The Best Movies, TV, Books and Music for May

Welcome to Culture Hound, InsideHook’s deep dive into the month’s most important cultural happenings, pop and otherwise.

PERUSE: The Magazine Rack
The Internet Archive (and Wayback Machine) has an underutilized feature: a searchable database of more than 130,000 issues of some really obscure print media from the last 250+ years (yeah, that is a 1753 issue of Gentlemen’s Monthly Intelligencer). It’s great for gaming/computer and old-school sci-fi mags, but let’s be honest: you’re gonna look for vintage nudie mags. So have fun with various issues of Pleasure, Salty and, our favorite, Cad. (H/t Open Culture)

WATCH: The Break With Michelle Wolf
The former Daily Show and Late Night With Seth Meyers contributor followed her breakout HBO special (“Still chipping away at the ham”) with a no-holds-barred roast at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner you’ve probably heard about. Now, she’s debuting a weekly sketch show on Netflix, which will either become your new favorite watch or your reference point for everything that’s wrong with the liberal elite in America. (May 27)

READ: Robin
The brilliance and tragedy of the late comic Robin Williams is thoroughly dissected in this new biography from New York Times culture reporter Dave Itzkoff. (May 15)

WATCH: How to Talk to Girls at Parties
By all means, go enjoy Deadpool 2 and that new Han Solo flick. But For a smaller genre pleasure, try this John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s short story about a cute alien who lands in London right in the midst of the ‘70s punk explosion.

LISTEN: Our monthly Spotify playlist
Dozens of just-released songs we’re digging at the moment, including new tracks by Beach House, The Presets, Father John Misty, Mazzy Star, J. Cole and more.

And don’t forget: Father’s Day gift, solved! Best-selling author Michael Chabon tackles fatherhood in a series of essays called Pops (May 15) … Father’s Day, part 2: David Sedaris has a new, hilarious collection called Calypso (May 29) … Beach read! Only Human is the conclusion to the Themis Files trilogy, a smart geopolitical thriller that just happens to include alien robots (May 1) … Celebrate 30 years of Street Fighter with a collection of 12 arcade games in one (May 31) … And finally, the welcome return of John Woo with the film Manhunt (May 4, Netflix), The Karate Kid with Cobra Kai (May 2, YouTube Red) and the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (May 30, Netflix)