Pop Culture Happy Hour

The Bride! and What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The Bride! goes way beyond a simple tale of literature’s most famous reanimated corpses. Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale, the film is a wild take on the bride of Frankenstein’s monster. It follows her origin story, her relationship with the big lug himself, and her pursuit of her own distinct identity.

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Love Story

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

John F. Kennedy Jr. was an object of public fixation his entire life, and he’s now the subject of the FX series Love Story. It focuses on Kennedy’s (Paul Anthony Kelly) relationship with his wife, Carolyn Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon). The show follows their courtship, their marriage, and the great strain that she experienced as part of what was, for a time, one of the most closely watched couples in the world.

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The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The new comedy series The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins stars Tracy Morgan as a disgraced former football star and Daniel Radcliffe as a documentary filmmaker who team up to make a movie. I know what you’re saying - another mockumentary sitcom? What if I told you that the creators come from shows like 30 Rock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Girls5eva? And that the joke density bears that out? The NBC/Peacock series also stars Erika Alexander, Bobby Moynihan and Craig Robinson.

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Industry

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

HBO’s addictive drama Industry has never been afraid to wade in the muck, and the fourth season and finale was especially messy. The paths of frenemies Harper (Myha’la) and Yasmin (Marisa Abela) erratically converged and diverged, Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington) lands at a fintech startup, and the parallels to real-life headlines became impossible not to notice. So after that harrowing season finale, we’re wondering what just happened, and where might the show go from here?

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Scream 7 and What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 21:07:09 +0000

The OG Scream Queen Neve Campbell returns. Scream 7 re-centers the franchise back on Sidney Prescott. She has a new life, a family, and lots of baggage. You know the drill: Someone dressing up as the masked slasher Ghostface comes for her, her family and friends. There’s lots of stabbing and murder and so many red herrings it’s practically a smorgasbord.

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Our Favorite Movies On Tubi

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The streaming service Tubi has become a repository for a wild assortment of movies, TV shows, and original properties. They’re all free to watch, provided you’re willing to sit through some ads. So we asked some Tubi-philes to recommend some great movies that you can find on the service: Hundreds of Beavers, Color Out of Space, Petey Wheatstraw, and Mambo Italiano.

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The Traitors

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The Peacock reality show The Traitors has become weekly appointment television, as the always impeccably dressed Alan Cumming presides over an unfriendly game full of alliances, secrets, treachery and murder. This season has been rich with drama. Players like Love Island contestant Rob Rausch and former Real Housewife Lisa Rinna have created some truly memorable moments in Traitors history. Ahead of the finale, we convene in the turret to debrief on it all.

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Paradise

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In Hulu's twisty drama series Paradise, Sterling K. Brown plays a Secret Service agent caught up in a web of intrigue after the president of the United States (James Marsden) is assassinated, with no suspect in sight. But at the end of the first episode, we learn this show is about way more than the murder of the head of state. From Dan Fogelman (This is Us), the series is back for a second season, so we’re revisiting our conversation about the show.

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Winter Olympics and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The Winter Olympics are well underway, and we’ve got thoughts from an avid Olympics watcher and a reporter who’s covering the games in Italy. Whether it’s butt on the couch or feet on the ground – we’ve got you covered.

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America’s Next Top Model

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000

America’s Next Top Model has been rewatched in the years since its 2003 premiere, and its handling of race, body image, and other issues has been loudly and heavily criticized. A new Netflix docuseries Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model interviews the major players including Tyra Banks, J. Alexander, Jay Manuel and Nigel Barker. And it doesn’t let Tyra off easy.

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How To Get To Heaven From Belfast

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Netflix’s How To Get To Heaven From Belfast is the new series from the creator of the beloved show Derry Girls. It follows three very messy longtime friends working together to solve a mystery from their youth. Part mystery and part comedy, it’s a darkly funny adventure through Ireland and elsewhere, as they elude various pursuers, reopen old wounds, and try to find answers about what has happened to a friend they lost along the way.

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Pillion

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In Pillion, a.k.a. the “gay BDSM biker movie,” a meek young man named Colin (Harry Melling) meets a handsome, broody biker played by Alexander Skarsgård who brings out his submissive side. They enter into a sub/dom relationship, but the biker remains so mysterious and withholding that Colin starts to want more – endangering the bond the two men share.

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“Wuthering Heights” and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In the new film “Wuthering Heights,” Margot Robbie stars as headstrong and horny Cathy, and Jacob Elordi as brooding and horny Heathcliff. Their love on the wild windswept moors is passionate, doomed and pretty bonkers. From writer and director Emerald Fennell, the film has love, lust, hatred, revenge, and lots of lusty looks in the soaking rain.

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Best Book to Movie Adaptations

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000

What’s your favorite movie that started life as a book? And what makes for a great book to film adaptation, anyway? We’ve got some examples of beloved books that made the transition to the big screen, and we’re prepared to discuss and debate why each of them works – and why we believe they’re the best of all time. We talk about: Blade Runner, Little Women, Nickel Boys, and Starship Troopers.

For even more of our favorite book to film adaptations, check out our list at Letterboxd — at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture .

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The Pop Culture Hill I’ll Die On

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000

We've all got that one argument we're always making: that non-negotiable stance, that immutable truth we're sticking to no matter what. Today, we're revisiting our conversation about the pop culture hills we'll die on. We discuss: Jacob Elordi, Timothée Chalamet, boss battles in video games, Bryan Adams, and attending concerts.

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Bad Bunny Super Bowl Halftime Show

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 08:58:47 +0000

At the Super Bowl halftime show, Bad Bunny put on an endlessly rewatchable performance. It featured Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, and a real wedding. But it didn’t shy away from this political moment, and Bad Bunny’s place in the culture wars.

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Charli xcx, The Moment and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Remember Brat Summer? Charli xcx has turned the aftermath of her mainstream success into a movie called The Moment. It’s a hyperpop faux documentary commenting upon the intense response to her album, Brat, and Charli’s fickle relationship with stardom. Can Charli keep the Brat momentum going? Does she even want to? The film also features Alexander Skarsgård, Hailey Benton Gates, and Kylie Jenner.

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Wonder Man

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Marvel’s new Disney+ series Wonder Man is a sensible buddy comedy where Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays a down-on-his-luck actor (with incredible superpowers) trying to make it in Hollywood, and Ben Kingsley plays his new friend with a dark past. Safe to say it’s not what most Marvel fans are expecting – and that’s a good thing.

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2026 Sundance Film Festival: Best Movies

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000

We watched a ton of movies and we’re recommending some of the best things we saw at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. This includes a thrilling adventure starring Ethan Hawke, a quiet romance with Chris Pine, and quite possibly the best documentary we’ll see all year.
For a complete list of the movies we loved at Sundance, Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd

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2026 Grammys Recap

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 13:48:14 +0000

This year’s Grammy Awards featured historic wins for Bad Bunny and Kendrick Lamar, performances from Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, and occasional chaos. And it was a night of speeches that reflected this moment in America.

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Send Help and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In the new comic horror film Send Help, Rachel McAdams finds out the answer to the age-old hypothetical, “what if you were stranded on a desert island?” — except she’s stuck there with her terrible boss (Dylan O’Brien). The dynamic between them shifts and shifts again as they try to survive long enough to be rescued.

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Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Star Trek fans are finally getting something they’ve wanted for a long time, and it doesn’t disappoint. The new series Star Trek: Starfleet Academy takes place at the college attended by kids who want to become officers in Starfleet. It stars Holly Hunter as the school’s chancellor, Paul Giamatti as a recurring bad guy, and a roster of hot young cadets who have classes to attend and lessons to learn.

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The Beauty

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The Beauty stars familiar faces from the Ryan Murphy universe, including Evan Peters, as well as new collaborators like Ashton Kutcher. In the show, a genetic biotech serum has been engineered to transform people into ridiculously good-looking supermodels. But there’s at least one problem: Eventually, those supermodels are dying suddenly, horrifically and spectacularly. Is it astute commentary, crass exploitation, or maybe a bit of both? Well, it’s definitely a Ryan Murphy production, through and through.

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A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The HBO series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms may be set in the same fantasy world as Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, but it’s a small, grounded story – a kind of medieval buddy comedy. It follows a sweet but dim knight (Peter Claffey) and his wise-beyond-his-years young squire (Dexter Sol Ansell) trying to make their way in a tough world. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is based on a series of novellas by George R.R. Martin.

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One Battle After Another and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

One Battle After Another earned 13 Oscar nominations - including best picture, best director and a lead actor nomination for Leonardo DiCaprio. In the action-thriller, DiCaprio plays a washed up ex-revolutionary searching for his missing daughter while raging against the machine. In this case, the machine is unabashedly racist, xenophobic, and corrupt. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the ensemble also includes Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor and Benicio del Toro. Today, we’re revisiting our episode about the film that originally aired in September 2025.
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2026 Oscar Nominations

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 18:43:00 +0000

This year’s Oscars nominations are here, and we’re unpacking record-breaking nominations for Sinners, plus nominations for One Battle After Another and Hamnet. And as always, there’s an eclectic mix of heavy favorites, left-field surprises, and the dreaded snubs. We give a broad sense of this year’s major storylines, while also lamenting a few decisions we found baffling.

By the way, you can check out our episodes on the nominees here:

Bugonia

F1

Frankenstein

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another

The Secret Agent

Sentimental Value

Sinners

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Watch This: It Was Just An Accident

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The Iranian film It Was Just an Accident enters Oscars season with the wind at its back. It won the top prize at Cannes, a raft of other awards and has landed on a lot of top ten lists. The movie bears out those accolades. Directed by Jafar Panahi, it’s a tense, volatile, often darkly funny movie about what happens when a former political prisoner runs into a man he’s almost convinced is the one who tortured him and other prisoners.

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The Rip

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck share the screen again in new Netflix film, The Rip. Similar to the pulpy, mid-budget cop movies we used to get, The Rip is about a team of cops who are trying to take a huge stash of money from a drug cartel. But that work is not only dangerous, but also complicated as they encounter more money than they expected. The cast also includes Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor, and Kyle Chandler.

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28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple picks up where 28 Years Later left off – in a world of zombie-like infecteds and vigilantes that turn out to be a murderous cult. Ralph Fiennes returns as Dr. Kelson, who makes an unlikely friend in his medical refuge slash memorial site slash bone temple.

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Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The new Netflix series Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials centers on lesser known mystery solving protagonist Lady Eileen Brent (Mia McKenna-Bruce). It’s got all the familiar cozy mystery trappings like a manor house, snobby suspects, stiff upper lips and lots of secrets. Based on an early Christie novel, the show also features Martin Freeman and Helena Bonham-Carter.

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Hijack

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Idris Elba is in full action hero mode in the Apple TV series Hijack. He stars as a corporate business negotiator onboard an airplane that is taken hostage by an eclectic bunch of assailants with mysterious motives. The series is very fun and very silly. Hijack just came back for a second season, so we thought it was the perfect time to revisit our conversation about the series.

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Our Dream TV Crossovers

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

There have been many TV crossovers over the years, but it’s a tricky balance to get right — for every mashup that feels organic, there are plenty more that amount to little other than weird stunts. So we decided to dream up the ultimate TV crossovers: Gilmore Girls and Nashville, Abbott Elementary and The Leftovers, Only Murders in the Building and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and The Bear and Happy Endings.

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People We Meet On Vacation and What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The new Netflix rom-com People We Meet On Vacation is about best friends Poppy (Emily Bader) and Alex (Tom Blyth) who have gone on annual trips together since meeting in college. But there's always been something between them that's not quite platonic, and reconnecting at a wedding just might bring it to the surface. Based on the beloved Emily Henry novel, the movie’s got travel, banter, and even kissing in the rain. But does it capture the charm of the book?

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Sabrina Carpenter and the Embarrassing Truth of Dating Men

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

What's it like to date a man? Ask Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Dean, or your friends, and you might hear it's a struggle. Today we’re bringing you an episode of NPR’s It’s Been a Minute. Host Brittany Luse and NPR Music Editor Hazel Cills break down a phenomenon called “heteropessimism.”

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No Other Choice

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

No Other Choice is a new bleak comedy about a man (Lee Byung-hun) at a crossroads. After losing his job at a paper company, he resorts to desperate, unhinged measures to get a new job. He tracks down the other candidates and eliminates the competition, one by one. Directed by Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, The Handmaiden), it’s filled with great performances and truly masterful action set pieces.

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Stranger Things

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

After five seasons and almost ten years, the saga of Netflix’s Stranger Things has reached its end. In a two-hour finale, we found out what happened to our heroes (including Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard) when they set out to battle the forces of evil. The final season had new faces and new revelations, along with moments of friendship and conflict among the folks we've known and loved since the night Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) first disappeared. But did it stick the landing?

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2026 Resolutions and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Hope springs eternal, and that is nowhere more true than in the realm of New Year’s Resolutions. Today, we give ourselves goals for 2026. And because we believe in accountability, we’ll tell you how well we stuck to our resolutions for 2025.

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2026 Pop Culture Predictions

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

What does 2026 have in store for pop culture? Today, we’re back for another year of pop culture predictions. We’ll touch on A.I., the future of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and what’s to come for the Law & Order Universe. Plus, we check in on our prognosticating for 2025 and see how things worked out.

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2025 Best Video Games

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

If you’re anything like us, you spend a fair amount of your screen time playing video games. Whether you like combat, horror, or peacefully going over archival research, NPR’s roundup of best games of 2025 is a helpful guide to find something that’s just right for you. Today we’re talking about some of the best video games featured including Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Hades II, Silent Hill f, Butcher’s Creek and The Roottrees Are Dead.

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2025 Books We Love

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

NPR’s Books We Love is a roundup of the best books from the past year, sorted and tagged to help you find exactly what you’re looking for. This year we’ve got hundreds of book recommendations, so today, we’re highlighting some of our favorites – including Actress of a Certain Age by Jeff Hiller, The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers, and Cannon by Lee Lai.

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Anaconda

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The new Anaconda movie is a meta reimagining in which Jack Black and Paul Rudd play aspiring filmmakers who attempt to make… a meta reimagining of Anaconda. It’s not quite a reboot, it’s not quite a sequel, and it’s played for laughs.

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Marty Supreme and What’s Making Us Happy

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The new movie Marty Supreme asks, can Timothée Chalamet play a supremely annoying character and still keep us interested from beginning to end? He stars as a working-class heel aiming to become a table tennis champion in the 1950s and features an eclectic supporting cast that includes Gwyneth Paltrow and Tyler, the Creator.

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Best Christmas Gift I Ever Received

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 08:00:08 +0000

What's the best Christmas gift you ever received? You probably didn't have to think about it; you knew it in your bones. Today, in this encore episode, we're talking about the actual, tangible gift you found waiting for you under the tree and still think about it from time to time.

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The Housemaid

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The twisty thriller The Housemaid stars Sydney Sweeney as a newly hired live-in housekeeper to Amanda Seyfried’s wealthy housewife. Both women have dark secrets, and their dynamic goes downhill real fast. It’s directed by Paul Feig of Bridesmaids and A Simple Favor, so you know it’s going to be a bizarre, fun ride.

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Avatar: Fire And Ash and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In Avatar: Fire and Ash, James Cameron’s saga continues in a visually stunning movie full of epic battles, uneasy alliances, human assimilation, and debates with whales. The film follows the Na’vi (aka blue guys) as they’re chased by a human military that seeks both resources and revenge. The cast includes Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldaña, and Sam Worthington.

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Heated Rivalry

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The new show Heated Rivalry is a very sexy and very queer hockey romance streaming on HBO Max–and it’s a phenomenon. It follows archrival players Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) as they carry on a clandestine affair off the ice. And since it’s based on a whole series of interconnected romance novels by Rachel Reid, it may be with us for a very long time.

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Fallout

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Fallout is based on a hugely successful video game series known for blending a sardonic, very dark comedic sensibility, and violence. The series is set in the game's post-apocalyptic world – an America divided into factions wrestling for control of an irradiated wasteland. When the hopeful Lucy (Ella Purnell) steps out of the comfortable life she's known in an underground vault, the world she's confronted with is harsh, brutal, merciless – and kinda funny. Fallout just returned for a second season on Prime Video, so today we’re revisiting our conversation about the show.

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Great Movies We Missed

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Every year, we like to take a moment to look back and spotlight a few favorite films we didn’t have time to talk about. Today, we're making recommendations for great movies we missed in 2025 including The Secret Agent, Come See Me In the Good Light, Cactus Pears, and 100 Nights of Hero.

Mailbag: The Movies We Walked Out Of

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 08:00:01 +0000

Aisha and Stephen answer a mailbag question! Send in your own questions at pcch@npr.org, and we may answer it in a future bonus episode.

This usually would be a bonus episode just for Pop Culture Happy Hour+ supporters, but this being the season of giving, we're sharing this one with everyone! To hear more bonus content like this every month and to support NPR and public radio, sign up for Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy

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Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Netflix’s Wake Up Dead Man is the third installment in the Knives Out franchise. Daniel Craig returns as detective Benoit Blanc -- with a cast of suspects that includes Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington and Thomas Haden Church. This time out, the mystery gets ecclesiastical in nature, involving the murder of Josh Brolin’s fire-and-brimstone priest at a small church.

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Jay Kelly

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In Netflix’s Jay Kelly, George Clooney plays the aging movie star Jay Kelly. His longtime manager (Adam Sander) and publicist (Laura Dern) struggle to manage Jay on a trip through Europe as he deals with the difficult relationship he has with his two grown daughters. From director and co-writer Noah Baumbach, the film is an exploration of regret and missed opportunities.

The Worst Christmas Movies

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 08:00:03 +0000

‘Tis the season you’ll find plenty of good holiday movies – films that can be counted upon to deliver warmth and cheer. And bad holiday movies? They can be fun in their own way. So we’re debating: what’s the worst Christmas movie of all time? We’ll talk about Love Actually, Jingle All The Way, I Believe In Santa, and Scrooge & Marley.

The Abandons

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In Netflix’s The Abandons, Gillian Anderson and Lena Headey play two steely matriarchs that face off on the American frontier. But don’t let the spurs and cowboy hats fool you. At its heart, the new Western series is a sudsy nighttime soap. But is that a good thing?

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Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In the new film Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, Josh Hutcherson returns as the protagonist trying to survive in a haunted children’s restaurant called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The creepy animatronic robots remain, and the sequel adds fresh lore and extends the action beyond the original abandoned restaurant.

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2025 Pop Culture Favorites

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 08:05:04 +0000

It’s been a great year for TV, movies, and music. And we are highlighting some of the best, including KPop Demon Hunters, Sinners, and Severance. We’ll also talk about some things you might have missed.

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Rereading Pride & Prejudice

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 08:00:01 +0000

This year, readers around the world are celebrating Jane Austen’s 250th birthday. Today we’ve got an episode of NPR’s Books We’ve Loved where Linda Holmes, Andrew Limbong and B.A. Parker discuss Austen’s seminal novel Pride & Prejudice. The trio weighs in on how the romance genre continues to reference the book’s “enemies to lovers” story – and why the tale’s leads Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy still make us and laugh and swoon even today.

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Hamnet

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Hamnet tells the fictionalized account of the lives of William Shakespeare and his wife, played by Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley. They fall in love, have children, suffer an unspeakable tragedy. When their only son dies, it creates a rift in their marriage and inspires Will to write one of his greatest works–Hamlet. Directed by Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), it does everything it can to make you cry a whole lot.

All’s Fair And What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Ryan Murphy’s latest show All’s Fair centers on an all-female law firm led by Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts, and Niecy Nash-Betts. The high-powered law firm specializes in obtaining hefty divorce settlements for wealthy women. The show is barbed, nasty, over-the-top and maybe too much. It’s got us wondering: Is it fair that Murphy’s unleashed this utter silliness upon the world?

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Zootopia 2

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Disney’s Zootopia grossed over a billion dollars worldwide. Now our heroes return in the sequel Zootopia 2. Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) are now partners in the Zootopia police force. And there's a new problem: a snake has appeared in a reptile-free zone, and he brings to light a mystery from Zootopia's complicated past. The cast also includes Ke Huy Quan, Andy Samberg and Fortune Feimster, who add something new to what has already been a winning formula.

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Sentimental Value

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The new movie Sentimental Value is one of the great films about absentee dads who reappear in their kids’ lives. Stellan Skarsgård plays a renowned filmmaker preparing his next feature and attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughters (played by Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). And it proves that at the very least, the tension between art and parenthood is complicated. The film is directed by Joachim Trier (The Worst Person in the World) and also stars Elle Fanning.

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All Her Fault

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The entertaining Peacock series All Her Fault begins with a cute kid, an Emmy winner, and a mystery. Sarah Snook plays a mother who goes to pick up her young son from a playdate and learns there is no child to pick up. There are a lot of twists and turns—a lot of them—particularly as she gets to know another mom at the school, played by Dakota Fanning. While the agony of a missing child is bad enough, the show ultimately interrogates marriage, and the way women are forced to accommodate the behavior and misbehavior of men in their lives.

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Wicked: For Good And What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Wicked was a smash hit that earned Oscar nominations for Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo–but that was only the first half of the story. Wicked: For Good has more songs, more magic, more extravagant production design, and more belting. But can it match the impact and live up to the hype of the first film?

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A Man On The Inside

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The charming Netflix sitcom A Man on the Inside stars Ted Danson as a lonely widower who’s hired by a private investigator to live undercover in a senior living facility. His mission is to find out who stole a precious item from one of the residents. Created by Michael Schur (The Good Place), the series is also a tender and poignant depiction of loss, aging, and finding community. A Man on the Inside just returned for a second season, so today we’re revisiting our conversation about the show.

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The Beast In Me

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In the new Netflix series The Beast In Me, a writer played by Claire Danes struggles to find the topic of her next book – until a nefarious real estate tycoon played by Matthew Rhys moves in next door. He’s widely suspected of having murdered his first wife, even though her death has been officially treated as a suicide. The two cautiously get acquainted, as she tries to figure out the truth.

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Now You See Me: Now You Don't

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, the magical Four Horsemen – played by Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco and Isla Fisher – reunite after almost 10 years to fight a cruel diamond heiress played by Rosamund Pike. You’ve got twists and turns, tricks galore, mysterious benefactors… and, just like in the Fast & Furious movies, a fair bit of talk about family.

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The Running Man And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The Running Man is a new dystopian thriller starring Glen Powell as a man so desperate for money to care for his family that he volunteers to run for his life. As a contestant on a TV game show, he must survive for 30 days while being hunted by a group of highly skilled assassins and by his fellow citizens. Based on a Stephen King novel, director Edgar Wright brings in an all-star cast including Lee Pace, Colman Domingo, William H. Macy and Michael Cera.

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Death By Lightning

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Netflix’s Death by Lightning pits President James Garfield (Michael Shannon) against Charles Guiteau (Matthew McFadyen), the disgruntled would-be political operative who shot him. But it’s not quite the stuffy, stately historical drama that you – and your dad – are probably expecting. Toss in a brace of white middle-aged actors in great big bushy beards and sideburns – Shea Whigham, Nick Offerman, Bradley Whitford – and you’ve got yourself a show.

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Pluribus

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The new and highly anticipated Apple TV series Pluribus, from Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad), asks a simple question: What if a proud misanthrope suddenly found herself truly alone? Pluribus stars Rhea Seehorn (Better Call Saul) in a tour de force performance as a miserable romantasy author who escapes an event that swallows practically everyone on Earth. The show is a creepy, lonely, darkly funny look at loss and what makes us human.

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Predator: Badlands

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 15:00:00 +0000

Predator: Badlands is the latest film about an alien race that hunts things using all sorts of space-gadgets. It’s told from the Predator’s perspective. He’s an outcast sent to a hostile planet to hunt down a deadly monster to prove his worth to his people – with Elle Fanning joining as an unlikely ally. It’s from the same team that made Prey. And both Predator movies are much better than they had any right to be.

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Frankenstein And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is a new reimagining of Mary Shelly’s classic gothic horror tale about a misunderstood monster who’s abandoned by his creator and shunned by society. Oscar Isaac is the narcissistic doctor Victor Frankenstein, and Jacob Elordi has a gargantuan yet humanizing turn as The Creature. Now streaming on Netflix, Frankenstein is dark, epic, and preoccupied with the existential dread of life and death.

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I Love LA

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Rachel Sennott’s next project, the HBO series I Love LA, has finally arrived. And like plenty of shows before it, it’s about young people trying to work and socialize in a big city while screwing up in every conceivable way. Sennott stars as an ascendant employee at a boutique talent management firm with a very online crew played by Josh Hutcherson, Jordan Firstman, Odessa A’zion and True Whitaker.

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Hedda

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In the new film Hedda, Tessa Thompson plays a woman bored with her dull husband, and who devilishly manipulates the affections of everyone in her orbit. Writer/director Nia DaCosta makes some bold changes in this adaptation of the classic Henrik Ibsen play Hedda Gabler, and sets almost all of the action during a lavish party gone awry. But this is not your grandmother’s Hedda. It’s sexy, chaotic, and, above all, messy as hell. It’s streaming on Prime Video.

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IT: Welcome To Derry

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In new HBO prequel series IT: Welcome to Derry, we return to the clown who keeps on giving. Based on the Stephen King novel and a prequel to the films It (2017) and It Chapter Two (2019), the show finds a whole new crop of kids being terrorized by whatever lives underneath their little town in Maine. And at the nearby military base, some of the local adults are acting pretty sketchy, too. There is a lot going on and a lot of it is very bloody. Bill Skarsgård returns as Pennywise, but be patient since it takes a while to lay eyes on him.

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Bugonia And What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Bugonia stars Emma Stone as a high-powered CEO who’s kidnapped by conspiracy theorists, one of whom is played by Jesse Plemons. The conflict grows more and more complex and intense — and, given that this is a Yorgos Lanthimos movie, it gets 1) very dark; and 2) very weird.

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If I Had Legs I'd Kick You

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Rose Byrne shows off her dramatic chops in the new movie If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, where she plays a therapist shouldering all the responsibility of caring for her ill daughter while her emotionally absent husband is away for work. Her patients have their own issues, and sometimes they don't grasp the meaning of "boundaries." And her relationship with her own therapist/co-worker, who’s played by Conan O’Brien, is… messy. And that’s only the beginning.

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Halloween Songs

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Who's the Mariah Carey of Halloween? Every year we hear many familiar Halloween songs – from the Ghostbusters theme to “Thriller” to “Monster Mash.” But beyond those Halloween staples, what’s next? Today we've got an episode of NPR’s All Songs Considered that offers up a new canon spooky season songs – from the truly terrifying to autumnal and nostalgic.

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Blue Moon

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

In the new movie Blue Moon, Ethan Hawke plays songwriter Lorenz Hart, who is having maybe the worst night of his life. His long term collaborator Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) has forged a new partnership with Oscar Hammerstein II, and tonight is the opening of Oklahoma!, their first show. And it's safe to say Hart is miserable. Blue Moon is directed by Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise, Boyhood), and co-stars Margaret Qualley.

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Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere And What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

In the new film Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, the currently red-hot actor Jeremy Allen White plays the eternally red-hot rock star, Bruce Springsteen. And yes, White does his own singing. The film tells the story of the 1982 album Nebraska. It came at a time of personal and career uncertainty for Springsteen, and ended up being recorded in a bedroom, without a band. It’s largely a film about fighting to preserve the integrity of your art, which Springsteen does alongside his manager, played by Jeremy Strong.

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Nobody Wants This

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

In the Netflix series Nobody Wants This, Kristen Bell plays an agnostic podcaster, who meets a rabbi, played by Adam Brody. They like each other immediately, but there are some hurdles for them when it comes to being together. The show offers plenty of romantic comedy banter and good chemistry, as well as some pretty deep questions about faith and compatibility. Nobody Wants This just returned for a second season, so today we are revisiting our conversation about the series.

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The Reality TV Show I'd Like To Judge

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

When you watch a competitive reality show, you might think about how you'd win. But maybe you think about a much more powerful role for yourself: the judge. We discuss which reality tv show we’d like to judge - including Top Chef, American Idol, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and Rhythm + Flow.

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Good Fortune

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 07:00:03 +0000

In Good Fortune, Keanu Reeves plays a doofy, well-meaning guardian angel named Gabriel who gets a little too involved in the life of a gig worker named Arj (Aziz Ansari). In trying to teach Arj a life lesson, Gabriel grants him the opportunity to swap places with a finance mogul (Seth Rogen). This mostly buddy comedy is Ansari’s feature directorial debut and has a bit to say about wealth inequality and even some musings on what makes life meaningful.

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Black Phone 2 And What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Grabbers gonna grab, even from beyond the grave. In Black Phone 2, Ethan Hawke returns from the dead as the serial killer who hides behind a demonic mask. It’s four years later, and the siblings (Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw) who survived the Grabber’s killing spree are having a hard time with things. They head off to camp to investigate Gwen's psychic nightmares of the Grabber's early victims.

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Roofman

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 07:00:01 +0000

In the new movie Roofman, Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst ooze with their signature charm and chemistry. Tatum plays an exceptionally savvy military veteran who robs fast food joints by entering through the rooftops. Eventually he gets caught and sent to prison, but he’s able to escape and hides out in a Toys “R” Us for several months undetected. Obviously, he can only survive on M&Ms and keep up the ruse for so long before the roof comes crashing down on him. Consequences!

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After the Hunt

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 07:00:02 +0000

In the new movie After The Hunt, Julia Roberts plays a Yale professor who finds herself in a hard place when one of her star students (Ayo Edebiri) makes an allegation against another faculty member (Andrew Garfield). Who’s telling the truth? Who’s the victim? Is there a victim? Directed by Luca Guadagnino (Challengers, Call Me by Your Name) the film poses a lot of questions. But are any of them answered?

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Kiss of the Spider Woman

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Jennifer Lopez stars in the new film adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman. Set in an Argentine prison, one man (Tonatiuh) tells his cellmate (Diego Luna) the story of his favorite old Hollywood musical, starring the silver screen goddess he worships – that’s J. Lo. The musical is packed with glitz, glamour and songs written by Kander and Ebb, the minds behind Cabaret and Chicago.

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TRON: Ares And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

TRON: Ares is the third film in the franchise, and this time flips the script: Instead of humans entering the digital world, this movie sees human-shaped artificial intelligence programs entering our world. Starring Jared Leto, Greta Lee and Evan Peters, is TRON: Ares an upgrade from the previous movies?

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Most Overused Songs In Movies

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 07:05:03 +0000

Some great songs are so overused in movies, they’ve become cliches. Everyone’s mileage is bound to vary, but we’re rounding up a few songs we love that need to be retired and suggesting a few worthy replacements.

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The Lost Bus

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

In the new movie The Lost Bus, Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera play a bus driver and a teacher who have to transport more than 20 kids to safety when evacuation orders roll in from a wildfire. Based on the 2018 Camp Fire in California, the movie is a harrowing drama, a climate warning, and a disaster film all in one. It’s streaming on Apple TV+.

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Taylor Swift The Life Of A Showgirl

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Taylor Swift just dropped her new album The Life Of A Showgirl. It touches on her relationship with fiancé Travis Kelce while reflecting on fame, normalcy, the Internet, and a simmering beef with a fellow pop star. We’re unpacking the songs, including “Actually Romantic,” “Eldest Daughter,” “CANCELLED!”, and “Ruin The Friendship.”

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The Smashing Machine And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Emily Blunt star in the new sports biopic The Smashing Machine. Johnson plays Mark Kerr, a UFC champion who is reeling from his first major loss in the ring and confronting an addiction to painkillers. Directed by Benny Safdie (Uncut Gems), the wrestling drama pulls out all the classic moves in the awards season playbook. We can smell what The Rock is cooking – but is it a hearty meal?

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Brokeback Mountain

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

This year marks 20 years since Brokeback Mountain hit theaters. The film starred Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as two sheep herders who fall in love in a place and time that keeps them apart. Before its release, Hollywood considered it a huge risk. It went on to be a critical and box office success, but it also made a lot of folks so uncomfortable they made cheap jokes about it for years. Today, its legacy is a tough one to untangle.

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The Lowdown

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

The Lowdown is a great new FX series starring Ethan Hawke as a freelance investigative reporter with a knack for sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong and getting that nose punched. He gets drawn into the seedy goings-on of one of Tulsa’s most prominent families. Created by Sterlin Harjo (Reservation Dogs), the modern-day Western noir comedy has an excellent ensemble including Kyle MacLachlan, Keith David, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Killer Mike.

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Wayward

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

In the new Netflix series Wayward, Toni Collette plays a deeply creepy woman who runs a facility that promises to fix troubled teens. A cop (Mae Martin) moves to town with his wife, who's a graduate of the facility and an acolyte of its leader. And he starts to think something is very, very wrong. Things are not all they seem in the picturesque town of Tall Pines, but you’ll have to watch to find out why.

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One Battle After Another And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

One Battle After Another is an action-thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor and Sean Penn. DiCaprio plays a washed up ex-revolutionary searching for his missing daughter while raging against the machine. In this case, the machine is unabashedly racist, xenophobic, and corrupt. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the ensemble also includes Regina Hall and Benicio del Toro.

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Showgirls

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Showgirls stars Elizabeth Berkley as a Vegas dancer trying to move up from a seedy club to a glamorous hotel show. Paul Verhoeven’s NC-17 movie was a notorious flop, but it is now considered a camp classic and a window into a moment of moral panic. Showgirls turns 30 this year, so today we’re revisiting our conversation about the film.

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Task

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

The new HBO series Task stars Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey in a grim, but stealthily hopeful drama. From the creator of Mare of Easttown, the show is a cat-and-mouse crime thriller about an FBI agent reluctantly dragged back into the field to investigate a series of drug related crimes. The show offers drugs, stolen money, family drama, kidnapping, shootouts, grief, and forgiveness.

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Haunted Hotel

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 12:36:18 +0000

From one of the minds behind Rick and Morty, Netflix’s new animated comedy Haunted Hotel is the perfect mix of fun and creepy to kick off spooky season. Will Forte voices a ghost who previously ran the Undervale, a very, very haunted old hotel. The show follows his attempts to show his family the ropes, vis a vis ghosts, demons, bleeding mirrors, and possession.

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Him And What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 07:00:03 +0000

In the new horror film HIM, Tyriq Withers stars as a young football player who has a chance to be trained by his idol, played by Marlon Wayans. As they train at a mysterious facility in the desert, it becomes clear early on that greatness might not be worth the price. From director Justin Tipping and produced by Jordan Peele, the film takes some big swings you may not fully see coming.

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Fall Guide

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

The fall of 2025 is shaping up to have something for everyone with a fresh Knives Out mystery, Guillermo del Toro’s take on Frankenstein, and a new Emma Stone movie. We’ve got a guide of the TV and films we are most excited to see, including Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, Bugonia, Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice and The Lowdown.

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The Summer I Turned Pretty

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

The TV series The Summer I Turned Pretty features a messy love triangle, plenty of drama, and a LOT of Taylor Swift songs. The show has become a word-of-mouth sensation, with fans obsessing over whether they’re Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah. Now in its final season, the Prime Video series is based on a series of books by Jenny Han (To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, XO Kitty).

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2025 Emmys Recap

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 11:12:13 +0000

This year’s Emmy Awards saw big wins for Adolescence, The Studio, and The Pitt. The telecast was also packed with a couple of surprise wins, a show of undeniable goodwill toward Stephen Colbert, and a tedious recurring bit led by host Nate Bargatze.

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The Long Walk And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

The new film The Long Walk is Stephen King meets The Hunger Games. It takes place in a dystopian America in which one young man from each state competes in a televised event in which they must walk at a steady pace … until they can’t. And when they can’t, they’re killed. It stars Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson and Mark Hamill. (This episode was recorded on September 4, 2025.)

Great Movies With Silly Plots

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 07:05:00 +0000

Have you ever found yourself completely caught up in a film only to find, after the lights come up, that the story didn’t make any sense, yet you loved it anyway? Today, we’re talking about great movies with silly plots – including The Martian, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

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Watch This: Twinless

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Dylan O’Brien and James Sweeney star as unlikely friends in the new movie Twinless. They meet in a support group for people who have lost their twin and form an interesting bond, but there’s a lot they don’t know about each other. Directed and written by Sweeney, the film has a wry sensibility, great chemistry, and dares to take some dark turns you probably won’t see coming.

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The Paper

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

The Paper is a spinoff of The Office, and like its predecessor, it’s a mockumentary about a workplace that's facing financial and cultural headwinds. The Peacock series focuses on a local newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, and stars Domhnall Gleeson, Sabrina Impacciatore, and Chelsea Frei – and brings back a familiar face from The Office, Oscar Nuñez.

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The Conjuring: Last Rites And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

The Conjuring: Last Rites winds down the story of the demon-hunting couple loosely based on Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. They battle one last threat: a house in Pennsylvania that contains a haunted mirror and a terrified family. The Conjuring franchise has generated billions of dollars across many films and spinoffs full of hauntings, demonic possession, and creepy dolls. But does this film have a new story to tell?

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Sabrina Carpenter Man’s Best Friend

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Sabrina Carpenter is following her breakout album Short n’ Sweet with a new collection of cheeky earworms called Man’s Best Friend, which includes the breakout singles “Manchild” and “Tears.” Carpenter explores many of the same lyrical themes as she has in the past — winking innuendo and wry commentary on being a woman in the dating scene. But she kicks it up several notches while playing around with more retro-heavy sounds.

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The Thursday Murder Club

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Netflix’s The Thursday Murder Club is a cozy British mystery set at a posh retirement community. The movie stars Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, and Ben Kingsley as retirees who have formed a club that researches cold cases to pass the time – until a real murder, and a plucky new member, show up on their incredibly bucolic doorstep.

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Caught Stealing

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Austin Butler, Zoë Kravitz and Bad Bunny star in Caught Stealing, the new grungy, throwback film from Darren Aronofsky. Butler plays Hank, a sad sack bartender at a sticky East Village dive bar in the 1990s. When his British punk neighbor Russ, played by Matt Smith, asks him to cat sit, Hank finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. His life comes apart as the criminal underworld becomes convinced he knows where a huge cache of stolen cash can be found. Will Hank fight back? Can he?

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The Roses And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

First a novel and a 1989 hit film, the story of The Roses has been told before. This time around, Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman play a couple whose love curdles into resentment and then hatred. The film features Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon, and is directed by Jay Roach (Meet the Parents, Austin Powers) and written by Tony McNamara (Poor Things, The Favourite).

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Jaws

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Steven Spielberg's Jaws turns 50 this year. It’s been called the perfect movie, the first blockbuster, and the film that changed why we go to the movies. As it returns to theaters, we head back into the water to revisit the classic creature feature with fresh eyes – lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes.

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Songs For When Your Flight Is Delayed

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

If you travel by plane with any regularity, you've been there: stuck in an airport because your flight is delayed. So we thought it best to give your most stressful travel moments a soundtrack. Today, we're recommending three songs for when your flight is delayed.

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Watch This: Long Story Short

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Long Story Short is a very funny and surprisingly moving new Netflix animated comedy series from the folks behind BoJack Horseman and Tuca & Bertie. The show follows members of one Jewish family by hopping around in time. We see the three siblings (voiced by Ben Feldman, Abbi Jacobson and Max Greenfield) as kids, young adults and in middle-age, as they start having kids of their own. They deal with all the things families deal with – the ups and downs of romantic relationships, parenting, work and, ultimately, loss – but it’s also very funny.
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Lurker And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Fame does strange things to people. In the new film Lurker, Théodore Pellerin plays a young retail clerk making his way into the inner circle of a popular rising musician (Archie Madekwe). This friendship is not really built to last and things between them become uncomfortable. Who is manipulating who, and who holds the power, become complicated and painful questions.

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Best John Grisham Adaptations, Ranked

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

There’s a new TV version of The Rainmaker out, so today, we’re ranking the five best John Grisham adaptations – including The Firm, The Pelican Brief, and A Time To Kill. But which one is the very best?

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Our 15th Anniversary Time Capsule

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 09:26:49 +0000

We launched Pop Culture Happy Hour 15 years ago this summer, and we had a lot of pent-up hot takes. To celebrate this milestone, today we’re breaking open a time capsule to revisit some of our memorable early moments and see how they’ve held up.

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Highest 2 Lowest

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 10:32:37 +0000

Spike Lee's new crime thriller Highest 2 Lowest reunites him with his favorite leading man, Denzel Washington. The film is based on Akira Kurosawa’s classic High and Low, and it’s a tense story about a very rich man with a very big problem. Part morality play and part action movie, Washington plays a music mogul who confronts questions of responsibility and power when he believes his son has been kidnapped.

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Alien: Earth And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Alien: Earth is a new TV spinoff of the Alien movie franchise, and as one might expect, it has plenty of Facehuggers, chestbursters, and dark metal corridors. The show brings the infamous Xenomorph to our planet – along with a host of other creepy crawly off-world species – and has them tangle with humans, cyborgs, synthetics and something new. The series comes from the idiosyncratic mind of Noah Hawley (Legion, Fargo) and is airing on FX and streaming on Hulu.

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Bring It On

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

The cheerleading film Bring It On spawned direct-to-video sequels and a Broadway musical. And with an all-star cast of Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku, and Gabrielle Union, the movie remains a quotable classic. But a lot has happened since that might make it feel very timely, or very dated. Bring It On turns 25 this month so today we’re revisiting our conversation about the movie.

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Platonic

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

In the breezy comedy series Platonic, Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne play former best friends who reconnect years after a falling out. The Apple TV+ show follows their misadventures as they try to navigate their respective midlife crises and become friends again. Platonic is back for a second season, so today we are revisiting our conversation about the series.

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Weapons

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

The intriguing and seriously creepy new film Weapons follows what happens after 17 third-graders get out of their beds on the same night, at the same time, and disappear. The community points fingers at the students’ teacher, played by Julia Garner. The latest film from Zach Cregger (Barbarian), Weapons explores why one student was spared that fateful night. There’s a clear answer – but we guarantee it’s not one you’ll see coming.

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Freakier Friday And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis first switched bodies over 20 years ago in the beloved Disney body swap movie, Freaky Friday. They return in the long-awaited sequel, Freakier Friday, which offers twice as many body swaps, fights galore, and a whole lot of jokes about being old and kids these days. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy.

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Y2K Pop Culture

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

We are 25 years into the 2000s, so we wanted to debate: what’s the most definitive piece of Y2K pop culture? We try to pinpoint the essence of that period when teens ruled the culture, viral internet memes first became a thing, and everyone was freaking out about stocking up on duct tape. We talk about Spice World, Get Over It, Britney Spears’ “Oops… I Did It Again” music video, and Janet Jackson’s “Empty.”

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Together

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Every couple goes through certain rites of passage. You date, maybe you move in together, maybe you get married. And maybe a visit to a mysterious cave makes your bodies start to fuse together. That's what happens in the new horror film Together, starring real-life married couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco.

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Wednesday

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 11:50:11 +0000

Wednesday is one of the most popular Netflix shows of all time, and it helped make Jenna Ortega a star. It takes the breakout Addams Family character Wednesday Addams and breaks her out of her home environment. Gomez (Luis Guzmán) and Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) pack her off to their alma mater, the gloomy, gothy Nevermore Academy, and she’s soon drawn into the investigation of a series of grisly murders. Wednesday is about to return for a second season, so today we are revisiting our conversation about the show.

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The Naked Gun And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The Naked Gun franchise has always been a rapid-fire delivery system for gags, delivered straight-faced by a cop who doesn't know that anything is funny. In the new Naked Gun movie, that role is handled by the very straight-faced Liam Neeson. With Pamela Anderson as his femme fatale, Neeson tries to save the world from, quite literally, a plot device. And like the original franchise, this Naked Gun is all about a joke pileup.

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The Hunting Wives

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The Netflix series The Hunting Wives is a soapy murder mystery full of nudity and intrigue, about a group of Texas women who are up to no good. It stars Brittany Snow as a woman who follows her husband from the East Coast to Texas for a job working for a rich businessman and budding politician (Dermot Mulroney). Sophie is immediately enchanted by his sultry wife, played by Malin Åkerman. If you always thought Desperate Housewives would be better if more of the housewives were having sex with each other, this might just be the show for you.

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Happy Gilmore 2

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 07:00:59 +0000

It's been almost 30 years since Happy Gilmore gave Adam Sandler one of his best-loved movie roles. The rowdy golf comedy gets a belated sequel on Netflix — full of callbacks, flashbacks, fan service, and so many cameos from the golf world and beyond. But how does Happy Gilmore 2 compare to the original?

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Song Of The Summer

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Last year was Brat summer and saw the rise of Chappell Roan, Shaboozey, and Sabrina Carpenter. But is there a song of the summer for 2025? Today we're talking about the competing songs of this summer from Justin Bieber, Morgan Wallen, KPop Demon Hunters, PinkPantheress, and more.

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The Fantastic Four: First Steps And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The Fantastic Four are back again in a new movie--and it's an eye-popping good time. The Fantastic Four: First Steps stars Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn as the famously fractious family with amazing powers who tangle with a godlike being who wants to eat the Earth. We've seen this story before, but the vibe is different this time. It's a brighter, boldly colored retro-future with flying cars, semi-helpful household robots and lots of talk about the importance of family.

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Our Favorite YouTube Channels

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Today we're recommending a few of our favorite YouTube channels. These are the ones we find ourselves returning to again and again on subjects including board games, culinary history, silly tasks, celebrity interviews, urbanism — and ear gunk.

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I Know What You Did Last Summer

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 07:00:59 +0000

In the original I Know What You Did Last Summer, some very '90s teenagers are targeted by a killer clad in fisherman's garb and armed with a hook. Nearly 30 years later, a new sequel fires up a very similar plot. The movie includes a new group of young people — including Chase Sui Wonders and Madelyn Cline — and a few key survivors from the first go-'round (Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr.) But does it live up to the legacy of the original?

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Watch This: Sorry, Baby

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Sorry, Baby is a refreshingly disarming movie. The film was written and directed by Eva Victor, who also stars a newly minted professor at the liberal arts college where she received her graduate degree. The school is also where she was once sexually assaulted. The movie takes on a traumatic experience with wry humor and vulnerability — and it announces Victor as a filmmaker and performer to watch.

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Congress has voted to eliminate government funding for public media

Sun, 20 Jul 2025 12:52:48 +0000

Act now to ensure public media remains free and accessible to all. Your donation will help this essential American service survive and thrive. Visit donate.npr.org now.

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Eddington And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Eddington plunges us back into that familiarly distressing time of the early days of the pandemic. Directed by Ari Aster (Hereditary and Midsommar) Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal star as political rivals in a small southwest town. Their conflict collides with the news of George Floyd's murder, which brings tensions to a full-on boil for the whole community.

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KPop Demon Hunters

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The Netflix animated movie KPop Demon Hunters is a phenomenon, with a soundtrack that's climbing the Billboard charts, and a fandom rivaling that of just about any K-pop idol. The film is loads of fun, it's packed with some of the catchiest bangers you'll hear all summer. It's about a superstar girl group called HUNTR/X, who also keeps busy protecting humanity against an army of demons.

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2025 Emmy Nominations

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 00:11:54 +0000

This year's Emmy nominations are out, and it was a good year for familiar favorites like Hacks, The Bear, Abbott Elementary, The Last of Us and The White Lotus. There were also some newcomers that got some love as well including The Pitt, Adolescence, The Studio, The Penguin, and Paradise. We'll unpack this year's the notable nominees and make some predictions in the major categories.

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Too Much

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 07:00:59 +0000

When your long-term boyfriend leaves you for an Instagram influencer, what can you do? In the new Netflix romantic comedy series Too Much, the answer is to go to London for work, and meet a struggling musician who happens to be very, very handsome with a life almost as messy as yours. Starring Meg Stalter and Will Sharpe, and co-created by Lena Dunham, it features a cast full of comedy MVPs, a meet-cute, and a very unusual dog.

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Superman And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 07:00:59 +0000

After much anticipation, there is a pretty great new Superman movie. And he's bringing exactly what we look to him for: hope. Writer and director James Gunn and new Man of Steel, David Corenswet, team up for a new tale of the eternal struggle between evil billionaire megalomaniac Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) and some people in colorful costumes who combine all their powers to stop him. And this time, there's a dog.

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We Rewatch The Movies We Loved As Teens

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 12:32:32 +0000

This summer marks Pop Culture Happy Hour's 15th birthday. We decided to re-watch the movies we loved at 15 with fresh eyes, and of course, some of them have aged better than others. Today on the show, we revisit the movies we loved as teens — including Chicago, Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club, and The Hunger.

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Love Island

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 20:49:40 +0000

Love Island USA is pure chaos, and admittedly: we love it. It's one of many spinoffs of the long-running British hit series, Love Island — and it might be the closest thing we've got to a watercooler event. The latest season of Peacock's knowingly trashy reality dating show has fired up the group chats thanks to this messy batch of conventionally sexy singles. Sometimes, for better or worse, fans even get to stir the pot and decide who stays or goes.

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Great Songs For Your Next Road Trip

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 07:00:59 +0000

If you're thinking about taking a road trip, you're going to need some road trip music. You might need a pick-me-up, a distraction, or something for when you need a break from podcasts. But if you're headed out on the road, we're here to help with three songs to blast on your next road trip.

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Jurassic World Rebirth And What's Making Us Happy

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 07:00:21 +0000

Jurassic World Rebirth is the latest reboot of the beloved franchise. This time around Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey head to a fresh island of mutant dinosaurs, where they experience a familiar mix of splashy kills and not-so-subtle morality tales. But can the film live up to the magic of the original Jurassic Park?

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Squid Game

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Netflix's Korean drama Squid Game became a worldwide phenomenon, winning six Emmys and inspiring countless Halloween costumes. The series has now reached its bloody finale. As the current game concludes, more people die and we find out whether Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) and others can finally end the games for good.

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The Bear

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 07:00:01 +0000

The Bear is back for a new season. The FX on Hulu series sees Carmy and Sydney (Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri) trying to get the restaurant they opened together on its feet before they run out of money. Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is thrown by his ex-wife's approaching wedding and what it's going to mean for him. Plus there's scallop drama, secret negotiations, and guest stars both new and old.

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M3GAN 2.0

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The horror comedy M3GAN spawned memes, made a fortune, and even taught us a lesson about the dangers of outsourcing our humanity to AI. The sequel, M3GAN 2.0, pans out to tell a bigger story about an even deadlier AI killing machine — and brings back the original M3GAN for some hi-tech robot-on-robot violence. Though M3GAN was defeated at the end of the original film, her tech remains — and it's found its way into a rogue AI assassin named Amelia.

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F1 And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

If you like cars that go fast, you'll be glad to know they go very fast in F1 The Movie. The film stars Brad Pitt as a veteran Formula 1 driver and Damson Idris as the young hotshot, who's very talented but a little too cocky. With nine races left in the season, they have to win one, or the whole team could crash and burn.

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Ironheart

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Ironheart is a fun new Marvel series following Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), a brilliant young woman we first met in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. To fund her inventions – including a suit a lot like the one Iron Man used to wear – she falls in with a gang of criminals who rob from the rich led by The Hood (Anthony Ramos). But when her ambitions place the people she loves in danger, she's forced to reckon with her past and her grief. Ironheart is streaming now on Disney+.

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Best Pixar Movies, Ranked

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

It's been nearly 30 years since Toy Story kicked off a historic run of animated films. So now seemed like a good time to discuss the best of the best — YOUR picks for the greatest Pixar films of all time. Thousands of you voted, and we've got the results.

To see our listener's full ranking of Pixar film, check out the list on Letterboxd - at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture

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Elio

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

In the new Pixar film Elio, a lonely kid dreams of being abducted by aliens. And then one day, it happens. Eager to find a place to belong, Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) volunteers to save the aliens from a dangerous enemy. Along the way, he makes a friend and starts to think about Earth a little differently. The film was directed by Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi (Turning Red) and Adrian Molina (Coco).

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28 Years Later And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The new apocalyptic horror film 28 Years Later takes place in the same world as 28 Days Later, where a deadly virus transformed the citizens of the U.K. into rabid blood-spewing creatures. The new film brings back the original's director and screenwriter, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland. It's set on a small island where a group of survivors (including Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson) eke out a modest existence. A desperate expedition reveals new allies and new horrors – because the infected have evolved.

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Watch This: Pee-Wee As Himself

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The new HBO documentary Pee-Wee As Himself isn't the boilerplate Hollywood profile you think it is. You get the biographical details you expect – how young avant-garde artist Paul Ruebens created the persona of Pee-Wee Herman, and the meteoric rise and fall that followed. But you also get a sense of what it cost Reubens to insist that Pee-Wee wasn't simply a persona, but in fact a real person. It's streaming now on Max.

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The Life of Chuck

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Stephen King's work has often contemplated the inevitability of death. But his latest adaptation, The Life of Chuck is a life-affirming film that challenges the cynic in everyone. It has a big cast including Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jacob Tremblay, Mark Hamill, and Nick Offerman. The film was directed and written for the screen by Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass).

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Materialists

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Should you date for love or financial security? That's the central premise of the new movie Materialists. It stars Dakota Johnson at the center of a love triangle with Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans, and is directed by Celine Song (Past Lives).

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How to Train Your Dragon And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 11:33:22 +0000

Disney has been remaking its animated classics for years to great financial success – Lilo & Stitch has been dominating the box office for weeks now. So it's no surprise that DreamWorks is now getting in on the action with a remake of How to Train Your Dragon. It's full of epic battles, majestic countrysides and, of course, dragons galore.
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Almost Famous

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

In Almost Famous, writer and director Cameron Crowe looks at the ecosystem surrounding a rising rock band in the early '70s. Starring Patrick Fugit, Kate Hudson, Frances McDormand, and many more, the movie is a coming-of-age story that touches on journalism, sex, rock 'n' roll, parenthood, and the perils of trying to be cool. Almost Famous turns 25 this year, so today we are revisiting our conversation about the movie.

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Summer Blockbusters

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Fifty years ago Steven Spielberg's Jaws was released in theaters, kicking off the summer blockbuster phenomenon. And you know a summer blockbuster when you see one: It's a film that's hugely popular and as a result, financially successful, and seen by lots of people. But not everyone has seen every last one of them. Today, we fill in some personal blockbuster gaps, and finally see a movie that absolutely everyone saw, except for us — including Armageddon, Beverly Hills Cop II, Ghost, The Fast and the Furious.

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The Phoenician Scheme

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Wes Anderson's new film The Phoenician Scheme is classic Wes Anderson, complete with a great cast delivering heightened dialogue and stylized cinematography. It stars Benicio del Toro as one of Europe's richest men, an amoral industrialist, who, along with his daughter (Mia Threapleton) and a tutor (Michael Cera), travels to convince his business partners to fund his latest venture. But where does the film rank among Anderson's past movies?

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Ballerina And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

John Wick's back in a spinoff new film, Ballerina, starring Ana de Armas. She plays a ballerina-turned-assassin making her way through the international criminal underworld, and crossing paths with some new and familiar faces — including the one and only Keanu Reeves.

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Adults

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 07:00:33 +0000

Every generation gets its versions of a "20-somethings hang out and make mistakes" sitcom, such as Living Single, Friends, New Girl and Broad City. Now Gen Z's got the FX/Hulu series Adults. The silly new series is about a group of friends cohabitating in Queens, New York and it makes for fun and possibly all-too-relatable TV fodder.

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Watch This: Mountainhead

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Succession creator Jesse Armstrong is back with Mountainhead, a new movie with characters who are just as wealthy, powerful, and insecure as the Roy family. Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef and Cory Michael Smith star as four tech moguls gathering for a low-key guys' weekend of poker. But business and unchecked, overinflated egos quickly lead them all down a very dark path.

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Bring Her Back

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The hit Australian horror movie Talk To Me was both very good and deeply unsettling. Now its directors (Danny and Michael Philippou) have returned with Bring Her Back, which ups the ante when it comes to disturbing, nightmarish storytelling. The film stars Sally Hawkins as a woman whose grief manifests in terrifying, ugly ways.

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Karate Kid: Legends And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 30 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The Karate Kid has been sequelized, serialized, spun off and rebooted, and now it's back, as Karate Kid: Legends. The new film stars Ben Wang as a kid who's mentored by Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio, reprising their roles from the franchise. But at its heart, the movie is about a kid who must train hard, learn life lessons, and kick a bully hard in the face.

In honor of Toy Story's 30th anniversary, we're ranking the Pixar movies. What do you think is the best Pixar feature? Vote now! We'll talk about the results in an upcoming episode.

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Are We In A Media Literacy Crisis?

Thu, 29 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Online discourse has become a fun part of enjoying and dissecting big pop culture events. But after seeing all the commentary around Ryan Coogler's Sinners, our pal Brittany Luse has one question: are we in a media literacy crisis? Difference of opinion is one thing, but it feels like some viewers are missing important clues or misreading the film entirely - and it doesn't stop with Sinners. Today we've got an episode of the podcast It's Been A Minute that explores what this could mean for the way we engage with the world at large.

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Lilo & Stitch

Tue, 27 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The new Lilo & Stitch is mostly live-action and retells the original Disney animated film's story of two orphaned Hawaiian sisters and the chaotic alien who upends their lives. The movie deviates from the original in many ways, but the central story is a tale of sisterhood and found family with lots of rowdy chaos along the way. The cast includes Maia Kealoha, Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Zach Galifianakis, and Chris Sanders returns as the voice of Stitch.

In honor of Toy Story's 30th anniversary, we're ranking the Pixar movies. What do you think is the best Pixar feature? Vote now! We'll talk about the results in an upcoming episode.

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The Last Of Us

Mon, 26 May 2025 02:01:59 +0000

Season two of The Last of Us just ended, and to say the story has gone in some new directions is an understatement. The HBO series starring Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal continues to push forward with its complex story while still and always putting the "ick" in "post-apocalyptic."

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Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 23 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

In Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Tom Cruise has to save the world (again). But this time, as the movie stresses repeatedly, the stakes are really, really high. Higher than the buildings Tom sprints across or the planes he fights bad guys on. There's an AI that wants to destroy humanity, and Tom and his allies try to pull off the feat of all our lifetimes. Will he? Does it even matter? It's Tom Cruise doing Tom Cruise things in London, the Bering Sea, and beyond.

In honor of Toy Story's 30th anniversary, we're ranking the Pixar movies. What do you think is the best Pixar feature? Vote now! We'll talk about the results in an upcoming episode.

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Post-Credits Scenes

Wed, 21 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The movie ends, and the credits roll. That used to be your cue to start heading to the parking lot to debrief with your friends. That was before the era of the post-credits scene, which often teases the next installment, or offers one last joke or thrill that you'll miss if you don't stick around. But is it really worth it to stick around? Today we're talking about the state of the post-credits scene, including Sinners, Pixar and Marvel movies, and more.

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Watch This: Murderbot

Tue, 20 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Murderbot is a very smart, very funny new sci-fi comedy series on Apple TV+. The show stars Alexander Skarsgård as a cyborg who works security for a team of hapless, bumbling scientists exploring a dangerous planet. Murderbot hacked its own system and gained free will – a fact it tries to hide from the team, even as it sardonically judges their naïve and foolhardy actions, and craves nothing more than to be left alone to watch soap operas.

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Friendship

Mon, 19 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

In the cringe comedy Friendship, a deeply strange and intense guy forges a troubled friendship with his new neighbor, a TV weatherman, played by Paul Rudd. The film stars Tim Robinson, an SNL veteran who's best known for his work in TV shows like Netflix's I Think You Should Leave.

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Final Destination Bloodlines

Fri, 16 May 2025 20:57:17 +0000

You can't beat death. That's the message of the Final Destination film franchise. Almost 15 years after the last new installment, we're back with Final Destination Bloodlines, a movie all about the fact that you really, really, really can't beat death. It will come for you, and in fact, it may come for your whole family — in the most convoluted, bloody, gnarly ways it possibly can.

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The Star Wars Prequels

Thu, 15 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

When the Star Wars prequels came out, they were polarizing for fans of George Lucas' beloved space opera. The three films - The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith – followed Anakin Skywalker's transformation into Darth Vader. It's been 20 years since the final prequel hit theaters, so it seems like a fitting time to reevaluate the movies.

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Forever

Wed, 14 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

It's not easy being a teenager in love. The hormones are raging, the parents are parenting, and the pressure is on to figure out life after senior year. Judy Blume tackled this in her 1975 novel Forever. It's now been reminaged as a Netflix series centering on a pair of Black high schoolers from showrunner Mara Brock Akil (Girlfriends). And it thoughtfully captures the pangs and joys of young romance in a modern context.

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The Jennifer Hudson Show Spirit Tunnel

Mon, 12 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

If you're a celeb visiting The Jennifer Hudson Show, it's almost guaranteed you're going to make your way down the Spirit Tunnel – and possibly go viral. In just a few seconds, these videos can reveal a lot about a celeb's personality and persona: Do they have rhythm? Are they any good at improv? And how famous are they, really? The answers are (sometimes) really surprising!

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Fight Or Flight

Fri, 09 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The new action movie Fight or Flight finds Josh Hartnett playing a onetime Secret Service agent who is pressured into one more job: fighting off a series of increasingly over-the-top assassins trying to kill a mysterious criminal. And they're all packed onto a plane together. Plus, what's making us happy, including a classic R&B song, a new sports documentary series and a iconic thriller.

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Another Simple Favor

Wed, 07 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Another Simple Favor reunites Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick in a new movie full of murder, deceit, and great hats. Set at a splashy wedding in Capri, it turns out you can't keep a good – or in this case, a very bad – woman down. Directed by Paul Feig (A Simple Favor, Bridesmaids), the film also stars Henry Golding, Allison Janney and Elizabeth Perkins. It's streaming on Prime Video.

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The Met Gala

Tue, 06 May 2025 18:56:23 +0000

Monday was fashion's biggest night: the Met Gala. And our pal Brittany Luse was paying attention to all the best and worst dressed. Today we've got an episode of the podcast It's Been A Minute – they've got a recap of the highs and lows of the night.

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The Four Seasons

Mon, 05 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Tina Fey returns to TV on the charming Netflix comedy The Four Seasons. It's about a group of couples whose friendship dynamic is rocked by their midlife crises. The impressive cast includes Colman Domingo, Will Forte, and Steve Carell. And while the jokes may not fly quite as fast as they did on 30 Rock, Fey's comedic sensibilities are written all over it.

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Thunderbolts*

Fri, 02 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Thunderbolts* is the latest Marvel movie and this one's a bit more fun than they've been lately. It stars Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour and emotionally broken super-people who've done some very bad things. Will they manage to put their guilt aside and come together to form a rag-tag team of losers who somehow manage to save the day?

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The TV Show I'd Like To Live In

Thu, 01 May 2025 07:00:59 +0000

If you wanted to escape reality and move to a fictional TV world, where would you live? Many are dystopian hellscapes and stressful workplaces. But other TV shows are a fun hang. Today, we're talking about TV shows where we'd like to live — including Game of Thrones, Derry Girls, Parks and Recreation, and Gilligan's Island.

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Why We Love TV Weddings

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Weddings make great fodder for TV writers. It's wedding season, so today we're breaking down the different types of TV weddings featured on Friends, General Hospital, A Different World, Grey's Anatomy, Cheers, Schitt's Creek and more.

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Étoile

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Étoile is the latest series from Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator of Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It's about the wacky goings-on between two prestigious but struggling ballet companies, one in New York, and one in Paris. You'll see some of your favorite actors from the Gilmore and Maisel universes all speaking that signature rapid-fire, joke-dense patter. But can a comedy set in the rarified world of professional ballet find its audience – and be funny? Étoile is streaming on Prime Video.

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Summer Guide

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

There was Barbenheimer Summer, then Brat Summer, what will this year bring? Maybe it's the season of actually good superhero movies, like The Fantastic Four and Superman. We've got a guide to the movies and TV we're most excited about this summer, including M3gan 2.0, Pixar's Elio, and Mission: Impossible.

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Conclave

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Pope Francis' death not only led to an outpouring of remembrances. It also unleashed a new wave of memes from the Oscar-nominated movie Conclave. It tells a very fun and very fictional story of the secretive process by which a pope is replaced. It's a twisty political thriller, it's a tense jury drama, and it's got some strong commentary on the state of the Catholic Church. Conclave stars Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini, and it's available to rent or stream at home.

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The Wedding Banquet

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The lovely rom-com The Wedding Banquet has a stellar all-star cast, including Kelly Marie Tran, Lily Gladstone, and Bowen Yang. It's a twisty comedy of errors where proposals, hookups, and harsh words fly. Directed by Andrew Ahn (Fire Island), the film offers a modern take on Ang Lee's classic queer film.

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New TV Comedies You Don't Want To Miss

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

We cover a lot of TV on this show, but we don't get to everything. Today we're recommending some of our favorite recent TV comedies you don't want to miss, including #1 Happy Family USA, The Righteous Gemstones, North of North, and Deli Boys.

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Sinners And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 18 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The very scary movie Sinners finds Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers who open a 1930s juke joint. And opening night does not go as planned. Written and directed by Ryan Coogler, (Black Panther), the film mixes blues music with classic horror in a standoff between the brothers and their friends on the inside and the bloodthirsty – and growing – menace outside.

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Your Friends And Neighbors

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

In the Apple TV+ series Your Friends and Neighbors, a very rich guy reacts to becoming a bit less rich by turning to a life of crime. Played by Jon Hamm, in full charming-but-morally-compromised mode, he starts sneaking into people's and taking their stuff. Part drama and part dark comedy about rich jerks, the series also stars Amanda Peet and Olivia Munn.

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Doctor Who

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The last season of the venerable British science fiction series Doctor Who brought a lot of change. The Doctor is now played by Ncuti Gatwa, who is Black and openly queer. And it marked the return of the showrunner who birthed the modern era of Doctor Who. The show just returned for a new season on Disney+, so today we're revisiting our conversation about the series.

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Warfare

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The new film Warfare dispenses with a lot of things you've come to expect from Hollywood war movies. It's based on the memories of a platoon of Navy SEALS, and attempts to capture the chaos of one specific Iraq War conflict as accurately as possible. The only thing Hollywood about it is its cast of young actors, including Joseph Quinn, Will Poulter, Kit Connor and D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai.

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Drop And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

In the bonkers thriller Drop, Meghann Fahy plays a woman whose first date goes off the rails when she starts getting increasingly alarming message drops from someone nearby. And this potentially romantic dinner turns into a life-or-death situation, real quick.

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Pop Culture That Changed Our Minds

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

At a certain point, most of us settle into a groove with our pop culture consumption. We know what we love and what we're not into. But sometimes, all it takes is one great outlier or a willingness to step outside our comfort zone to make us reconsider what we don't like. Today we're talking about our pop culture revelations, including Friday Night Lights, Train to Busan, the poetry of Mary Oliver, and Watchmen.

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Dying For Sex

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The premise might be a tough sell: a young woman attempts to finally own her sexuality following a terminal diagnosis. In the new show Dying For Sex, Michelle Williams stars as a cancer patient confronting the unsatisfying relationships in her life. The series is also a raunchy sex comedy that suggests it's never too late to insist on your own happiness. And it's got a stellar cast, including Jenny Slate, Rob Delaney, and Sissy Spacek.

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The White Lotus

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 20:59:37 +0000

Season three of The White Lotus just wrapped up, but not before serving up a tropical buffet of sex, betrayal, violence, revenge, privilege, incest, drugs, death, and spirituality. We finally found out whose dead body was floating in the pond way back in the season premiere. From creator Mike White, this season stars Walton Goggins, Carrie Coon, Natasha Rothwell, Aimee Lou Wood, Parker Posey, and Lisa of BLACKPINK fame.

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A Minecraft Movie And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Based on the best-selling game, A Minecraft Movie stars Jack Black and Jason Momoa in a goofy and sprawling adventure full of blocky animals and magical macguffins. Directed by Jared Hess (Nacho Libre, Napoleon Dynamite), the film also features Danielle Brooks and Jennifer Coolidge.

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Daredevil: Born Again

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

In Daredevil: Born Again, Charlie Cox returns as everyone's favorite blind-but-with-heightened-senses Marvel superhero. This time out, he hangs up his horns and throws himself into his career as a lawyer. At the same time, the criminal mastermind Kingpin (played by Vincent D'Onofrio) decides to go straight and run for mayor of New York City. The two men declare a truce, but will it last?

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Survival Of The Thickest

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The delightful Netflix series Survival of the Thickest is about an up-and-coming stylist whose professional and personal ambitions go sideways when she finds herself newly single. With the help of her best friends, she recalibrates her life and steps outside her comfort zone to varying results. It stars the charming comedian Michelle Buteau, who also co-created the show. Survival of the Thickest just returned for a second season, so today we are revisiting our conversation about the series.

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The Studio

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 10:25:34 +0000

In the very funny new satire The Studio, Seth Rogen plays a Hollywood studio head desperately trying to do a job he's afraid of failing at every single day. The Apple TV+ series features comedy MVPs like Catherine O'Hara, Bryan Cranston, and Kathryn Hahn, but also cameos from actors and directors playing themselves — including Anthony Mackie, Zoë Kravitz, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese and Ice Cube.

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Death Of A Unicorn And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 07:00:59 +0000

In Death of a Unicorn, Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega star as dad and daughter facing off against some angry-as-hell horned beasts. Like so many creature features, it poses a direct question amid all the chaos and carnage: Who's the real monster here? The film also stars Will Poulter, Richard E. Grant, and Téa Leoni.

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The Residence

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 07:00:59 +0000

In the new Netflix series The Residence, a dead body shows up in an awkward location: the White House. A sprawling list of suspects try to outsmart a brilliant detective played by Uzo Aduba. She's joined by a cast that includes Giancarlo Esposito, Ken Marino, Randall Park, Kylie Minogue, and many others.

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Dope Thief

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The Apple TV+ series Dope Thief is a great high-stakes crime thriller to stream now. It stars Brian Tyree Henry as a man running a risky con: Robbing small-time drug dealers by posing as a DEA agent. His luck runs out, however, when he and his buddy-in-crime (Wagner Moura) mess with the wrong house.

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Severance

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 07:00:59 +0000

In season two of Severance (streaming on Apple TV+), we got a blowout finale with answers to mysteries and even more layers of weirdness. The show stars Adam Scott as an employee of a sinister corporation called Lumon. He has undergone a process called severance, which separates your work self and home self.

Listen to Short Wave's episode about Severance.

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Snow White And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was Disney's first fully animated feature film back in 1937. Now, it's getting a hi-tech "reimagining" complete with new songs, seven CGI-rendered dwarfs, and live-action leads. Rachel Zegler stars as Snow White, while Gal Gadot plays the Evil Queen with a magic mirror and terrible intentions.

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Novocaine

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 07:00:59 +0000

In the gleefully grisly action movie Novocaine, Jack Quaid plays a sweet, nerdy guy who does not experience physical pain. He falls for a woman (Amber Midthunder) who's determined to get him to leave his safe, risk-averse life behind. That happens in a big and very bloody way when she gets kidnapped by bank robbers, and he sets out to rescue her.

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Oscar-Winner Anora Is Now Streaming

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Anora recently cleaned up at this year's Oscars, winning five awards, including best picture. Directed by Sean Baker, the movie follows an enterprising sex worker (Mikey Madison), who links up with a very rich and very immature young man (Mark Eydelshteyn). Their transactional encounter turns into a quickie Vegas wedding. But her new in-laws are Russian oligarchs, and they'll do everything in their power to put an end to this whirlwind romance. Anora is now streaming on Hulu, so now's your time to catch up with the movie if you missed it in theaters.

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Ayo Edebiri's New Movie Opus

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 07:00:59 +0000

In the new movie Opus, Ayo Edebiri plays a journalist who attends a press event at the compound of a reclusive pop star (John Malkovich) who'd been in hiding for decades. And then, things get weird and questions arise.

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Black Bag And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 14 Mar 2025 07:00:59 +0000

The cool, stylish new Steven Soderbergh film Black Bag is about a group of British spies who discover there's a traitor in their midst. It stars Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett. He's a lie detector expert; she's one of his chief suspects. The thing is: They're married.

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On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 07:00:59 +0000

You should watch the surreal new movie On Becoming a Guinea Fowl. It opens with a Zambian woman finding her uncle's body on the road. His death brings the family together from near and far, but also resurfaces old wounds — wounds the elders would much rather ignore. It's a powerful story about the silence that keeps families from breaking, but only in superficial ways, and with devastating consequences.

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Lady Gaga's Mayhem

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Lady Gaga has kept busy as a singer and actor, but it's been five years since she's released a full-blown pop album. Now, she's back with Mayhem, which has already produced three hits — including the chart-topping Bruno Mars duet "Die With A Smile." It's got bangers, it's got ballads, it's Lady Gaga through and through.

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Best Moments In Live TV

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 07:00:59 +0000

Live television is all about high risk, high reward. Whether it's musical performances, awards ceremonies, sports events, or comedy shows, there's an electric charge to watching something as it's happening. Today, we're debating the greatest moments of live television in pop culture - including a viral news blooper, John Travolta's "Adele Dazeem" flub at the Oscars, Kanye stating "George Bush doesn't care about Black people", and The Beatles making their debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.

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Mickey 17 And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 08:00:59 +0000

Mickey 17 is writer-director Bong Joon Ho's follow-up to the Oscar-winning film Parasite. In the sharply satirical sci-fi film, Robert Pattinson is a manual laborer on a spaceship who just keeps dying. But then he gets reprinted – his memories get downloaded into a new body. What could go wrong? The film also stars Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, and Naomi Ackie.

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Terrible But Bingeable TV shows

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 08:00:59 +0000

What is it about a show that turns you into a bitter-ender, that keeps you dutifully watching every last episode, long after the train has jumped the tracks? Even when you know it's not good, but, for you anyway, it's just good enough to muddle through, all the way to the finale? Today, we're revisiting our conversation about terrible but bingeable TV shows

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Favorite SNL Musical Moments

Wed, 05 Mar 2025 08:00:59 +0000

Perhaps you've heard that Saturday Night Live is celebrating its 50th anniversary — they've mentioned it once or twice. From Lazy Sunday to Domingo to a ton of iconic musical performances, SNL's had a long and fascinating relationship with music. Today, we're talking about some of our favorite SNL musical moments.

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Our 2025 Oscars Recap

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 17:02:36 +0000

This year's Oscars was a big night for Sean Baker's Anora, including wins for best picture and director. The film's star Mikey Madison scored one of the night's few upsets, winning best actress. Adrien Brody, Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña also took home acting wins. We also recap the hilarious bits from host Conan O'Brien, the long and discursive speeches, and show stopping musical numbers.

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2025 Oscars Guide And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 08:00:59 +0000

This year's Oscar nominees include Wicked, The Substance, Emilia Perez, and Conclave. And we watched all the nominated movies so you don't have to. We're making some bold predictions for who will win, plus vouching for who should take home those shiny gold statues.

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Paradise

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 08:00:59 +0000

In Hulu's twisty drama series Paradise, Sterling K. Brown plays a Secret Service agent caught up in a web of intrigue after the president of the United States (James Marsden) is assassinated, with no suspect in sight. But at the end of the first episode, we learn this show is about way more than the murder of the head of state. Paradise was created by Dan Fogelman, who created the hit show This Is Us.

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Zero Day

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 08:00:59 +0000

The Netflix series Zero Day begins with a terrifying moment in which everything in the United States goes briefly offline. Thousands of people die, and even after everything is restored, a widespread panic leads to a government investigation of who did it. With a cast headed by Robert De Niro and Angela Bassett, the show hopes to be a paranoid political thriller for our times.

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Actors Who've Never Been Nominated For An Oscar, But Should Win

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 08:00:59 +0000

The standard line for awards season goes: "It's an honor just to be nominated." But when it comes to the Oscars, there's quite a long list of great performers who have never received this honor. Today, we're talking about some of our favorites who should have at least one Oscar on their mantle — including Pam Grier, John Goodman, Oscar Isaac, and Regina Hall.

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The Monkey And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 08:00:59 +0000

In the new horror-comedy The Monkey, Theo James plays a pair of identical twin brothers who get saddled with a cursed wind-up toy monkey that causes people around them to die freakish, gory deaths. It's based on a Stephen King short story, and directed by Osgood Perkins, who made last year's Longlegs.

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Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 08:00:59 +0000

For more than 20 years on screen, Bridget Jones has been making her way through dating, working, having a baby, and even ending up in jail. Now in the fourth film, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, Bridget (Renée Zellweger) is dealing with a whole new phase of life, and a new pair of possible love interests.

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We Fantasy Cast The Traitors

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 08:00:59 +0000

The Peacock reality show The Traitors continues to be a delightful mix of treachery, foolishness, and Alan Cumming's outfits. In the United States, the cast is made up exclusively of so-called celebrities. So today on the show we're fantasy casting who we think should be on the next season of The Traitors.

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Paddington In Peru

Mon, 17 Feb 2025 08:00:59 +0000

In the new movie Paddington In Peru, Paddington Bear and the Brown family fly across the globe, into the wilds of Peru, in search of Paddington's Aunt Lucy. Along the way, they meet a not-remotely-suspicious singing nun (Olivia Colman) and a boat captain (Antonio Banderas). The adventure that follows involves lost treasure and narrow escapes — and leads to new revelations about Paddington's past, and a new appreciation for what it means to be home.

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Captain America: Brave New World And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 23:43:58 +0000

Anthony Mackie is the new Captain America, and he's finally got his own movie. In Captain America: Brave New World, Cap finds himself battling President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) who is hiding quite a few secrets.

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The Substance

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 08:00:59 +0000

The Substance is a bloody, campy, fiercely feminist body horror film. Demi Moore plays a TV aerobics instructor who learns of a mysterious drug that causes another younger, entirely separate version of herself (Margaret Qualley) to splurt out of her back and assume her consciousness. The movie has earned Moore her first Oscar nomination, and she's the frontrunner in this year's best actress race. So we thought it would be the perfect time to revisit our conversation about the movie.

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Guide To Great Shows On Network TV

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 08:00:28 +0000

In the age of streaming content and "Prestige TV" it's easy to forget that old school TV networks are still out here, pumping out television shows. ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC have launched new series that adopt familiar formats – cop shows, lawyer shows, doctor shows – but each has something special to recommend it. So we're talking about St. Denis Medical, Doc, Doctor Odyssey, Matlock and High Potential.

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2025 Super Bowl

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 11:43:29 +0000

At this year's Super Bowl, the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22. During the halftime show, Kendrick Lamar performed his Grammy-winning diss track "Not Like Us," and brought out special guests Samuel L. Jackson, Serena Williams, and SZA. And we watched plenty of commercials featuring celebrities.

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Love Hurts And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 08:00:59 +0000

In the new action movie Love Hurts, Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan stars as a real estate agent who has remade his life after leaving the employ of his terrifying gangster brother. But when a beautiful and mysterious former associate (Ariana DeBose) returns into his life, everything goes haywire. The movie has hand fighting and a touch of romance--just in time for Valentine's Day.

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You're Cordially Invited

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 08:00:59 +0000

In the raunchy movie You're Cordially Invited, Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon face a mortifying conundrum: Their families' destination weddings have been double-booked for the same weekend. They reluctantly agree to share the venue, but, unsurprisingly, nothing goes smoothly as planned. Directed by Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Neighbors), the movie feels like a familiar throwback to the 2000s.

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2025 Sundance Film Festival: Best Movies

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 08:00:59 +0000

We watched many films at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Today, we're recommending some of the best things we saw, including a thrilling debut from a writer on The Bear, a timely doc about the wave of book bans across America, and a bizarro horror comedy starring Alison Brie and Dave Franco.

For a complete list of the movies we loved at Sundance, Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd

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2025 Grammys Recap

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 14:53:04 +0000

This year's Grammys was a huge night for Beyoncé, who finally won album of the year for Cowboy Carter. Kendrick Lamar picked up record and song of the year for "Not Like Us." And Chappell Roan edged out a crowded field to win best new artist.

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Companion And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

In the smart, twisty thriller-comedy Companion, three young couples gather at a swanky lake house for the weekend. One of the couples is not like the others – that's because the girlfriend (Sophie Thatcher) turns out to be a companion robot, built to satisfy the boyfriend's (Jack Quaid) every fantasy. Inevitably, things go wrong, which sets off a chain of twists and revelations that comes with a body count.

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Mo

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

The excellent Netflix series Mo is about a man who figures out how to get by: how to find work as someone who can't work legally, how to navigate the asylum process as a Palestinian refugee in Texas, and how to care for the people he loves. The show's star and co-creator is the standup Mo Amer. The story dives into immigration, identity, and a family as they work to map out a secure future. Mo just returned for a second season, so in this encore episode, we revisit our conversation about the series.

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Presence

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

In the new Steven Soderbergh film Presence, a family moves into an old house, and weird stuff starts happening. But what's different about this haunted house story is that the movie told from the point of view of the ghost. We only get glimpses of the family, but gradually we start to piece together their brittle dynamic.

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The Pitt

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

The Max hospital drama The Pitt stars ER veteran Noah Wyle. It takes some elements that are common to the medical genre and mixes them with some very contemporary thinking about health care and an inventive structure. Each episode follows one hour in the ER over the course of a very long day – so the layout is less Grey's Anatomy and more 24.

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The Night Agent

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

An FBI agent working in a lonely, secret office in the White House basement gets a phone call. A woman needs help, right away. That's the beginning of The Night Agent, a Netflix spy thriller series full of action and intrigue. Created by The Shield's Shawn Ryan, the series follows Peter and Rose — the agent and the tech expert he's protecting — as they try to uncover a conspiracy that goes right to the heart of the government. The show just returned for a second season, so today we're revisiting our conversation about the series.

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2025 Oscar Nominations

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 22:44:15 +0000

This year's Oscar nominations are out, and if you liked Emilia Pérez, Anora, Wicked, The Brutalist, and A Complete Unknown, then you're in luck. As always, there's an eclectic mix of heavy favorites, left-field surprises, and the dreaded snubs. We give a broad sense of this year's major storylines, while also lamenting a few decisions we found baffling.

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One Of Them Days

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

Keke Palmer is one of Hollywood's most charismatic leads, and SZA is one of the world's biggest pop stars. Now, they've teamed up for the raunchy buddy comedy One of Them Days. The movie is about two best friends in L.A., who endure a wild series of misadventures as they try to make rent over the course of one very eventful day. It's rowdy and profane, but it's also got something to say about gentrification, predatory businesses, and other factors that make it hard to survive and advance in America.

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The Brutalist And What's Making Us Happy

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

The new movie The Brutalist is earning a lot of Oscar buzz. Adrien Brody plays a fictional Hungarian architect who settles in America after his family is torn apart during World War II. It's a three-and-a-half-hour epic with much to say about assimilation, wealth, and the creative process.

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Wolf Man And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 17 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

Everything old is new again, it seems, and there's no reason that wouldn't apply to werewolves. We now have a chance to enjoy a new Wolf Man starring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner. Directed by Leigh Whannell (The Invisible Man), it maintains that sometimes the monster is inside you all along. Plus, we take a minute to remember director David Lynch.

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XO, Kitty

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

The Netflix series XO, Kitty is a spinoff of the hit YA book and movie franchise, To All the Boys I've Loved Before. The show follows the messy adventures of teenage matchmaker Kitty Song Covey (Anna Cathcart), who moves across the globe to be with her long-distance boyfriend in Korea. The show is a mash-up of genres, including rom-coms, Korean dramas, and coming-of-age tales. XO, Kitty just returned for a second season, so in this encore episode, we're revisiting our conversation about the series.

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American Primeval

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

In Netflix's gritty, brutal Western series American Primeval, Betty Gilpin plays a woman determined to get herself and her son across the frontier. But along the way, they find themselves caught up in a brewing war between the federal government and a violent Mormon militia. A gruff guide (Taylor Kitsch) might be of some help, but the land is rife with violent factions with competing claims to the blood-soaked soil.

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The Best One-Hit Wonders

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

Some bands are The Beatles and some singers are Beyoncé: Smash after smash, their legend grows. And some artists aren't. For any one of a bunch of reasons — commercial, artistic and mysterious — some artists have one big hit song, but they don't have others. But what makes for a great one-hit wonder? Today we're debating: what is the best one-hit wonder of all time.

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The Last Showgirl And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 10 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

In the new movie The Last Showgirl, a woman finds herself with few options as she approaches the end of her long career as a dancer in Las Vegas. The film marks a new chapter in the star-crossed acting career of Pamela Anderson. Directed by Gia Coppola, it tells a story about aging, parenthood, the underbelly of show business, and what happens when the world no longer buys what you're selling.

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Hot Moms In Film

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

In the past year, there have been a lot of movies that feature older women falling in love with much younger men. There's The Idea Of You, A Family Affair, Lonely Planet, and Babygirl, just to name a few. But why now? Today we're bringing you an episode of the NPR podcast It's Been A Minute. In this episode, host Brittany Luse sits down with New York Magazine features writer Rachel Handler to unpack what these films say about Hollywood's changing attitudes towards older women and why the category of, quote-unquote, "women's film" still feels behind the times. behind the times.

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Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is the latest film in the beloved stop-motion animation series. This time, clueless inventor Wallace and his long-suffering pooch Gromit are dealing with Wallace's latest invention, a robotic garden gnome. But when an old enemy gets involved, they must face down an army of evil robots and expose the criminal mastermind behind it all.

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Great Movies We Missed

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

We covered dozens of new movies in 2024, some we loved, some we didn't, and everything in between. And there are always a few favorites that we don't get a chance to talk about. Today, we're making recommendations for great movies we missed in 2024.

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Nickel Boys

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

Adapted from the Pulitzer prize-winner novel from Colson Whitehead, Nickel Boys tells the story of two Black boys who form an unshakeable bond at a segregated reform school in the Jim Crow South. It's quite ambitious and unlike other prestigious book to film adaptations you've probably seen — most of it unfolds in the first-person perspective.

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Squid Game

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000

The Korean drama Squid Game became the most popular offering in Netflix's history by combining pitch-black satire of late-stage capitalism with bloody violence. In Season 2, Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) winds up sucked back into the games, where he must fight for his life, try to destroy the system from the inside, and rally new players to his cause.

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2025 Pop Culture Resolutions And What's Making Us Happy

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

As a new year arrives, it's only natural to have some goals in mind: What you want to achieve, what heights you want to hit. Today, we make pop culture resolutions for 2025, and look back on last year's goals and assess our progress with brutal honesty.

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2025 Pop Culture Predictions

Mon, 30 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

Nobody can predict what the future holds, but that doesn't stop us from trying. Trying, that is, to predict what will happen in the world of pop culture in 2025. We do it every year, so we'll look back on our predictions for 2024 and see how things turned out.

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A Complete Unknown and What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

A Complete Unknown isn't a traditional biopic. Instead of covering Bob Dylan's life story from birth to old age, it covers the period shortly after his arrival in New York City, as he first begins to fall in with the city's folk music scene. Timothée Chalamet plays Dylan — and does all his own singing. We see Dylan become a superstar, as well as his famous set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival —where he and his band plugged in for an electrified set that's often viewed as a cultural turning point in America.

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Babygirl

Thu, 26 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

In the new movie Babygirl, Nicole Kidman plays a high-powered CEO who has an affair her mysterious intern (Harris Dickinson). Their affair gets complicated by the many power dynamics involved — not just in the office, but also in a sexual relationship defined by dominance and submission.

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Nosferatu

Wed, 25 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

Nosferatu is a Dracula story with a twist. It stars Lily Rose-Depp as a new bride stalked by an evil bloodsucking creature of the night who brings death and terror in its wake. A handful of stalwart men – including her husband, played by Nicholas Hoult – attempt to defend Rose-Depp's virtue and defeat the undead scourge.

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Juror #2

Tue, 24 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

Some people hate jury duty, but in Clint Eastwood's new film Juror #2, one guy's experience is worse than most. Nicholas Hoult plays a man assigned to serve on a jury who gradually realizes that the defendant might not be guilty. And he might just know who is. The film also stars Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons, and Kiefer Sutherland. It's streaming now on Max.

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Laid

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:00:54 +0000

The new Peacock series Laid is a very dark rom-com. Stephanie Hsu plays a young woman who discovers that all of her exes have started to die under mysterious, sometimes freakish, circumstances. This causes her to conduct a kind of sexual audit of her life, and she sets out to warn everyone she's ever slept with that they are about to die. It's funnier than it sounds, and makes for a good holiday hangover binge.

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Mufasa: The Lion King And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

It's been five years since Disney remade its animated classic The Lion King as a photorealistic blockbuster. This leads us to Mufasa: The Lion King, a new prequel telling the story of Mufasa's rise — as well as the origins of his rivalry with Scar. The film was directed by Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk) and features new songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda.

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Best Movies To Watch On An Airplane

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

Watching a movie on a plane can be a great way to pass the time if you're traveling for the holidays – particularly if you're going a long way. But picking the right movie can be very tricky. Today, we're debating the best movies to watch on an airplane, and making recommendations, including Moana, Jackie Brown, The Holdovers, and The Lion in Winter.

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Bad Sisters

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

We first met the Garvey sisters two years ago when the Apple TV+ series Bad Sisters made its debut. The show follows four sisters in Ireland who are hell bent on murdering the husband of the fifth sister. Now, the series is in its second season, with more banter, wickedness and secrets. Today we're bringing you an episode of the NPR's podcast Consider This, where host Mary Louise Kelly caught up with creator and star Sharon Horgan to talk all about the new season.

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No Good Deed

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

Nobody ever said the housing market was easy. In the new Netflix ensemble dark comedy No Good Deed, a couple played by Lisa Kudrow and Ray Romano, along with several other couples and families, get tangled up in the sale of a home that holds a secret.

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Queer and What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

The movie Queer stars Daniel Craig as you've never seen him: as a junkie prowling the streets, hooking up, shooting up and guzzling tequila. He meets a handsome young man (Drew Starkey) he longs to connect with, and they embark on a quest into the jungle in search of a drug that will unite them on a deep, spiritual level. Directed by Luca Guadagnino (Challengers, Call Me By Your Name), the film is based on a short novel by William S. Burroughs.

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It's A Wonderful Life

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

For a lot of people, It's A Wonderful Life is the Christmas movie. George Bailey's story of learning how much you really matter to the world has family, community, an angel, a mean rich guy, and a little kid playing carols on the piano. It has become a staple of holiday viewing, so we thought it was a perfect time to revisit our discussion about the movie.

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2024 Pop Culture Favorites

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

We check out a lot of things in a given year: Lots of movies, TV shows, and music. Today, we are highlighting some of the best pop culture moments we enjoyed the most in 2024.

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Black Doves

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 10:51:58 +0000

The new Netflix series Black Doves is a pulpy and stylish British spy show starring Keira Knightly and Ben Whishaw. Knightly plays a politician's wife who's been secretly funnelling information to a mysterious spy network for years, and Whishaw plays her old partner who's been out of the game. But when Knightly's character gets targeted, Whishaw's returns to protect her. It's all set in London at Christmastime, so if you like your holiday cheer spiced with British wit and gunplay, Black Doves may be for you.

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Nightbitch And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

The new movie Nightbitch stars Amy Adams as an exhausted stay-at-home mom to a toddler. Missing her career and frustrated by her inattentive husband (Scoot McNairy), her woes begin to manifest in a bizarre way: She transforms into a dog at night. She enjoys tapping into her animal instincts. But eventually, she's forced to confront her resentments toward motherhood and the lack of support from her husband.

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2024 Holiday Movie Guide

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

It's holiday movie season, and there are so many new movies to choose from. So where do you start? We've got you covered. This year we've got the return of Lindsay Lohan, a shirtless Chad Michael Murray, and a cameo from Travis Kelce's mom. We discuss: Our Little Secret, Meet Me Next Christmas, Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story, and The Merry Gentleman.

Check out Linda's full holiday movie guide here.

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Great Movies Under 90 Minutes

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

What do you do when you need a good movie, but you don't have much time? The answer is that you find a short one. In this encore episode, we recommend three films that deliver a lot of punch without taking up your whole day.

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The Madness

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000

In the Netflix series The Madness, Colman Domingo plays a CNN pundit who witnesses a brutal murder, and then finds himself on the run as he's framed for the crime. What follows is a paranoid thriller full of sinister forces, evil billionaires, underground militias, devious assassins, and lots of red herrings.

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Interior Chinatown

Fri, 29 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

The super-meta Hulu series Interior Chinatown mashes up a whole bunch of genres — including kung fu movies and police procedurals — to explore Asian-American identity in interesting ways. Jimmy O. Yang plays a waiter who dreams of a more exciting life outside his close-knit community. After witnessing a crime, he has a chance to help investigators solve the case — and he soon realizes he's more deeply connected to the mystery than he initially thought. The show was created by Charles Yu, who based it on his own novel.

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Moana 2 And What's Making Us Happy

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

In the hit Disney film Moana, a girl (Auli'i Cravalho) finally gets her chance to see more of the world. And with a whole new batch of songs, in Moana 2, she's older and has a new purpose. With the help of her chicken, her pig, and her demigod pal Maui (Dwayne Johnson), Moana wants to reunite her island with people from across the ocean.

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The Piano Lesson

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

You may not see Denzel Washington in the new Netflix film adaptation of the August Wilson play The Piano Lesson, but his influence as producer – and parent – is unmistakable. Denzel's son Malcolm Washington is the director, and his son John David Washington plays one of the leads alongside Danielle Deadwyler and Samuel L. Jackson. It's a story about family, legacy and community. And the hauntings both literal and figurative make a big impression.

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A Man On The Inside

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

The charming Netflix sitcom A Man on the Inside stars Ted Danson as a lonely widower who's hired by a private investigator to live undercover in a senior living facility. His mission is to find out who stole a precious item from one of the residents. Created by Michael Schur (The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), the series is also a tender and poignant depiction of loss, aging, and finding community.

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Wicked And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

The musical Wicked is a bold, revisionist take on The Wizard of Oz. It imagines that back in college, the Wicked Witch of the West (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda the Good Witch of the North (Ariana Grande) were best friends. The sprawling film delivers lavish spectacle, costumes, music, and choreography. But does the long-awaited film live up to the hype?

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Gladiator II

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

The new film Gladiator II is a sequel to Gladiator, Oscar-winning swords-and-sandals blockbuster that starred Russell Crowe. It tells a similar tale — a soldier, sold into slavery, becomes a gladiator in the Roman arena. This time out, it's Paul Mescal whose prowess in the coliseum earns him fame that threatens Rome's tyrannical rulers. Directed by Ridley Scott, the film also stars Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington.

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A Real Pain

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

The moving dramedy A Real Pain stars Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin as two very different cousins attempting to reconnect by going on a heritage tour of Poland. As they make their way across the country, they mourn their late grandmother, confront the fractures in their relationship, and reckon with the grief left in the wake of the Holocaust. A Real Pain was written and directed by Eisenberg.

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The Best Movie Musical Numbers

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

If you've ever loved a movie musical, then you've probably got a favorite movie musical number — a song that makes you want to sing along, swoon, celebrate, or simply dance with the nearest lamppost. But what makes these moments great? With Wicked hitting theaters, there's never been a better time to debate the best movie musical numbers.

For even more of our favorite movie musical numbers, check out our list at Letterboxd — at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture.

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Red One And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

In the deeply goofy Christmas action comedy Red One, the holiday season comes to an emergency halt when Santa (J.K. Simmons) is kidnapped. It's up to his head of security, played by Dwayne Johnson, and a ne'er-do-well played by Chris Evans to save Christmas.
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Say Nothing

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

One night in Belfast in 1972, a mother of ten was abducted from her home in front of her children and never seen again. But the new FX series Say Nothing isn't just true crime – it's part of a more complex history. Because this particular woman was kidnapped and killed by members of the Irish Republican Army during the period known as the Troubles. And decades later, one of the women involved in her disappearance still grapples with her memories and whether to tell the truth about what happened.

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Emilia Pérez

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

Emilia Pérez is Netflix's new divisive musical about a Mexican cartel boss who disappears from the criminal underworld to create a new life as a woman. But when her love for her kids proves overpowering, she ingratiates herself back into their lives, posing as a distant relative. The movie stars Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, and Selena Gomez.

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Can't Sleep? Catch Some ZZZs With These Songs

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

There are songs you want to groove to, and songs you want to pump up to. But sometimes, you just want something for the come down at the end of a long day. If you're having trouble sleeping in silence, or are just looking for some new songs to throw into your bedtime rotation, we've got you covered. In this encore episode, we are recommending three great songs that will help you fall asleep.

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Heretic And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

In the claustrophobic thriller Heretic, two young Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) knock on the door of a charming man played by Hugh Grant. At first he seems genuinely interested in learning more, and invites them in. But it quickly becomes clear that this guy doesn't actually want to have a good-faith discussion.

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Tom Hanks Explains How To Deal With Attention

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

Today, we're bringing you an episode of How To Do Everything, a new NPR podcast from the team behind Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! On each episode, Mike Danforth and Ian Chillag offer practical advice for everyday problems — like how to tell if you smell, or how to get close to a panda — with help from celebrity guests. This episode, their guest is Tom Hanks. Mike and Ian also help a listener who's curious about world fame. Plus, a bottoms-up approach to recognizing your family members. Follow How To Do Everything on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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YouTube Rabbit Holes That Are Great Distractions

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

Elections can be pretty stressful. And it never hurts to have some emergency distractions on hand if you just need to shut down for a while. One of our favorites is YouTube: a place for the good, the bad, the bizarrely detailed, and the wildly specialized. Today, we're talking about our favorite YouTube rabbit holes that are great distractions.

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The Penguin

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 08:00:59 +0000

In the HBO new series The Penguin, an unrecognizable Colin Farrell reprises his role as Oswald Cobb from The Batman. This time though, the caped crusader is nowhere to be found. Instead, we've got an unexpectedly fresh take on Gotham, and a crackling turf war involving the vengeful daughter of a crime boss, played by Cristin Milioti.

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Tom Hanks' Movie Here And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 07:00:59 +0000

What if you spent eternity in one living room? That's the premise of Here, a new drama starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as a married couple whose lives unfold in that living room over the course of many decades. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the film also shows vignettes of other people who lived in the house, and moments throughout history.

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The Diplomat

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 07:00:59 +0000

In the Netflix drama The Diplomat, Keri Russell plays an ambassador who's thrust into an international incident with massive stakes. She's also sorting through a tumultuous marriage with her husband, a hotshot veteran diplomat (Rufus Sewell). The series combines the tension of Homeland with the administrative drama of The West Wing. The Diplomat just returned for a new season, so in this encore episode, we revisit our conversation about the series.

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Conclave

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 10:01:54 +0000

The new movie Conclave is a fun and twisty political thriller. Ralph Fiennes plays a cardinal tasked to managing the secretive process in which the pope is replaced. The film offers plenty of scandals, surprises, and dark horses, along with some strong commentary on the state of the Catholic church. Directed by Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front), the film also stars Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini.

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Agatha All Along

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 07:00:59 +0000

Agatha All Along is a darkly funny new Marvel show on Disney Plus. It stars the selfish, sardonic and hilariously petty witch Agatha Harkness, played by the great and good Kathryn Hahn. When a mysterious goth teen saves her from a spell she's been trapped in, she assembles a coven of witches so they can together undergo a series of trials that will grant them each what they most desire. The thing is – the other witches hate Agatha's guts, and there's more to this goth kid than meets the eye.

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Venom: The Last Dance And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 25 Oct 2024 07:00:59 +0000

In Venom: The Last Dance, Tom Hardy returns for a third time as a sad-sack loser with an alien symbiotic life-form bonded to him. This time out, it's a buddy comedy and road movie, as the two are hunted by another race of aliens. And along the way, they meet some hippies, hit the Vegas strip, and get in a quick dance number.

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Woman Of The Hour

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 07:00:59 +0000

Netflix's Woman Of The Hour is not your conventional serial killer movie. It's based on the true story of a serial killer who appeared on The Dating Game in the 1970s. But it's also about the women who became — or almost became — his victims. Directed by and starring Anna Kendrick, it's a tense, thoughtful film that has much to say about the systems that make life easier for dangerous and otherwise crummy men.

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We Watch Classic Movies For The First Time

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 07:00:59 +0000

We've all been there. A major movie is mentioned, you shrug, sheepishly, and someone says, "I can't believe you've never seen that!" Today, we make a dent in our own lists of classic films we somehow had not yet gotten to, including Erin Brockovich, Flower Drum Song, Enter the Dragon and Raging Bull.

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Anora

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 07:00:59 +0000

The new movie Anora is a dark rom-dramedy about an enterprising sex worker (Mikey Madison) who links up with a very rich and very immature young man (Mark Eydelshteyn). Their transactional encounter turns into a quickie Vegas wedding. But her new in-laws are Russian oligarchs, and they'll do everything in their power to put an end to this whirlwind romance. Anora is the latest feature from writer and director Sean Baker (The Florida Project). Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture.

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Smile 2 And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 18 Oct 2024 07:00:59 +0000

The horror movie Smile was a massive hit. Its flashy new sequel Smile 2 finds the franchise's terrifying entity infecting a new host: a pop star (Naomi Scott) who's about to head out on tour after experiencing a trauma. And the movie has a lot to say about the horrors of pop stardom.

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We Live In Time

Thu, 17 Oct 2024 07:00:59 +0000

Two people meet, they fall in love, and someone gets sick. The new film We Live In Time tries to bring something new to that familiar story of the preciousness of life. Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield laugh and cry as a couple trying to make the most of their time together. Director John Crowley (Brooklyn) utilizes an unconventional structure that jumps around from their first meeting to their later crisis and several key points in between.

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The Pop Culture That Scared Us As Kids

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 07:00:59 +0000

A lot of us are about to have the experience of opening our front doors to find witches, goblins, ghosts, and Moo Deng standing on our porches. Why? Because it's almost Halloween. In this encore episode, we talk about what kinds of entertainment scared us when we were kids, and whether they still scare us now.

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Disclaimer

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 07:00:59 +0000

In the powerful new Apple TV+ drama Disclaimer, Cate Blanchett plays a woman who's terrified after she's sent a novel that's based on a chapter of her past that she's desperate to keep secret. From Oscar-winner Alfonso Cuarón, the series was also stars Kevin Kline, as a man who's also consumed by the events recounted in the book.

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Saturday Night And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 06:00:59 +0000

The new film Saturday Night attempts to capture the chaotic 90 minutes leading up to the very first broadcast of Saturday Night Live. Untried producer Lorne Michaels (played by Gabriel LaBelle) and his cast of complete unknowns prepare to make television history. At the same time, network suits breathe down their necks, and just about everything that can go wrong does.

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Pop Culture Pumpkin Spice Lattes: Basic But We Love It

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 07:00:59 +0000

The word "basic" often gets thrown around to describe anything that's mainstream, popular, frictionless, or otherwise inoffensive. But sometimes basic stuff is just what we crave, whether it's a binge-watch, a popular song, or a pumpkin spice latte. It's fall, so today we're talking about what we're calling... Pop Culture Pumpkin Spice Lattes.

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SNL, Late Night, And The Election

Wed, 09 Oct 2024 07:00:59 +0000

We're in a pretty critical election year. And in times like these, a lot of us are turning to political comedy to help make sense of (and fun of) the bizarre, ongoing news cycle. Today on the show, we're talking about how late night comedy shows like Saturday Night Live, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and The Daily Show are speaking to the moment.

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A Different Man

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 07:00:59 +0000

The off-beat psycho dramedy A Different Man follows Edward (Sebastian Stan), an aspiring actor living with facial disfigurement. He takes an opportunity to try a new procedure and reconstruct his appearance. But then, he encounters a guy with the same condition he once had, and who lives a fun, fulfilling life. To put it mildly, Edward now has some regrets.

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Joker: Folie à Deux And What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 07:00:59 +0000

The new film Joker: Folie à Deux is the sequel to 2019's Joker, which won Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar. This new film is a courtroom drama and a romance tossed into a musical blender set to liquefy, as the Joker goes on trial for the murders he committed in the last film and falls in love with a groupie played by Lady Gaga.

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