What we'll be listening to, watching, and reading to sate our pop culture needs.
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This weekend’s so good, we couldn’t stop at five—we’ve got a whopping seven A+ things for you to watch, read, or listen to starting NOW. Get your pre-Watchman Harper Lee fix on PBS, howl with laughter thanks to Bridget Everett’s Comedy Central special, air guitar your heart out with Veruca Salt’s new album, and so much more.
If you’ve seen the magic of Bridget Everett on Inside Amy Schumer, you’ve likely only wanted MORE. And that time has come. Tune in to Comedy Central tonight (well, technically tomorrow—12:30 a.m.) for Gynecological Wonder, the special that has her performing hits like “Titties” with her band the Tender Moments; a perfect showcase of this theatrical comedian’s bawdy cabaret-style hilarity.
The groundbreaking research and complicated personal lives of Masters (Michael Sheen) and Johnson (Lizzy Caplan) continue with Sunday’s season 3 premiere of Masters of Sex. Now it’s 1966, Masters, Johnson, and Masters’ wife have settled into a progressive if uneasy sort of three-way marriage, their kids are now teenagers, and their breakthrough book is about to be published. Finding out how it all unfolds is exactly what we want to do with our summer.
In this documentary, journalist and activist David Thorpe fascinatingly examines his deep-seated feelings about sounding “gay.” With the help of community icons like George Takei, David Sedaris, and Dan Savage, and a number of linguists, the film explores the origins of the “gay voice,” how it’s perceived by gay men, and how it’s been depicted in pop culture.
Oh Veruca Salt, we missed you so! And thank goodness this new album, made with the group’s original lineup, isn’t just some half-assed ’90s revival bandwagon effort. Ghost Notes is real riff-heavy rock, and those visceral harmonies from Nina Gordon and Louise Post will blow out your eardrums as wonderfully as they did the day you first heard “Seether.” Ghost Notes, we’ve been waiting for you.
Amanda Coe’s new novel The Love She Left Behind, begins when a mother dies abruptly of stomach cancer, and the two children she abandoned, along with her husband, for her famous playwright lover convene to deal with the aftermath. It’s a biting tale of mistakes made, and judgments cast, and the bond of family, no matter how uncomfortable those ties may be.
With the release date of Harper Lee’s long-awaited second novel Go Set a Watchman just around the corner (7/14 to be exact), PBS is indulging our insane fandom of the reclusive writer with 13 days of Harper Lee programming. Tonight at 9 p.m. they’re broadcasting an updated version of the 2012 documentary Harper Lee: Hey, Boo, just in time to get us extra pumped about the momentous literary event.
This iPhone-filmed Sundance darling follows two transwomen who also happen to be Hollywood sex workers, on Christmas Eve as Sin-Dee finds out from Alexandra that her boyfriend/pimp has been cheating on her. Tangerine follows the structure of an old-Hollywood farce, but it pairs its energetic hilarity with the bleak landscape of L.A.’s seedy side, adding an emotional depth to a surprising story.