Modern Beauty Trends: What to Watch, Stream, and Listen to in December 2017: An In & Out Pop Culture Guide

From "Black Panther" to "Fifty Shades", the best of what to watch, stream and listen to in February 2018.
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In this special monthly edition of In & Out, we’re looking a full month ahead and sorting through December's cultural calendar for you. Here are our picks for what you’ll need to consume to keep up with polite dinner party conversation, what you’ll be secretly binging late at night, and what’s best to just avoid.

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What You Need to See

Film

This month gives us not one, but two blockbuster-sized fantasy epics that we’re pretty high-key excited about, both for their unconventionality and their ultra-stylish production design. The first, of course, is Black Panther (February 16), Marvel’s first black superhero flick. The film should also stand out from other Marvel movies because director Ryan Coogler brought in many of his own regular collaborators instead of using Marvel’s in-house staff, and the trailer has us intrigued. Meanwhile, Natalie Portman stars in Annihilation (February 23) as the leader of an all-female team who wanders into a fantastical and mysterious forest, home to all sorts of bizarre beasts like zombie bears and albino alligators.

Television

Alan Ball is the man behind HBO classics like Six Feet Under and True Blood. He returns to the network this month with Here and Now (February 11, 9:00 p.m.), a show that seems to blend the tense family dynamic of the former and the supernatural elements of the latter. Holly Hunter and Tim Robbins star as parents who have adopted children from across the globe when, suddenly, one of them develops unsettling powers to see things others can’t. It all seems very mysterious and a little confusing, but it’s Alan Ball—we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Speaking of experienced showrunners, Veena Sud made her name adapting Danish crime thriller The Killing for AMC, which was memorably axed by the network and resurrected by Netflix. For her next, she’s going straight to the streaming giant, adapting another crime series from an icy country; in this case, Russia. Her Seven Seconds (February 23) is an anthology series that explores the real lives behind headline-making crimes. The first season will focus on the racial tension and fallout that follows the incident of a white police officer who accidentally runs over a black teenager.

Music

There’s few couples in music history as iconic as the late Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, and both will be releasing new material (sort of) this month. Anderson teams with celebrated string ensemble Kronos Quartet for Landfall (February 16), her first full-length musical effort since Reed’s passing in 2013. The piece, inspired by Anderson’s experience of Hurricane Sandy, has been performed live numerous times, but finally gets a proper recorded release. Meanwhile, the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Reed’s groundbreaking band, The Velvet Underground, continues with the release of 50th Anniversary Stereo LPs Vinyl Box on February 23, which holds the band’s records alongside a recreation of their “lost” 1969 album, with extras such as a book of rare photographs.

What You’ll Actually Enjoy

Film

The whole Fifty Shades phenomenon reaches its final climax this month with the release of Fifty Shades Freed (February 9), and after watching Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan doing God knows what to each other all these years, we can all move on with our lives (until, of course, it inevitably gets rebooted as a straight-to-VOD series or a late-night cable anthology). Meanwhile, the indiesphere this month gives us two flicks about millennial women dealing with heartbreak—the first, Becks (February 9), finds a singer-songwriter who follows her girlfriend to L.A. only to get cheated on. So she moves back to St. Louis and strikes up an interesting relationship with a married woman, played by Mena Suvari. The second, The Boy Downstairs (February 16), stars Girls alum Zosia Mamet who realizes she’s moved into the same apartment building as the boyfriend she broke up with years ago. Turns out he’s moved on, but maybe she hasn’t. Both are slight twists on your standard romcom fare and have been warmly received on the festival circuit. Meanwhile, The Party (February 16) seems like a must-see for anyone who wants to see legendary actresses sit in a house and yell at each other. Starring Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Cherry Jones, and Kristen Scott Thompson, the film is set during a party an English politician holds to celebrate her new leadership position but, instead, watches her entire life fall apart.

Television

You might have heard there’s the matter of the Winter Olympics this month, which means NBC and its sister channels are pretty tied up, and competitors aren’t eager to rush out anything new; though, there are some exceptions. Netflix has found success with smart teen-themed programs that also evoke a sense of nostalgia in adults (see: Stranger Things and 13 Reasons Why). Everything Sucks! goes all in with its ‘90s-set geeks-versus-cool-kids format on February 16. The trailer was giving us big orange couch-filled flashbacks to SNICK. Meanwhile, NBC’s Good Girls (February 26, 10:00 p.m.) is on our radar if only for the main cast (Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks, Parks and Rec’s Retta, and Arrested Development’s Mae Whitman). The trio star as three suburban women who have fallen on hard times and decide to rob their local grocery store.

Music

It feels very mid-aughts this month with the release of the latest albums from Franz Ferdinand (Always Ascending, February 9), MGMT (Little Dark Age, February 9), and Fischerspooner (SIR, February 16). Though, if those aren’t quite your speed, there’s always Justin Timberlake’s already-out Man of the Woods to listen to, despite its decidedly mixed reviews.

What You Can Skip

Film

Folks, we love Brie Larson, but her career since winning the Oscar for Best Actress has been a bit odd. This month, she finds herself in Basmati Blues (February 9), a film that tries to blend American romcom tropes with those of Bollywood musicals. Early buzz is harsh. Thankfully, Larson’s next film after this is Captain Marvel. We’re fine with waiting until 2019 for it.

Television

Americans like to assume that reality TV is somehow our unique national shame, but it’s actually Europeans who invented the format, and often their programs are even trashier than ours. To wit, England runs two seasons of Celebrity Big Brother a year, often siphoning from America’s rich supply of D-listers (Perez Hilton, Gary Busey, Tiffany “New York” Pollard, and Farrah Abraham to name but a few) and the results have often been almost surreally campy. Finally, this month CBS gives America its own version on February 7, and after some rumors they may try to make it somehow respectable, they pulled the trashy reality TV casting coup of the century by recruiting Omarosa. She’ll compete against other fameballs like Metta World Peace, Brandi Glanville, and Shannon Elizabeth. We’re telling you to skip this for your own well-being, but, actually, we’re not judging if you give into the camp of it all.

Music

Tyga’s relevancy dropped like the stock market circa 2008 as soon as he broke up with Kylie Jenner, but he makes his return this month with Kyoto. The Internet already hates the album’s odd cover, which is basically explicit, furry erotica.