Overrated/Underrated

UNDERRATED

Debo Band: If you saw Jim Jarmusch’s “Broken Flowers,” you heard the mix of jazz, African and Latin music that defined vintage Ethiopian pop and bandleader Mulatu Astatke. Now this Boston-based band has picked up the same thread with an electrifying new album on Seattle’s Sub Pop Records. Full of churning strings, driving horns and flashes of klezmer, Debo Band’s eclectic sound should keep any summer barbecue cooking.

Ruth Wilson on ‘Luther’: Though an incongruously rumpled (and cockney) Idris Elba of TV’s “The Wire” earned plenty of notice for his role as a tortured criminal investigator in this BBC series streaming on Netflix, Wilson steals plenty of scenes as Luther’s dangerous stalker, Alice Morgan. With a wide-eyed, lethal smirk, Wilson is a chilly mix of alluring and unsettling in a show that’s just as underrated for twisting the detective drama into new, dark corners.

OVERRATED

‘Chronicle’ (2012): It’s a testament to the diminished expectations of spring that this teen-angst superhero movie received such positive reviews on its release. Maybe it looks better on the big screen, but watching this film at home, the special effects are underwhelming, the other two young leads fade in comparison to criminally underused costar Michael B. Jordan (“Friday Night Lights”) and the film’s gimmicky found-footage conceit just feels unnecessary

Going back to the Bates Motel: Again pulling Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” from the grave, A&E recently announced a new series co-produced by “Lost’s” Carlton Cuse called “Bates Motel,” which will search for new wrinkles in a story that’s already inspired multiple sequels, prequels and a remake. Given its ongoing inability to resist reanimating dead ends, shouldn’t we start considering Hollywood at least spiritually similar to Norman Bates?

— Chris Barton