Pop Culture Happy Hour
NPR
Get obsessed with us. Five days a week, Pop Culture Happy Hour serves you recommendations and commentary on the buzziest movies, TV, music, books, videogames and more. Join arts journalists Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Stephen Thompson, and Aisha Harris - plus a rotating cast of guest pop culture aficionados. The Happy Hour team leaves room at the table for exploring a range of reactions and opinions on every bit of the pop universe. From lowbrow to highbrow to the stuff in between, they take it all with a shot of cheer.
Make your happy hour even happier with Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus! Your subscription supports the podcast and unlocks a sponsor-free feed. Learn more at plus.npr.org/happyhour
Location:
Washington, DC
Networks:
NPR
Description:
Get obsessed with us. Five days a week, Pop Culture Happy Hour serves you recommendations and commentary on the buzziest movies, TV, music, books, videogames and more. Join arts journalists Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Stephen Thompson, and Aisha Harris - plus a rotating cast of guest pop culture aficionados. The Happy Hour team leaves room at the table for exploring a range of reactions and opinions on every bit of the pop universe. From lowbrow to highbrow to the stuff in between, they take it all with a shot of cheer. Make your happy hour even happier with Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus! Your subscription supports the podcast and unlocks a sponsor-free feed. Learn more at plus.npr.org/happyhour
Twitter:
@NPR
Language:
English
Contact:
635 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20001 (202) 513-3232
Episodes
Deadpool & Wolverine and what's making us happy
7/26/2024
In the highly meta Deadpool & Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman finally meet up for their own big movie. Deadpool is still smarmy, Wolverine is still tragic, and they have to get together to save the world. Along the way, Deadpool continues his usual routine of endless wisecracking. The movie is jam-packed with fan service and Easter eggs. But how will casual Marvel fans like the movie?
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:23:43
In The Decameron, the Black Death makes for black comedy
7/25/2024
In Netflix's weirdly compelling dark comedy The Decameron, the bubonic plague is ravaging Florence in 1348. A group of rich nobles and their servants decide to retreat to a picturesque villa in the country to wait it all out. The large ensemble includes Tony Hale and Zosia Mamet. Every character is hiding something, and those secrets get revealed — and more than a few uglies get bumped.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:17:34
Three great karaoke songs
7/23/2024
What makes a good karaoke song? In this encore episode, we're suggesting three great songs to sing at karaoke night.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:09:55
Sunny is a robot buddy comedy about loss
7/22/2024
In the new Apple TV+ series Sunny, Rashida Jones stars as a woman living in Kyoto, whose husband and young son go missing in a plane crash. To help console her, her husband's electronics company gives her a robot companion. The show is an interesting mix of styles and genres – it's a buddy comedy, a crime thriller and a drama about loss. But at the center of it all is the mystery of what happened to her husband and son – and why.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:14:55
Twisters and what's making us happy
7/19/2024
Twister was one of the biggest disaster movies of the '90s. Now, it's finally got a sequel — one with an all-new cast, state-of-the-art effects, and a whole lot of tornadoes. The new film stars Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones as rival storm-chasers who have a habit of running into tornadoes while everyone else is fleeing. Twisters was directed by Lee Isaac Chung, who also directed the Oscar-nominated Minari.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:27:04
We unpack the 2024 Emmy nominations
7/17/2024
The nominations the Emmy Awards were just announced, and it was a good day for The Bear, which set a new record in the comedy category. And plenty of our favorites also got Emmy nods, including Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Shōgun, Reservation Dogs and What We Do in the Shadows. We'll help you unpack this year's the notable nominees and snubs.
Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:25:29
Exploding Kittens is a simple card game turned wild cartoon
7/16/2024
The best-selling card game Exploding Kittens has been adapted into a new Netflix animated series. It does plenty of its own world-building: God (Tom Ellis) and the devil (Sasheer Zamata) are sent to earth, where they take the form of talking cats — and meddle in the lives of a struggling family.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:15:45
Longlegs is a (satanic) panic
7/15/2024
They're calling it the scariest movie of the year. The new horror film Longlegs follows FBI special agent Lee Harker (Mika Monroe) tracking a serial killer in the 1990s. If that sounds like familiar ground, consider this – the clues she follows hint at the involvement of the occult in general and Satanism in particular. And the killer in question: Nicolas Cage, uncaged.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:14:28
Fly Me to the Moon and what's making us happy
7/12/2024
The cheeky new romantic dramedy Fly Me to the Moon stars Scarlett Johansson as a NASA publicist at the height of the space race. She must stage a top-secret fake version of the moon landing as backup, just in case the real attempt fails. No one else at NASA can know about it — especially the upstanding launch director, played by Channing Tatum. The pair clash (and flirt) as they prepare for Apollo 11 to launch.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:17:47
Three great sports documentaries
7/11/2024
Sports aren't just games. They're intertwined with epic stories about struggle, human behavior, historic greatness and grand emotions. In other words, sports make for great documentaries. And if you're looking for some good ones, we've got recommendations: Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks, The Armstrong Lie, and Athlete A.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:09:34
Despicable Me 4 serves up 90 minutes of bankable mayhem
7/10/2024
Despicable Me 4 is the latest film in an animation franchise that made household names of reformed supervillain Gru (Steve Carrell) and his army of nattering Minions. The franchise has grossed billions of dollars, and the latest movie topped the weekend box office. But are these films growing up with their audience, or continuing to cater to young kids? And does that matter?
Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:16:43
How we entertain and amuse ourselves on a road trip
7/8/2024
It's summer, so we're talking all about road trips. Should you blast music that's familiar or unfamiliar? What makes for a good road trip audiobook? What are some road trip games we hate? Pop Culture Happy Hour talked all about how to entertain and amuse ourselves in the car way back in 2012. Today, in this encore episode, we're revisiting that conversation.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:11:54
MaXXXine and what's making us happy
7/5/2024
The new movie MaXXXine stars Mia Goth as an adult-film actress who gets her big break in Hollywood, only to be revisited by horrors from her past. Set in 1985 Los Angeles, it's the final film in director Ti West's beloved horror trilogy that began with the movie X. MaXXXine also features performances from Kevin Bacon, Elizabeth Debicki, and Giancarlo Esposito.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:20:49
Bowen Yang thinks being present is overrated
7/4/2024
The Pop Culture Happy Hour team is off today, so we're bringing you an episode of the NPR podcast Wild Card with Rachel Martin. This episode is an interview with Bowen Yang. He is the first Chinese American cast member on SNL, the co-host the podcast Las Culturistas, and he starred in the rom-com Fire Island. He talks to Rachel about living too much in the present, hard truths from Tina Fey, and why the afterlife should have a rollercoaster.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:28:04
Megan Thee Stallion sheds her skin on Megan
7/3/2024
A lot has happened to rapper Megan Thee Stallion over the last couple of years including a highly publicized trial after being shot by a former friend, a messy breakup, and a feud with artist Nicki Minaj. She confronts all of that and more on her boastful and vulnerable new album Megan. But she also has fun on playful tracks like 'Down Stairs DJ' and 'Otaku Hot Girl' that are odes to self-pleasure and her anime nerddom.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:19:59
Yes, chef: The Bear has a lot going on in its third season
7/2/2024
The Bear just returned for its third season and it's still one of the most stressful and most interesting shows on TV. Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) are launching their new fine dining restaurant, but he's estranged from some of the people who are closest to him just as he sneaks up on a new level of success. The series is streaming now on Hulu.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:24:48
In A Quiet Place: Day One, Lupita Nyong'o makes silence golden
7/1/2024
In the post-apocalyptic world of A Quiet Place, aliens kill anyone who makes a sound, forcing humans into a near-silent existence. The new movie A Quiet Place: Day One takes us back to the beginning, but this time through the eyes of a terminally ill cancer patient played by the excellent Lupita Nyong'o.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:16:49
Kinds of Kindness and what's making us happy
6/28/2024
Kinds of Kindness is a weird, dark, and bleak film. It's directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things) and it re-teams him with Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe, along with Jesse Plemons. Each actor plays different characters in three different stories — which all involve someone going to extreme measures to regain something they've lost.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:23:25
Lily Gladstone's Fancy Dance is a road trip worth taking
6/27/2024
The new film Fancy Dance offers something all-too-rare on screen: contemporary Indigenous perspectives, front and center. Lily Gladstone plays a woman trying to keep it together under stressful circumstances. Her sister's gone missing, and she steps in to look after her young niece (Isabel Deroy-Olson). The pair take what turns out to be a rocky road trip and a unique bonding experience.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:17:18
Will they or won't they? Unpacking TV's eternal question
6/25/2024
Jim and Pam. Mulder and Scully. Janine and Gregory. Carmy and Sydney. Meredith and McDreamy. You know how it goes: two television characters with obvious chemistry who fight or look at each other longingly. You know that there's only one question: will they, or won't they? Today, we break down the different types of will-they-won't-they couples and discuss some of the best and worst couples in television, including Abbott Elementary, The Bear, Cheers, Grey's Anatomy, Dawson's Creek, and more.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Duration:00:23:08