Your July pop culture guide is here

Welcome to See/Hear, InsideHook’s deep dive into the month’s most important cultural happenings, pop and otherwise. Every month, we round up the biggest upcoming movie, TV and album releases, ask some cool people to tell us what they’ve been into lately, make you a playlist we guarantee you'll have on heavy rotation and recommend a classic (or unduly overlooked) piece of pop culture that we think is worth revisiting.

July is a historically quiet time for new TV shows (although, I have to ask: have you finished your binge of The Bear yet?), but summer blockbuster season remains in full swing. This month, we've got new installments of plenty of familiar franchises — Jurassic Park, Superman, I Know What You Did Last Summer — as well as a long-anticipated sequel to an Adam Sandler classic. Let's get to it.

p.s. As always, feel free to hit me up here with comments, suggestions or recommendations.

Happy Gilmore 2

July 25, Netflix

Okay, fine, yes: the endless churn of sequels and reboots in Hollywood these days is worrisome, and original ideas are almost nowhere to be found. But every now and then, one of these retreads of beloved classics understands exactly what audiences want out of them — not an attempt to outdo the original, but a movie that fully leans into the nostalgia and isn't afraid to hit a lot (or all) of the same notes as its predecessor did decades ago. I am fully aware that Happy Gilmore 2 won't be as good as Happy Gilmore. It may not even be good at all. I don't care; that's not what I want it to be. I want a tight 90 minutes of pratfalls, people getting hit in the nuts with golf balls, celebrity cameos, and the perfect blend of familiar faces and new talents. I want Adam Sandler on the green in Timberlands. I want a plot that's just different enough from the original to not be plagiarism. And if the trailer is any indication, that's exactly what it is. Set 30 years after Happy Gilmore (Sandler) won his first Tour Championship, Happy Gilmore 2 finds our hero coming out of retirement in order to pay for his daughter's ballet school. (Happy's daughter, by the way, is played by Sandler's real-life daughter Sunny.) Julie Bowen, Christopher McDonald and Ben Stiller all return to reprise their roles from the original, and they're joined by a whole mess of famous people that includes Bad Bunny, Eric André, Margaret Qualley, Marcello Hernandez, Nick Swardson, Haley Joel Osment, Post Malone, Travis Kelce, Ken Jennings, Stephen A. Smith and more professional golfers than I have space to name here. (But yes, Rory McIlroy is one of them.)

Plus: Scarlett Johansson hunts dinos in Jurassic World Rebirth, the Man of Steel returns in Superman and more. Check out our complete list of upcoming July movies here.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 17

July 9 on FXX, July 10 on Hulu

The Gang returns to Paddy's Pub for an unprecedented 17th season, further cementing their status as the longest-running live-action sitcom of all time. (It broke that record years ago with Season 15, but this year officially makes it two full decades since It's Always Sunny premiered back in 2005.) It all kicks off with part two of the Abbott Elementary crossover that the other Philly-based sitcom aired back back in January. As you can probably tell by the episode title, "The Gang F***s Up Abbott Elementary," this half of the two-part event will be told through the perspective of Charlie (Charlie Day), Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Dee (Kaitlin Olson), Mac (Rob McElhenney) and Frank (Danny DeVito). The eight-episode season will also feature a Golden Bachelor spoof, an episode called "Overage Drinking: A National Concern" (presumably a callback to Season 1's "Underage Drinking: A National Concern" that will poke fun at the fact that these characters are now in their late 40s) and, based on the way Dee screams "Thank you, Chef!" in the trailer, some sort of parody of The Bear.

Plus: Meg Stalter stars in a new Lena Dunham series, HBO Max drops a Billy Joel docuseries and more. Check out our complete list of July TV release dates here.

Wet Leg, Moisturizer

July 11

Moisturizer is Wet Leg's first new album since their massive 2022 self-titled debut, which earned them two Grammys (Best Alternative Music Album and Best Alternative Music Performance for "Chaise Longue") the following year. The British group is now a five-piece, featuring founding members Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers as well as bassist Ellis Durand, drummer Henry Holmes and guitarist and synthesizer player Joshua Mobaraki. They wrote this sophomore effort — which, like Wet Leg, is produced by Dan Carey — while living together in Southwold, England. “We were just kind of having fun and exploring,” Chambers said in the record's press materials. As Teasdale put it, “We focused on: Is this going to be fun to play live? It was very natural that we would write the second record together.”

Plus: Allo Darlin' returns for their first post-breakup effort, Alice Cooper reunites with his original band and more. Check out our complete list of July album releases here.

🎧 The past few years have felt like an especially fraught time to be an American, and it's understandable if waving a flag and blasting a Sousa march or some sort of jingoistic staple like “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” or “God Bless the USA” still feels a bit tone-deaf to you. Of course, there’s nothing more American than dissent, and there are plenty of songs that attempt to tackle this complicated, messy country of ours from all angles — the good, the bad and the downright horrific. Some have famously been misinterpreted by those who refuse to hear the lyrics over the years (“Born in the U.S.A.,” “Rockin’ in the Free World”), while others like “American Idiot” or “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore” make it clear where they stand from the get-go. So if you’re in the mood for a more pensive, subdued Fourth of July playlist this year, we’ve got you covered. Put it on, do your patriotic duty and ponder what exactly it means to be American.

The Sandlot (1993)

Streaming on Disney+, available to rent on Apple TV+ and Prime Video

There are some movies that just perfectly capture summertime nostalgia, and it's not the Fourth of July until I revisit the fireworks scene from The Sandlot. Every time I watch it, I'm immediately reminded of what the holiday meant to me as a kid: hot dogs, pomp and circumstance, and the opportunity to play outside with my friends in the neighborhood until well after dark. (Who among us can't relate to those days when you could just yell, "Mom, I'm going out!" and run around for a while?) Add Ray Charles's gorgeous rendition of "America the Beautiful" to the mix, and it's a perfect little slice of Americana that'll make you reminisce about your youth.

Beyond that scene, The Sandlot features plenty of familiar childhood touchstones of summer: days spent cooling off at the public pool, carnivals, early crushes, sleepovers, s'mores and, of course, plenty of pickup baseball. Even if sports weren't your thing as a kid, you'll find something to relate to as you watch Scotty Smalls and his friends — Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez, Michael "Squints" Palledorous and the rest of the gang — devise a plan to retrieve a ball signed by Babe Ruth that belongs to Scotty's stepdad (Denis Leary) from the yard of the neighborhood recluse, Mr. Mertle (James Earl Jones) without getting attacked by his massive dog, whom they've dubbed "The Beast."

If you yearn for a simpler time — and who among us doesn't these days? — it's worth revisiting it to be reminded why "heroes get remembered, but legends never die."