Welcome to Culture Hound, InsideHook’s deep dive into the month’s most important cultural happenings, pop and otherwise.
WATCH: BlacKkKlansman
Spike Lee’s take on a real-life story about a black police officer who infiltrates the KKK, is supposedly … kinda funny? Jordan Peele co-produces, and Topher Grace plays David Duke. This one’s gonna be interesting. (Aug. 10)
STREAM: byNWR
Auteur Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, The Neon Demon) oversees this new and free video-on-demand service, where cult films are restored and dissected by the director’s curated list of guest editors. Now up for discussion on this “unadulterated cultural expressway of the arts”: 1967’s exploitation classic Hot Thrills and Warm Chills. (Available now)
SUBSCRIBE: Wilson
Podcasts are great — when you can find ‘em. Enter Wilson, a curated “magazine” of compatible episodes from different creators put together in one thematic playlist. It’s free and looks great, too. (Available now)
BUY: Daft Punk-Inspired Furniture
The co-founder of this line of vintage, Space Age-inspired furniture is Daft Punk’s creative director … while the furniture line’s photographer is Daft’s Thomas Bangalter. Together, they’ve crafted retro-futuristic pieces like Passager, a steel/full-grain leather armchair that looks like a space captain’s chair circa 1965, and Audiosatt, a hi-fi system made from Dos Santos rosewood veneer that’s accurately described as an “excellent vessel for a supersonic cruise.” (Available now)
STREAM: Disenchantment
While The Simpsons continues its creative slide, creator Matt Groening may be putting his creative genius to good work in this animated Netflix series, a medieval fantasy centered on a drunken princess and her elf/demon companions. Featuring Abbi Jacobson, Eric Andre and Noel Fielding. (Aug. 17)
PERUSE: Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott
A retrospective of the famed photography duo behind pretty much every luxury brand and high-end style mag. Their trademark? A “fascination for strong, sexually charged, confident female subjects” — think Gisele, Rihanna, JLo, Lady Gaga and more, often in NSFW poses and digitally altered environs. (Aug. TBD)
LISTEN: Our monthly Spotify playlist
All of the month’s best new tunes from artists old and new, including tracks by Mitski, Blood Orange, Muse, The 1975, Santigold and more.
And don’t forget …
Jason Statham fights a giant shark. We’re game (chum?) for The Meg (Aug. 10) … What if the Muppets were real, dying and also extremely vulgar? The Happytime Murders (Aug. 24) answers those important questions … Madden NFL 19 will be on PC for the first time in 12 years, along with the usual consoles. And like the NFL, they’re bringing back celebrations (Aug. 7) … If you think video games are all the same, save space for We Happy Few, “a tale of a plucky bunch of moderately terrible people trying to escape from a lifetime of cheerful denial, set in a drug-fuelled, retro-futuristic city in an alternative 1960s England” (Aug. 10) … Ben Marcus (The Flame Alphabet) crafts creepily inscrutable tales — best served quickly, as evidenced by his short story collection Notes from the Fog (Aug. 21) … Genre fans, rejoice: The Predator trilogy (Aug. 7), Avengers: Infinity War (Aug. 14) and an extended-cut Deadpool 2 (Aug. 21) all hit 4K Blu-ray this month … And finally, the welcome return of Better Call Saul (Aug. 6), Hard Knocks (Aug. 7) and Ozark (Aug. 31).
This article was featured in the InsideHook newsletter. Sign up now.
