What to Watch this Week (17-23 Oct)

The best things to watch this week on the big screen, the small screen and your laptop screen, including Black Mirror and Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake

Black Mirror

Charlie Brooker’s series based on the dangers of modern technology is back after leaving Channel 4 for streaming oligopoly Netflix (fingers crossed Brooker works this irony into future shows). Advanced reviews have been good for the six new episodes, but expect some changes, as it sounds like there’s going to be some light within Brooker's typically bleak look at our futures. "There's probably more variety in season three than there has been in the previous two seasons,” Brooker told Vox recently. “It's not always about human frailty in these new stories.” Streaming on Netflix from 21 Oct

Mascots

Reviews for Christopher Guest’s first feature film in over a decade have been mixed, to say the least. But we’re always up for seeing what’s new from the master of the mockumentary – even when the comedy isn’t turned up to 11, Guest’s films are usually funnier than most on the block.

This one looks at the world of sports mascots, those fluffy animal suit-wearing entertainers who now all pale in comparison to David Shrigley’s Kingsley, the mascot to end all mascots. As well as his regulars like Jane Lynch, Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge and Parker Posey, Guest's comedy ensemble is bolstered by new faces like Zach Woods and Chris O'Dowd. Streaming on Netflix now

I, Daniel Blake

Ken Loach is back with his most focused film in years. The man of the title is a carpenter who’s recently had a heart attack. Unable to go straight back to work, he finds himself trapped in the UK’s red-tape tangled benefits system, the process for which Loach's film shows to be made as difficult and humiliating as possible for the people in most desperate need of this safety net.

What makes Loach such a great filmmaker is that along with the righteous fury comes a healthy dollop of humanity and humour, which neutralises any suggestion that he’s peddling miserablism. In other words: get ready for your heart to break but to laugh too. In UK cinemas 21 Oct

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

Tom Cruise is back in the film franchise based on Lee Child’s preposterous but much-loved series of books about an ex-US army major who now wanders the dusty roads of America getting into scrapes.

The first film wasn’t great, save for the inspired casting of Werner Herzog as its bad guy, and this latest effort is directed by Edward Zwick, whose films range from solid (Glory, Courage Under Fire) to forgettable (Blood Diamond, Defiance) to pretty awful (The Last Samurai, which starred Cruise), but there is one good reason to watch Jack Reacher: Never Go Back – Cobie Smulders, who’s reportedly kickass as Reacher's old mucker Major Susan Turner, who asks for Reacher's help when she's accused of espionage. In UK cinemas 21 Oct

Closet Monster

This superb coming-of-age film was the standout of this year’s LGBT festival POUTfest. It follows Oscar, a talented young FX artist struggling to come out as gay, the chief obstacles being his casually homophobic father and the horrific memory of a hate crime he witnessed when he was a young boy. The joy of Stephen Dunn’s film is that we’re let in on Oscar’s rich imagination, which includes conversations with his pet hamster Buffy (delightfully voiced by Isabella Rossellini). Released on DVD 17 Oct – order your copy from Peccadillo Pictures