The Week In Culture (July 31st)
WATCH
Hot Ticket: The Naked Gun Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson star in a reboot of the classic 80s cop movie sendup. Turns out, the guy behind Popstar: Never Stop Popping and SNL’s last good year may well have resurrected not only a moribund franchise but Neeson’s career and the big-screen comedy to boot. Opens today in theaters.
Pamphleteers’s Pick: Together Real-life couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco star in a body horror opus featuring a rural location, a primal entity, and an ingeniously executed allegory that gives a whole new meaning to the seven-year itch. Now playing in theaters.
For a complete list of upcoming titles, check out the 2025 Film Guide.
STREAM
The Addams Family (Prime) While everyone else is bingeing Jenna Ortega’s latest stint as Wednesday on Netflix, go back to the macabre original series that never got enough credit for its delicate balance of championing and subverting the 60s suburban family ideal.
The Phoenician Scheme (Peacock) Wes Anderson’s latest charts the waning days of Zsa Zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro), a global industry titan hoping to raise money for the project that will define his legacy with assists from Tom Hanks, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Cera, Scarlett Johansson, and 10,000 others.. As we said upon its release in June, “It’s a movie about where we are now..that does the business of art in a way most of Hollywood abandoned a decade ago.”
READ
Polybius The debut novel from entertainment writer Collin Armstrong is a riff on the urban legend about a demonic video game, an 80s-set homage to John Carpenter’s worldbuilding, and a horror yarn that rivals the best days of Stephen King. But it’s also an empathetic examination of America’s vanishing small town values at the hands of Big Tech’s insatiable appetite that will especially haunt the dreams of pre-It City Nashvillians.
LISTEN
More Pulp. Nearly a quarter century after the release of their last record, Brit Pop’s working class kings came out of nowhere with the album of the summer. Thanks to the clever nods to their 90s heyday in tracks like “Farmers Market” and a melodic blend of electronic beats and orchestral musings, one can almost transport themselves to the halcyon days of the Thatcherite hangover.