Welcome to Culture Hound, InsideHook’s deep dive into the month’s most important cultural happenings, pop and otherwise.
WATCH (Returning): Jeopardy: The Greatest of All Time
Three of the highest money winners in the game show’s history (Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter, James Holzhauer) face off in a series of matches with a million-dollar prize at stake. (Jan. 7, ABC)
More returning shows: Sex Education (Jan. 17, Netflix), Curb Your Enthusiasm (Jan. 19, HBO), Miracle Workers (Jan. 28, TBS), The Good Place (finale Jan. 30, NBC) and BoJack Horseman (final season streams Jan. 31, Netflix). And these are the 25 TV shows we’re most excited to watch 2020.
WATCH (New): The Outsider
A murder of a young boy turns into something supernatural in this pitch-black take on Stephen King’s best-selling horror/crime novel, overseen by director Jason Bateman (Ozark) and writer Richard Price (The Night Of).
More new shows: A Sherlock-ized Dracula (Jan. 4, Netflix), the Children’s Hospital follow-up Medical Police (Jan. 11, Netflix), an anthology on immigrants experience called Little America (Jan. 17, Apple+), Hugh Laurie in the space misadventure Avenue 5 (Jan. 19, HBO) and a Star Trek spinoff focusing on Jean-Luc Picard (Jan. 23, CBS All Access).
WATCH (In theaters): The Gentlemen
Guy Ritchie ditches his weird cycle of Hollywood remakes (Robin Hood, Aladdin) to craft a spiritual successor to his hyperkinetic early work (Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). Here, various London ne’er-do-wells attempt a hostile takeover of a London marijuana empire headed by American ex-pat Matthew McConaughey.
More new movies: a re-re-boot of The Grudge (Jan. 3), a third Bad Boys (Jan. 17), Robert Downey Jr.’s take on Dolittle (Jan. 17), Nic Cage going bug-eyed in the Lovecraftian sci-fi thriller Color Out of Space (Jan. 24), a fictionalized take on working with a Harvey Weinstein-like boss in The Assistant (Jan. 31) and Blake Lively kicking some butt in The Rhythm Section (Jan. 31).
BUY/RENT: The Lighthouse
Robert Eggers (The Witch) directs this dark, atmospheric drama shot in black-and-white, starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as two men who slowly lose their grip on reality while minding a lighthouse in colonial New England. Get it before award seasons heats up. (Blu-ray, Jan. 7)
More new Blu-ray releases: Joker (Jan. 7), Gemini Man (Jan. 14), Zombieland: Double Tap (Jan. 21) and Terminator: Dark Fate (Jan. 28).
READ: A World Without Work
Oxford economist Daniel Susskind shows us why artificial intelligence is going to take a lot of our jobs … and not just in manufacturing, but also in medicine, law and media. But he also argues we could be on the verge of “unprecedented prosperity,” if we handle the robot situation correctly. (Jan. 14)
Plus: The 7 New Books You Should Be Reading This January
LISTEN: Beach Slang
Philly’s retro punks are so in love with the sound of the Replacements, they hired that band’s bassist (Tommy Stinson) for their new album, The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City, wrote a new song about listening to said bassist (“Tommy in the ‘80s”) and named their new single “Bam Rang Rang” after a Paul Westerburg quote. Thankfully, they’re cribbing from some icons, and they do it damn well. (Jan. 10)
More new music: And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead (Jan. 17), Halsey (Jan. 17), Black Lips (Jan. 24) and Kesha (Jan. 31).
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