Peter Tabakis

New Adventures in Hi-Fi was written and mostly recorded on the road during the blockbusting and troublesome Monster world tour of 1995. This is the PR tagline everyone repeats if they know this great album to begin with. During that tour, their biggest by a mile, three band members had serious medical emergencies to tend to: in Switzerland, drummer Bill Berry nearly died onstage from a brain aneurysm.

Two decades after its release, Joe Wright’s 2005 take on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has become more than just another adaptation. It created a whole new visual style for Austen’s classic romantic comedy. Wright made a deliberate choice to step away from the clean, interior-focused look of earlier versions, instead planting the story in a rustic, almost gritty world.

John Carpenter’s They Live is a film that wears its politics on its sleeve — or rather, on its sunglasses. At first glance, it’s a pulpy sci-fi action flick about a drifter who discovers that aliens are secretly controlling humanity. But peel back the layers, and you’ll find one of the most biting (and, perhaps, obvious) satires of Reagan-era consumerism, media manipulation, and class warfare ever committed to celluloid.