Awards season is officially here, so this weekend is the time to get yourself to the cinema and experience all the films that everyone is buzzing about. If movies aren’t you’re thing (or you're ahead of the game and have already seen them) - don't fret! We’ve got plenty to fill your next 48 hours, from books to new music and a night filled with hilarious women that’s charitable too – what could be better?
1. Hear Mark Ronson Uptown Special
In Uptown Funk!, Ronson has produced an irresistible party anthem as ubiquitous as Happy, Blurred Lines or Get Lucky. He has the full-voltage, hit-stuffed album to back it up, too, a perfectly rendered vintage soul review that’s fresh enough to sound exactly of its moment. The year’s first musical game-changer? Out Monday 19th.
2. Experience Whiplash
Despite its unpromising premise – a young jazz drummer (Miles Teller) covets a spot in the college band run by an exacting teacher (JK Simmons) – this astonishing human drama proves thrilling and exhilarating. In cinemas from Friday. HHHHH
3. Bring the charity lolz with Raise a Laugh for Refuge
The domestic violence charity has teamed up with Benefit Cosmetics to bring a smart, funny night of pure entertainment lead by the funniest women on the block. Bridget Christie, Luisa Omielan and breakout Edinburgh Festival star Pippa Evans headline a night for a charity that you hope one day won’t need to exist but thank god it does. Ticket prize includes bag of make-up goodies. Tomorrow, Wednesday 14th,, 7.30pm at Kings Place, London, £20.
4. Download Belle and Sebastian’s Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance
The venerably whimsical Glaswegian indie-poppers, perennial favourites of girls in hairclips and Doc Martens, are attacking middle-age with renewed vigour and a noticeable spring in their step. Tart lyrics and strident harmonies offset their trademark coyness in their most confident record in over a decade. An unexpected triumph. Out Monday 19th.
5. Go see Wild
Cheryl Strayed’s memoir about her 1,100 mile Pacific Crest Trail solo hike gifts a great role to Reese Witherspoon, teaming here with Dallas Buyers Club director Jean-Marc Vallee. But it’s Strayed’s gradually revealed back story – grief, sex addiction, heroin abuse – that gives the drama its resonant pull. In cinemas from Friday. HHHH
6. Dine at Tonkotsu Dalston
Unleashing a bespoke menu with ramen dishes created specifically for launch, a new branch of London’s favourite Japanese specialists is unveiled. Attention to detail and quality cooking is assured at a venue guaranteed to bring out the noodle lover in us all. Open now, 382 Mare Street, E8.
**7.Discover American Sniper **
Bradley Cooper stretches into darker terrain playing Chris Kyle, a US Navy SEAL whose sniping skills were put to deadly use in the Iraq War. Director Clint Eastwood offers a steady hand, and Sienna Miller impresses as the military wife who strives to pull her man back to regular family life. In cinemas from Friday. HHHH
8. Catch Virginia Overton
The Nashville, Tennessee artist, now resident in Brooklyn, has been building an impressively stealthy reputation for her sculpture, installation and photography over the last decade. The impact of her work, is power minimalism. Her new exhibition opens at White Cube, Mason’s Yard London Friday 16th until March 14th.
9. Read The Lightning Tree by Emily Woof
Set in Newcastle, this charming tale of two young radicals Ursula and Jerry, falling in love against the backdrop of CND demos and class politics, is upset by secrets swarming in from her family past. A poignant love fable that rings loud with the recognition of truth. £12.99 published by Faber & Faber, out now.
10. Watch Testament Of Youth
The early memoir of scholar, WWI nurse and future pacifist Vera Brittain yields a suitably affecting, tragedy-tinged drama, anchored by a powerful performance from in-demand Alicia Vikander. But will this poignant account lose out to splashier options in the January marathon for prestige Oscar fare (nomination announcements Thursday)? In cinemas from Friday. HHH
