The lowdown on film, books, television, music & happenings

By Staff Writer

TV Series:

The Defenders

Netflix’s new superhero mash up brings together crime fighters, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and the Iron Fist under one roof in an action packed series.

The heroes (or anti-heroes) cross paths as they individually try to take on the might of the secret evil organisation known as The Hand. Knowing that they can’t defeat this powerful adversary alone they form an uneasy alliance to defeat The Hand and specifically their leader Alexandra who is played to perfection by Sigourney Weaver.

Egos collide as the heroes must set aside their differences and individual crime-fighting techniques to come together as a team, something they all find extremely difficult to do.

Books:

BELGRAVIA

—By Julian Fellowes

The creator of Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes continues to explore England’s past and to look particularly at the class system and the way in which convention and reputation so dominated British society in the 19th century.

The story begins in Brussels on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in honour of the Duke of Wellington. Amongst the guests are James and Anne Trenchard, living on the profits of new-found trading success. Their daughter, the beautiful Sophia, catches the eye of Edmund Bellasis, the son and heir of the richest and most prominent families in England.

Twenty-five years later, when the two families are settled in the newly developed area of Belgravia, the events of the ball still cause reverberations.

Music:

HOT 100

TOP 5

Movies:

Atomic Blonde

Charlize Theron stars as Lorraine Broughton, an MI6 agent sent to Berlin just before the Wall falls, to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and to recover a lost list of spies. Helping her is MI6 station chief David Percival (James McAvoy) a charmingly, unreliable agent with his own agenda, while the KGB dogs her every move.

An edgier and more brutal take on the classic cold war spy genre made popular by adaptations of Le Carre and the Bond movies, this movie is less about substance and more about style as we see Theron kick some serious ass all over Berlin in a haze of neon lights and to the sound of 80’s rock.