more.

Album: Jack White - Entering Heaven Alive

★★★ JACK WHITE - ENTERING HEAVEN ALIVE Playful, varied, relaxed and enjoyable new one from the former White Stripe

Playful, varied, relaxed and enjoyable new one from the former White Stripe

Jack White’s last couple of albums, Boarding House Reach from 2018 and Fear of the Dawn from April this year, were both driven by experimentalism, dipping into electronics, hip hop, noise and more. They were both, to differing degrees, admirable in intent, coming from an artist perceived as zealously retro, but they were also only partially successful.

Blu-ray: Larks on a String

★★★★★ BLU-RAY: LARKS ON A STRING Jiří Menzel's bittersweet Czech New Wave classic returns

Jiří Menzel's bittersweet Czech New Wave classic returns, with enticing extras

Jiří Menzel's Larks on a String (Skřivánci na niti) was in production while Soviet tanks rumbled into Prague in August 1968. Predictably, the film was banned by the new Czechoslovak regime and it remained unreleased until 1990, though illicit video copies were circulating for several years before.

Album: Beabadoobee - Beatopia

★★★ BEABADOOBEE - BEATOPIA Woozy bedroom indie-space-pop from Taylor Swift-endorsed UK singer

Woozy bedroom indie-space-pop from the Taylor Swift-endorsed UK singer

Many of her fans initially came across Filipino-born, London-raised singer Bea Laus – Beabadoobee – via the massive TikTok sensation “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” by Canadian producer Powfu, which was centred on the extremely catchy chorus to her song “Coffee”.

Blu-ray: The Men

★★★★ THE MEN Marlon Brando’s dangerous debut, as a rebel paraplegic veteran

Brando’s dangerous debut, as a rebel paraplegic veteran

“Arriving late at a performance… I looked up and saw what I thought was an actor having a seizure onstage,” the critic Pauline Kael wrote of watching Brando on Broadway in 1946. “I lowered my eyes, and it wasn’t until the young man who’d brought me grabbed my arm and said, 'Watch this guy!' that I realised he was acting.”

Album: Lizzo - Special

★★★ LIZZO - SPECIAL The latest from one of the hardest working entertainers in showbiz

Is the law of diminishing returns setting in for one of the hardest working entertainers in showbiz?

You can’t really blame Lizzo for playing to her strengths. When she started putting out records some nine years ago, there wasn’t really a niche in the market for a flute playing, twerking, positive-thinking, plus-size rapper-stroke-disco-diva.