GAMES
MARVEL'S SPIDER-MAN
PS4
Spider-man is consistently one of the most popular superhero properties there is. Relatable, funny and endlessly optimistic in the face of the darkest foes, Peter Parker has been the subject of countless comics, movies and video games. But not only is this the greatest ever Spider-man game, it's the greatest video game based on a Marvel property, period. Its greatness is exemplified in the way you, as Spidey, get around town. Web-slinging here is exhilarating fast. Visually it's convincingly complicated and you really buy that Parker is using his superhuman reflexes to spot anchor points and build momentum by slingshotting or springing off roofs. But actually playing it is brilliantly simple, requiring you to hold one button to swing and then hit another contextually as options for zipping or wall-running fly by. And every other aspect that's very important to Spider-Man as a character – including the humour, the neighbourhood focus, the acrobatic fighting, the science and Parker's own humanitarianism – is given the same meticulous treatment here. It's the best of Spidey's cinematic and comic book iterations combined, as well as a sensational game. TB
FREE-TO-AIR
SCHITT'S CREEK, ABC, SEPTEMBER 10, 9pm
Spider-Man is convincingly complicated.
When super-wealthy video store magnate Johnny Rose (Eugene Levy) and his ex-soap star wife Moira (Catherine O'Hara) are ripped off by their accountant, the government seizes all their assets and they find themselves facing homelessness – until Johnny remember the small town of Schitt's Creek that he once bought for son David (Levy's real life son, Daniel Levy) as a joke gift. Along with their vapid socialite daughter Alexis (Annie Murphy), they head to the redneck town to start a new life as "poor people". Cue Deliverance gags and some similarly predictable punchlines as the Rose family get to grips with their loss of privilege. But Schitt's Creek, created by father and son Levy, who also head a team of writers, and is now in its fourth season in the US, needs a few episodes to draw you in; once the initial scene-setting is established, the writing picks up – and a comedy that features the great double-act of O'Hara and Levy, collaborators since the 1970s (arguably at their best in Christopher Guest's improvised classics Best in Show and A Mighty Wind) is worth the wait. KN
FILM
TO ALL THE BOYS I'VE LOVED BEFORE (NETFLIX) M
Lana Condor in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.
Based on the young adult novel by Jenny Hari, Susan Johnson's colourful teen movie sits at the more innocent end of the genre, and appears to have a pre-adolescent audience very much in mind. The 16-year-old heroine (Lana Condor) is yet to experience romance in the real world; she does, however, have a cache of handwritten love letters, addressed but never sent to her various crushes. When these wind up in the hands of the guys in question, she has to face the consequences – though only for a moment, since the film soon pivots to a new plot involving an obliging schoolmate (Noah Centineo) who agrees to pose as her boyfriend to spark jealousy in his own ex (Janel Parrish). Most of the life here comes from Centineo, an offbeat but winning presence with a wide grin and a raspy voice that recalls Mark Ruffalo. Like all the teenage boys in the film, his character is mature and decent to a point that strains our disbelief. But the main point here is that cautious girls deserve love too – and on the whole, why not? JW
STREAMING
NOX, SBS ON DEMAND, SERIES AVAILABLE NOW
This thoroughly creepy six-part thriller begins as a seemingly regular police procedural, opening with a sting operation in Paris as police lieutenant Julie Susini (French star Maiwenn, who goes only by one name) and her partner Rah (Malik Zidi), hide just below ground under a manhole to which their target is expected to escape. When Susini thinks she hears someone nearby, she disobeys orders and heads deeper into the tunnel – and disappears. As her colleagues undertake a search of Paris's labyrinthine catacombs, home (illegally) to various homeless people, misfits and the occasional art installation, her mother Catherine (veteran actor Nathalie Baye), a retired maverick cop herself, embarks on her own illegal investigation and gradually uncovers a twisted network of killers who use the city's centuries-old tunnels and caverns to conceal their activities. But there's even more evil more at work in this claustrophobic world as Rah and Catherine uncover a plot involving illegal immigrants, the dark web and police corruption. Gruesome and oppressive, Nox (Latin for "night") is one to watch with the lights on, and perhaps not at all if you're claustrophobic. KN
CLASSIC
PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN (PG) Madman
Spanish matador Mario Cabre in Pandora and the Flying Dutchman.
One of cinema's great eccentrics, the writer-director Albert Lewin specialised in a particular kind of grown-up fantasy, highly literary and ultra-romantic, with a leaning towards the bizarre. A favourite of Martin Scorsese, this 1951 production casts Ava Gardner as an American showgirl living in Spain who exerts an almost supernatural pull on the men around her, including a race-car driver (Nigel Patrick), a bullfighter (Mario Cabre) and a Dutch sailor (James Mason). Gradually, we're led to see her as something close to a literal goddess, and Mason's character as a modern incarnation of the mythical Flying Dutchman, doomed to wander the seven seas in search of his true love. Lewin's pretentious side is easy to mock, and the film is a bit talkier and heavier than might be wished. Tune into the right wavelength, though, and it's a dream of movies as they ought to be: Gardner's seductive powers are at their height, Mason is her ideal sado-masochistic dance partner, and Jack Cardiff's extraordinary Technicolor cinematography casts a spell of its own, especially when the action heads out to sea. JW
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