Alexander Larman

Over the past couple of weeks, two expensive, auteur-driven films with big stars have been released at the American box office, both conscious throwbacks to the kind of Seventies cinema that isn’t supposed to be made any longer. In the case of Paul Thomas Anderson, his Leo DiCaprio-starring Thomas Pynchon fantasia One Battle After Another seems to have been a success by the skin of its (yellowed) teeth: it has already made over $100 million worldwide, helped by excellent reviews and strong word of mouth. But in the case of another A-lister, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the critical and commercial reception of The Smashing Machine has been rather more muted, suggesting that audiences know what they want from Johnson, and it sure as hell isn’t arthouse fare.

What would David Bowie say? The much-missed musician – dead a decade next January – is the beneficiary of a new, bespoke space inside the Victoria & Albert Museum’s East Storehouse outpost. Although Bowie is by no means Britain’s most commercially successful rock star, he is surely its most interesting – and certainly the most chameleonic, making his legacy ripe for serious re-evaluation. Now, thanks to the David Bowie Centre, the curious public can get its closest look yet into the artist’s mind and imagination. And as a bonus, it’s free, too. The space is composed of one room with nine rotating displays showing about 200 items.

It is now more than three decades since President Bush the First declared that American families should be “more like the Waltons, and less like the Simpsons.” In this, as in so many other things, Bush was to be disappointed. Thirty-three years after he made his remarks, the Waltons are now barely discussed in popular culture, if at all, while the exploits of America’s most famous yellow-skinned family have now moved into their 37th season with a further three, at least, planned. This is a degree of longevity that is unparalleled in any live-action sitcom equivalent, and the show’s creator Matt Groening could be forgiven for doing a victory lap.

One feature of President Trump’s second term in office is that when he says he’ll do something, he usually does it, no matter how outlandish or cockamamie it might seem. So it has proved with his threat to impose 100 percent tariffs on any films that have been filmed outside the United States. He first said that he would do this in May, and many industry pundits rushed to say that his scheme was impractical, unworkable, etc. Yet veteran Trump watchers would know that once he has an idea, it will not rest. He has now repeated himself, with greater vigor, writing on Truth Social that “our movie making business has been stolen from the United States of America, by other Countries, just like stealing ‘candy from a baby.

Since it launched in 2022, Slow Horses has been one of the most reliable television treats for all its four seasons. Based on the excellent novels by Mick Herron, it has focused on a group of “misfits and losers,” as none other than Mick Jagger sings over the credits, who have all been semi-exiled from MI5 for various misdeeds. They have ended up in the purgatory of Slough House, where they are stuck doing various soul-destroying administrative tasks until they quit. The joke is that most of them are good at their jobs (although not without some seriously challenging interpersonal issues), led by Gary Oldman’s superspy Jackson Lamb, whose belching, flatulent and deeply unhygienic exterior belies a razor-sharp mind and a keen grasp of human nature.

Amid the hullaballoo that surrounded Charlie Kirk’s memorial service last weekend, seemingly virtually every figure associated in any way with the MAGA movement appeared – yes, even Elon Musk, who was filmed shaking hands with President Trump in one of the more unexpected rapprochements of the year. But one man who many might have expected to be present was nowhere to be seen. The rapper, producer and professional controversialist Kanye “Ye” West, who might have added a certain grim luster to the predominantly Christian music played at the memorial, was absent, and so the potential for the carefully choreographed event being thrown into chaos was avoided. It might sound unlikely that West would ever have been invited, but a new documentary about him, In Whose Name?