It’s the last week of January, and you’ve nearly made it to pay day, so here are a few extra sprinkles of magic to add to the euphoria. As Christmas starts to look more and more like a distant memory, new movies, music and computer game releases start to pick up again, and there’s even a fair amount of good TV to catch too. With the The Jump threatening to leave celebrities on crutches in a couple of weeks time, it won’t be too long before things get up to a white hot heat, so you might want to enjoy the more thoughtful fixes that are on the sofa glow box this week.
Film
Cinema releases (out Friday 27th January 2017):
The two big film releases this week are like the Yin and Yang of the cinematic experience. The first is the Trainspotting sequel, T2, which sees Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle back in gritty action as Sick Boy and Begbie after a 20-year hiatus. The second is whimsical animated comedy, Sing, which stars Matthew McConaughey, Scarlett Johansson and John C. Reilly in a story about a theatre that hosts a talent contest in a bid to save its troubled finances. Admittedly, if you combine the two, you don’t exactly get cosmic alignment and world peace, but there will be a lot of swearing on the one side and even more happy-go-lucky singing on the other.
If neither of these take your fancy, there’s also Sam Worthington and Andrew Garfield war biography, Hacksaw Ridge; holocaust legal battle biography, Denial, starring Rachel Weisz and Timothy Spall; and little known, but well reviewed, sci-fi drama, The White King, starring Agyness Deyn and Jonathan Pryce.
DVD, Blu-ray and digital download (out 16th January 2017):
Magnificent Seven is the most significant DVD, Blu-ray and digital download out this week, which attempts to reboot the 1960 western classic with Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt and Ethan Hawke. There’s also the Doctor Who Christmas Special: The Return Of Doctor Mysterio if you’re a bit of a grey-haired and hawk-nosed Time Lord lover.
Music (out Friday the 27th January 2017)
It isn’t exactly an epic week for new album releases, but you can check out the alt rock slack of Cloud Nothing’s Life Without Sound, bedroom R&B from Kehlani’s SweetSexySavage, Minor Victories’ classical interpretation of its self-titled debut album on Orchestral Variations and the rock rarities of Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes’ Modern Ruin.
However, the pick of the bunch is Ty Segall’s eponymous garage rock album, which is tinged with jet streams of psychedelia. Check out the single below:
Computer games out this week
There are two decent size game releases this week with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard out on PC, PS4 and Xbox ONE and Yakuza 0 for the PS4 on the 24th January 2017. We’re not massively bowled over by the prospect of either, so you might want to wait it out for Halo Wars 2 and Horizon Zero Dawn next month.
TV highlights
Kicking things off with a little light Michaela Strachen affection, you’ve got the random and slightly deranged Winterwatch 2017 on BBC 2 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night at 8pm. It’s followed up by more spaghetti revelations from Alexander Armstrong on Italy’s Invisible Cities – this time in Florence, which we’ve been to, by the way, and we definitely saw it – on BBC 1 at 9pm on Wednesday the 25th January. It’s a toss up between some serious OAP thigh-rubbing with Great Canal Journeys, taking on Swedish waterways on More 4, or genius Danny John Jules comedy in Death In Paradise, both at 9pm on Thursday the 26th; and there’s Eurovision: You Decide, hosted by Mel Giedroyc, where you’ll be able to listen to, and vote for, the dead cert loser that you want in the Moldovan firing line for nil points on BBC 2 at 7:30pm on Friday 27th Jan.
There’s also more 8 Out Of Ten Cats Does Countdown on Channel on Friday night at 9pm, followed by The Last Leg at 10pm; episode 4 of Tom Hardy’s Taboo on BBC 1 at 9:15pm on Saturday the 28th; Walking The Americas and Homeland Series 6 on Channel 4 on Sunday at 8pm and 9pm; and then there are two episodes of Doctor Who spin off, Class, to consider on BBC 1 on Monday 30th January from 10:45pm, but the entire opening series is available to binge watch on iPlayer, so you can fill your sci-fi boots to the brim.
Films to maybe catch are mostly on Film 4, including Apocalypto on Wednesday at 11:15pm, Short Circuit on Thursday at 6:55pm, and Dredd on Friday at 11:05pm. There’s also Monuments Men on Channel 4 on Saturday at 9pm, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug on ITV 2 on Saturday at 8pm, X-Men First Class on E4 at 9pm on Saturday too, and Avatar on Channel 4 on Sunday at 4:55pm.
