What’s on this weekend? From Le Mans ‘66 to Cinderella

Le Mans '66

(Image credit: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.)

By The Week Staff

last updated 15 November 2019

The Week’s best film, TV, book and live show on this weekend, with excerpts from the top reviews.

TELEVISION: The War of the Worlds

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“Hopeless romantics suffering pangs of Poldark withdrawal symptoms can heave a sigh of relief. Demelza's back, and there's a hero on a galloping black horse to rescue her. H.G. Wells’s sci-fi classic The War Of The World might seem impossibly removed from the windswept Cornish saga that ended in the summer. But the similarities are unmistakeable…The fireballs that tear apart an English market town, the spinning globe that spits luminous rays causing men in tweeds to spontaneously combust, and above all the sight of a London reduced to red dust like a Martian landscape, these are all lovingly imagined.”

“While the film is long, it rips along at extreme velocity — and not just when it’s on the racetrack — thanks to a panoply of colourful, entertaining characters... A mid-1960s corporate rivalry may not seem like the stuff of fist-pumping, crowd-pleasing cinema, yet the battle is sketched with such élan, all high-gloss surfaces, scotch-swilling intrigue and rat-a-tat dialogue, that it’s impossible not to be drawn in... Even if you’re not a motorhead, chances are you’ll be thrilled by this high-velocity bromance, powered by zesty acting and Mangold’s meticulous direction.”

“To say Carrie Fisher lived an eventful life would be an understatement. Before her fatal heart attack in 2016, Fisher had catapulted to icon status as Princess Leia in Star Wars, authored multiple books, wrestled with drug addiction and worked to destigmatize bipolar disorder, a condition she personally dealt with. All these facets of Fisher’s life and more are explored in great detail by author Sheila Weller in Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge, out Tuesday. Weller’s sources include Fisher’s friends and colleagues, who share stories and observations that are hilarious and heart-wrenching.”

“Mid-November is peak time for the perennial British complaint that Christmas seems to start earlier every year. However, few people would, surely, begrudge Northern Ballet its decision to get in early with this revival of its 2013 version of Cinderella…The company dance beautifully, with Abigail Prudames (as Cinderella) and Sarah Chun (as her ultimately less-than-evil stepmother) excellently dynamic and emotive. The finest dancing is reserved for the ballroom scene, in which Nixon’s ballet comes closest to capturing the story’s sense of magic.”

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