Welcome to Culture Hound, InsideHook’s deep dive into the month’s most important pop cultural happenings.
FACE MELT: 30 Days in L.A.
Red Bull’s 30 Days in L.A. is already under way, with shows running every single night of month. Big names like Hiam have probably sold out by now, but the smaller shows like Bibi Bourelly at the Bootleg, will be solid, too. (11/1-11/30)
LAUGH: Mitch Hedberg: The Complete Vinyl Collection
Comedy Central is releasing the entire discography of the late comic’s unusual and highly quotable work (“I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.”) as a four-record box set, which includes rare photos, new essays and some never-before-heard material. (11/4)
FEAST: Taste Talks L.A.
The Taste Talks is the fall food festival you need in your life. Everyone from Baroo to Maple Block BBQ to Love and Salt will be cooking up a storm and talking about making food in 2016. (11/4-11/6)
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH LAND ROVER
EXPERIENCE: Discover Venice
The best thing about living in Los Angeles? You can sail, bike, surf and ski all in the same day. But you won’t be able to do that in a pint-sized crossover. Later this month, Land Rover is setting up shop at 1515 Abbot Kinney Blvd. with five immersive demonstrations: one each for skiing, surfing, biking, sailing and getting around town in an all-new Discovery, available mid-2017. You’ll experience firsthand exactly why you must make the upgrade. Nov. 11-15
WATCH: AFI Fest
AFI always has a solid roster of film talent debuting their Oscar-worthy features. This year La La Land and Jackie are in that realm, but the smaller indie films and the screenings of classics like Citizen Kane make this great week to skip work (or you can say you’re doing research). (11/10-11/17)
WATCH: Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee tackles the politically tinged 2012 novel, transforming a scathingly funny and irreverent book into an actual spectacle: certain scenes were filmed at 120 frames per second in 3D at 4K resolution. It’s going to look insane, but early indications are that Lee’s managed to keep the script dramatic but grounded. (11/11)
EXPERIMENT: The Two Bit Circus Anti Gala
Step right up ladies and gentlemen! Behold: flaming dunking booths, virtual reality stunts, and technological oddities of extraordinary proportions. All of this is on tap at the Anti Gala, a massive big top of craziness brought to you by the tech wizards at Two Bit Circus. (11/19)
BINGE: Lovesick
This British comedy used to be called Scrotal Recall, which unfortunately belied the show’s rather sweet nature (though it captured the humor just fine). Now renamed and moved to Netflix, the comedy follows one man’s mission to track down his previous romantic partners … after he’s tested positive for chlamydia (“That doesn’t sound positive.”). (11/17)
PERUSE: Dali: Les Diners de Gala
Turns out Salvador Dali and his wife Gala used to host lavish dinner parties, inspiring the artist to release a rather surreal, extremely hard-to-find cookbook. Thankfully, it’s finally getting a proper reprint. While curating the recipes from a variety of top French chefs, Dali himself used to his cooking tome to pontificate on the art of dinner conversation and aphrodisiacs … and offer up his own rather NSFW illustrations. (11/20)
LISTEN: Our monthly Spotify playlist
The best new songs of the month, including bands old (Flaming Lips, Metallica), very old (Lee Fields, The Rolling Stones) and new (Jenny Hval, NxWorries).
ALSO: Michael Chabon takes a “fictional non-fiction” turn with Moonglow, which examines his grandfather’s death and serves more as a commentary on life in the twentieth century (11/22) … If you’re still in a nostalgic trip post-Stranger Things — but crave something lighter — Amazon’s ‘80s country club comedy Red Oaks returns for a second season (11/11) … Your escape-from-the-fam excuse on Thanksgiving arrives with Bad Santa 2 (11/23) … Call of Duty literally says “Screw it, let’s go to space” for the game’s umpteenth installment Infinite Warfare (11/4) … Metallica returns with Hardwired…to Self-Destruct, consciously going back to their trashier roots (11/18) … Before he tackles Blade Runner 2, director and budding auteur Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Sicario) take a more cerebral approach to an alien invasion — think more linguistics, less shooting with Arrival (11/11) … The Ron Howard-produced Mars is half present-day documentary, half fictional telling of the first mission to Mars (11/14).
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