The Best Movies, TV, Books and Music for April

Lynch, Attenborough, Bowie — a month of Davids (and 'GoT')

April 1, 2019 9:00 am

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

WATCH: Pet Sematary
The best Stephen King adaptations — at least from his horror canon — have taken risks with the source material (see: The Shining, Carrie, It, 1408, The Mist). So kudos for letting indie scare merchants Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer (Starry Eyes) upend one of the author’s best known works and make it their own. Hey, even King says it’s “f*cking great.” (April 5)

BUY: Movement by New Order
The legendary Manchester band is re-releasing its post-Joy Division debut Movement with an extra album’s worth of unreleased songs, a DVD of early live shows and appearances and a hardcover book. And you should care because pretty much every indie, post-punk and electronic band of the last 30 years took something from here (and the band’s subsequent ‘80s albums).

LEARN: MasterClass with David Lynch
The iconic filmmaker is now teaching a multi-part course on creativity and film for the online learning center. The 12-lesson plan from the avant-garde director behind Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet focuses on “how he catches ideas, translates them into a narrative and” — most interestingly — “moves [the ideas] beyond formulaic storytelling.” During the online course, Lynch utilizes extensive examples from his filmography. More info here. (Available now)

PERUSE: Laurent Benaim
This Parisian photographer hires amateur models of all stripes to come to his commercial studio and act completely uninhibited — from there, he documents his subjects utilizing a 19th-century gum bichromate print process. This new hardcover collects the best of his sessions, resulting in “startling sex photos [with] the look of oversized French postcards.” (April 5)

BINGE: Our Planet
Sir David Attenborough and the team behind Blue Planet and Planet Earth took four years to film this nature documentary for Netflix, which focuses on the impact of climate change. (April 5)

READ: An Economist Walks Into a Brothel
Economist/journalist Allison Schrager uses brothels, shark-infested waters and poker (among other unconventional examples) as a way to discuss the five principles of dealing with risk. (April 2)

LISTEN: Our monthly Spotify playlist
All of the month’s best new tunes from artists old and new, including tracks by the Black Keys, Tierra Whack, The National, Vampire Weekend and more.

And don’t forget … Best superhero movie month ever? Shazam (April 5) is already a critical success (our Creative Director went to the premiere and loved it), and if Avengers: Endgame (April 26) is half as good as last year’s Infinity War and not quite as mopey as its trailer, we’re game for all three hours of it … The 50th-anniversary of David Bowie’s first hit “Space Oddity” gets the deluxe treatment shoutout with a set of vinyl singles called Spying Through a Keyhole (April 5) … If trip-hop was more your calling, the triple-album, 20th anniversary reissue of Massive Attack’s Mezzanine should prep you for the group’s delayed fall tour (April 19) … More David Lynch: 10 of the auteur’s films will be part of the launch of the indie-movie streaming service Criterion Channel (April 8) … It’s the 40th anniversary of Alien, and IGN is releasing six new live action shorts based around the horror/sci-fi classic (Debuting all month)The Silence is pretty much Bird Box, but with killer bats (April 10, Netflix) … Wrestling meets true crime with Dark Ride of the Ring (April 10, Viceland) … And finally, the small screen welcomes the return of The Twilight Zone (April 1, CBS All Access) — via Jordan Peele — plus Killing Eve (April 8, AMC), Game of Thrones (April 14, HBO) and a made-for-TV-sequel to the classic stoner flick How High (April 20, MTV), which admittedly doesn’t have Redman or Method Man.

Photo: Helen Sloan/HBO

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