Return of the road warrior

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This article was published 10/05/2015 (4123 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

‘You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,’ but these days, a guide through the seemingly endless flurry of pop-culture offerings is just what we need. With that in mind, here is what’s on the radar in TV, music and film for the coming week.

MOVIES

BIG RELEASE FRIDAY: Mad Max: Fury Road

BIG PICTURE: Sadly, there’s no Thunderdome and no Tina Turner. But we do get bald, post-apocalyptic Charlize Theron as the fearless Furiosa (really?) and Tom Hardy as Max 2.0. This Mad Max reboot is The Walking Dead set in the desert (minus the zombies) meets Fast & Furious (minus the philosophical dialogue). Get ready for what amounts to a two-hour, epically violent car chase. This blockbuster is for audiences keen on seeing what humanity would look like if the survivors of the apocalypse looked like British football hooligans with a fetish for skull masks, leather, spikes, chains, white face paint and terrible wigs. Mad Max’s world is like a non-stop, dystopian frat party in which beer pong is probably played with human skulls. Imagine a world in which the scary dudes have even scarier-looking dudes playing flaming guitars and giant tribal drums on the back of their rusting, weapon-laden cars.

FORECAST: After watching this film, you’ll emerge in the spring sunshine truly happy to see civilization again. Max may be a hero for a broken world, but he’s probably not a lot of fun at dinner parties.

TV

BIG EVENT THURSDAY: Wayward Pines (Fox/Citytv, 8 p.m.)

BIG PICTURE: It’s been years since writer-director M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs) sent a shiver up our collective spines, but there have been many shudders of disdain (basically every other movie he’s made). Now, serving as executive producer, he is trying his hand at television. (But Fox has mercifully taken the writing reigns away.) Wayward Pines is Twin Peaks meets The Truman Show with a dash of Shutter Island. While looking into missing-persons cases, a special agent (Matt Dillon) gets into a car accident and wakes up in Wayward Pines. The place has more rules than the town from Footloose. “Do not try to leave. Do not discuss the past. Work hard. Be happy. Always answer the phone if it rings (and kill whoever the creepy voice tells you to). Terrence Howard (Empire) plays the politely sinister local sheriff. “They’re watching and listening,” one local warns. Looks like Big Brother has some siblings.

FORECAST: What’s the town’s secret? Shyamalan hasn’t proven to be a man of original ideas, and I bet he had some pull with the writers — so I’m guessing everyone in town was abducted by an alien race afraid of water that can only see “dead people.” This new drama’s worth a wayward glance to see if it holds your attention — especially with an all-star cast that includes Juliette Lewis and Melissa Leo. But if you want a master class, wait until the potential Twin Peaks reboot.

HONOURABLE MENTION: Bessie (Saturday, HBO, 7 p.m.); The 2015 Billboard Music Awards (May 17, ABC, 7 p.m.). One is a biopic about one of music’s greatest voices, Bessie Smith, starring Queen Latifah. The other features the television première of Pretty Girls, a collaboration between Britney Spears and Iggy Azalea about boys being drawn to pretty girls “like bees to honey.” Many more will watch the latter, but that doesn’t make it the better choice.

MUSIC

BIG RELEASE TUESDAY: Patrick Watson (Love Songs for Robots)

BIG PICTURE: On his fifth album, the Montreal songwriter and multi-instrumentalist continues to make dynamic, poignant indie rock that is the envy of most of his peers, if not most of the planet. This time he turns his falsetto vocals and lyricism to the relationship between man and machine — the emotional and the mechanical. (I’m hoping for at least one sexed-up tribute to a Roomba or a sombre, heartfelt take on the futile, eternal battle between the Autobots and Decepticons.)

FORECAST: Watson may win another Polaris Prize, but I’m just happy to see a responsible, talented songwriter finally write an album of love songs for robots. We’ve all seen what happens in the Terminator series. A few more albums of choice robotic love ballads (I’m looking at you, R. Kelly) and maybe our future machine overlords will spare our species.

HONOURABLE MENTION: David Duchovny (Hell or Highwater). Every actor secretly dreams of being a musician, because everyone knows musicians are one level cooler than actors. Duchovny (Californication) is about as cool as a cucumber, so he probably didn’t need to write an album of poor man’s Wilco songs. (But we’ll forgive him because he’s signed on to bring The X-Files back.)

Twitter: @chrislackner79