See, Hear, Read: April’s best movie, music and book release
In Chile’s first-ever Oscar nominee for best foreign language film, Mexican hunk Gael García Bernal stars as a hotshot advertising exec who mounts a cheery campaign against General Pinochet’s dictatorship. Shooting on grainy video stock for added authenticity, director Pablo Larraín turns a goofy historical footnote into the year’s most inspiring, crowd-pleasing political drama.
No, directed by Pablo Larraín (in theatres now)
The preternaturally well-preserved Thin White Duke celebrated his 66th birthday last January by releasing—with zero warning—a single from his first full-length album in a decade. The elegiac mood and death-bed vocals of the slow-burn ballad “Where Are We Now?” were a fake-out: The Next Day, recorded almost entirely in secret with a small band, is otherwise chockablock with full-throated rockers and tunes with titles like “Dirty Boys” and “I’d Rather Be High.”
The Next Day, by David Bowie (available now)
After five low-boil literary thrillers, Andrew Pyper has finally unleashed his inner airport novelist for an unapologetically pulpy horror story about modern fears and ancient evil. On a trip to Venice, renowned Milton professor David Ullman accidentally sets free a demon who possesses his young daughter and wants him to act as a worldly spokesman for the dark side. The novel is begging to be filmed and has already been optioned by Universal for director Robert Zemeckis.
The Demonologist, by Andrew Pyper (available now)
