Alexander Larman

So, the new – and supposedly final – season of Stranger Things has arrived in Netflix, just in time for Thanksgiving. Expectations have been through the roof that this installment will not be a turkey, but the good (stranger?) thing about the series so far is that it has maintained a remarkably high level of quality since it began in 2016. This is by no means a given for an Eighties-inflected fantasy show that is so devoted (the cynics might and have said slavishly) to all things that Steven Spielberg produced in that decade that the bearded one might have sued for plagiarism, were it not for the fact that the homage remains an affectionate and heartfelt, rather than cynical, one.

The Beatles broke up in 1970, but you wouldn’t know it from the activity of the last few years. In no particular order, we have had an underwhelming valedictory single, “Now and Then,” raised from the dead thanks to the wonders of artificial intelligence and Peter Jackson alike; an eight-hour – eight!– documentary, Get Back, resurrected from the footage of the Let It Be sessions; and now, an all-singing, all-dancing reissue on Disney+ of the Nineties Anthology documentary series, which has been promoted with the fourth volume of offcuts and rare tracks from the band’s career, appropriately titled Anthology 4.

Every few months or so, a new film comes along and anyone interested in the art of cinema braces themselves, because The Discourse will inevitably accompany it. There is no clearer candidate for fevered discussion next year than Emerald Fennell’s new adaptation of Wuthering Heights, which is released, with smirking predictability, on Valentine’s Day. Ever since the film was announced, there has been controversy over everything from the casting of the Caucasian Jacob Elordi to play Heathcliff (who is referred to in Emily Brontë’s original novel as a “a dark-skinned gypsy in aspect”) to the excessively clean and stylish-looking clothes worn by Margot Robbie’s Catherine Earnshaw.

Nuremberg, the latest film by James Vanderbilt – yes, the writer-director is a scion of that distinguished East Coast dynasty – contains two lead performances by Oscar-winning actors. One is extraordinary, and the other is extraordinarily bad. Yet it is a sign of how Russell Crowe and Rami Malek’s respective careers have developed over the past few years that were you invited to pick which actor is capable of greatness, and which one has descended into bizarre self-parody, it would not necessarily be easy to pick which one was which.   I shall put you out of your misery.

After a spectacularly bad few weeks for the box office – with only the Predator sequel overperforming, probably because it was rated PG-13 – Paramount is no doubt eyeing the release of their Edgar Wright/Stephen King/Glen Powell would-be blockbuster The Running Man with unusual trepidation. As well they might. Although it has been marketed as an all-action thriller in the vein of the studio’s Mission: Impossible films, it comes with the slight air of tainted goods.

Say what you will about Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan, but there are few showrunners who are better at starting a series off with a bang. Who could forget the spectacle, from the pilot episode of Breaking Bad, of Bryan Cranston’s pants-less, intense-looking Walter White, addressing his family – and by extension, the audience – by saying “My name is Walter Hartwell White. I live at 308 Negra Arroyo Lane, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87104. To all law-enforcement entities, this is not an admission of guilt?" Or Bob Odenkirk’s half-hapless, half-sly Jimmy McGill, aka Saul Goodman, leading a black-and-white half-life in Omaha, Nebraska, as we slowly, inexorably observe the circumstances that have led to his downfall?

Everyone can name JFK and his (probable) assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, or Abraham Lincoln and everyone’s least favorite actor, John Wilkes Booth. But what of James A.  Garfield, America’s short-lived (in both senses) 20th President, and his murderer, Charles Guiteau? Both men have disappeared into obscurity, at least until Candice Millard’s award-winning 2011 true-crime history Destiny of the Republic, which skillfully unpicked the sheer strangeness of the backstory behind Garfield’s protracted death and Guiteau’s conviction and execution for the crime. Garfield won election in the 1880 presidential election almost by accident.

Big-name, all-star team-ups used to be the preserve of Hollywood blockbusters – perhaps reaching its peak in 2005 with Mr. and Mrs. Smith, when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie met, fell in love and sold a billion copies of the National Enquirer in the process. But in our new era of superhero-driven slop, where it barely matters which actor is in what picture, such things have largely fallen into abeyance. Still, even in our jaded times, there remains an undeniable thrill from seeing Katniss Everdeen and Edward Cullen together on screen at last, as they are in Die My Love.