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, 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.

It's finally summer, which means it's finally time to do two of my favorite things in the world: listen to music while relaxing outside in the sun, and feel that frigid blast of AC as you step into a movie theater to escape the sweltering heat and take in a big blockbuster. This June will treat us to a new season of The Bear (insert obligatory "yes, chef" here), a new Haim album and plenty more — so let's get to it.

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

28 Years Later

in theaters June 20

First there was the horror classic 28 Days Later, then there was 28 Weeks Later and now we’re skipping over months and going straight to 28 Years Later. As you can guess from the title, the latest installment in the post-apocalyptic franchise is set 28 years after the original Rage Virus outbreak. Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Alfie Williams play a family who have managed to survive by isolating themselves on a small island, but when father and son have to venture onto the mainland, all hell breaks loose. Ralph Fiennes also stars, and Danny Boyle returns to direct. Contrary to internet rumors, Cillian Murphy does not appear in this one (even though that emaciated zombie kind of looks like him), but producer Andrew Macdonald has hinted that the actor may return in the already-planned sequels 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026) and an as-yet-untitled fifth film. If the incredibly eerie trailer — which makes perfect use of a 1915 recitation of Rudyard Kipling’s “Boots” — is any indication, this one’s bound to be a doozy.

Plus: Brad Pitt plays an aging Formula 1 driver in F1, everyone's favorite homicidal robot doll returns in M3GAN 2.0 and more. Check out our complete list of upcoming June movies here.

The Bear Season 4

June 25, Hulu

The third season of The Bear took Carmy down a pretty dark path, and like the review of the titular restaurant that sends our favorite chef spiraling in the finale’s cliffhanger, the response was pretty mixed. (You can read our piece explaining why all of the Season 3 haters were completely wrong here.) Filmed back-to-back with last season, this next installment looks to pick up right where we left off, with The Bear struggling to survive as Carmy tries to right the ship and Sydney makes her decision about whether to walk away. (Based on how many scenes of her in the kitchen with Carmy we see in the trailer, it seems safe to assume she stays, but hey, who knows?) Season 4 should give us the resolution that Season 3 set the table for — including Carmy coming face-to-face with his estranged mother Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis) for the first time in the series — and if there’s one thing we know for sure, those forks are staying polished.

Plus: Squid Game returns for a third and final season, Owen Wilson plays a washed-up golfer in Stick and more. Check out our complete list of June TV release dates here.

Haim, I quit

June 20

The Haim sisters teamed up with producer Rostam Batmanglij (Vampire Weekend) for their fourth LP, which Alana Haim describes as “the closest we have ever gotten to how we wanted to sound.” The 15-track album takes its name from a scene in the 1996 movie That Thing You Do!, a childhood favorite of the trio’s. After Jimmy, the lead singer of one-hit wonders The Wonders is told by his manager (played by Tom Hanks) that their next single should be something “peppy and snappy,” he drops the line: “And Jimmy wants to record like a brooding, sad song. And he goes, ‘Peppy and snappy, okay?’ And he gets on the mic and he goes, ‘I quit, I quit, I quit, I quit, Mr. White,’” Alana Haim explained in a recent interview. “And so growing up, whenever we would have to, like, check a mic, we would always go, like, ‘I quit.’”

Plus: Pulp drops their first new album in nearly 24 years, Neil Young debuts his new Chrome Hearts band and more. Check out our complete list of June album releases here.

🎧 My friends, I’ve got excellent news: It’s finally hot dog season. Or, more broadly, it’s finally summer, which means it’s the ideal time to hang out outside with a cold beer in one hand and a spatula in the other as you tend to whatever’s on the grill. Naturally, you need some tunes to keep the summertime vibes going while everything cooks. For whatever reason, I personally tend to gravitate towards a few different genres this time of year: blues and old-school soul as well as more contemporary surf-inspired indie and garage rock. It might be difficult to draw a direct connection from Al Green to bands like La Luz or Guantanamo Baywatch — or anyone who was on the Suicide Squeeze Records roster roughly 10 years ago, really — but at the end of the day, they’re all cool in a very specific way: laid-back, unbothered, up for a little trouble but chill enough to not make a big deal about it. If that’s not summer energy, I don’t know what is.

The perfect grilling playlist has to capture that feeling of soaking up the sun — uptempo but not too uptempo, lots of guitar and organ, whether it’s the smooth groove in “Love and Happiness,” the choppy surf sounds on “Rock Lobster” or the intricately layered Pet Sounds parts. And sure, we’ll throw in a pop banger or two for good measure. Ultimately, the goal is for these songs to remind you of those squiggly little mirages you see rising up off the grill. So grab your tongs, fire up the charcoal and give them a spin.

Jaws (1975)

Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+

This month marks the 50th anniversary of Jaws, the first-ever movie to earn $100 million and the template for countless copycat summer blockbusters that have tried to recapture its magic in the half-century since the menacing dun DUN dun DUNs of John Williams’s iconic score first struck fear into the hearts of beachgoers everywhere. What better time, then, to revisit Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece?

I first saw Jaws on VHS at an elementary school friend’s birthday party when I was way too young to watch a lady get yanked violently underwater and then torn apart by a shark, so it took me a while to get up the nerve to watch it again, but once I did as an adult, it became one of my favorite movies. It’s not summer until I watch Jaws at least once, preferably in a movie theater full of other people. (If you happen to live in New York City, the Nitehawk usually screens it every Fourth of July weekend.) There’s something about hearing an audience gasp at the jump-scares, laugh at how goofy Quint (Robert Shaw) looks when he’s getting eaten and cheer when they finally get to watch the beast that’s been terrorizing Amity Island for two hours get blown up by a well-placed tank of compressed air that really drives home its staying power.

Jaws is everything you want out of a blockbuster, an over-the-top spectacle that can either be taken at face value (hell yeah, they just blew up that shark) or read more deeply as a cautionary tale about the hubris of man (we’ve got boats and guns, but nature will always find a way to outswim us and chomp on us with 15 rows of teeth — especially when the allure of tourism revenue keeps us from closing the beaches). It changed the filmmaking game so profoundly that it’s become a blueprint for just about every monster movie that followed it. You have your overly-cautious hero whose journey involves overcoming some sort of deep fear (Roy Scheider’s iconic Chief Brody, in this case), your arrogant sidekick who’s there for comic relief (Richard Dreyfuss’s Hooper) and of course, the grizzled old guy who tries to warn you about how dangerous and powerful the creature you’re dealing with is (Quint and his showstopping monologue about the USS Indianapolis disaster). Nowadays it’s all textbook, but 50 years ago, it was awe-inspiring. So here’s to swimming with bow-legged women, and here’s to Jaws.