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PODCAST

Pop Culture Happy Hour

Get obsessed with us. Four 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

tv & film film reviews

All Episodes

25:38

Megalopolis And What's Making Us Happy

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/27

Francis Ford Coppola, the legendary filmmaker behind The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now, is back with his first new film in over a decade. It reimagines the fall of Rome through a futuristic American city, and has a lot of big and messy ideas about time and the fate of humanity. It's also jam-packed with stars like Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, and Aubrey Plaza. We try to make sense of it all.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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21:06

His Three Daughters

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/26

Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon, and Natasha Lyonne are often the best thing about their projects, and they're all together in the moving new Netflix film His Three Daughters. They play three sisters who are odds with one another, but must gather in their father's apartment when he's dying. As his illness progresses, their own sibling relationships are tested.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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16:33

Colin From Accounts

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/24

The fun series Colin From Accounts is part raunchy comedy, part romantic comedy, part friendship story, and part very cute dog. It begins with a chance encounter between two strangers (played by Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall) who meet after accidentally injuring an adorable dog. They reluctantly decide to take joint responsibility for the pup, and form a strange bond. The show is about to return for a second season on Paramount+, so we are revisiting our conversation about the series.Learn more

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18:19

The Substance

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/23

The Substance is a bloody, campy, fiercely feminist body horror film. Demi Moore plays a TV aerobics instructor desperate to stay in the spotlight. She learns of a mysterious drug she can inject that causes another, younger, entirely separate version of herself (Margaret Qualley) to splurt out of her back and assume her consciousness. They must switch back and forth or very bad bloody things will happen.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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18:07

Transformers One And What's Making Us Happy

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/20

The Transformers franchise has been around for decades, and it's brought us many toys, TV shows and movies. Now, in the new animated film Transformers One, the origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron finally gets told. With a voice cast that includes Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry, the movie hopes to offer a fresh entry point for the long-running franchise.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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18:57

My Old Ass

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/19

What would you do if you met your future self, who's a couple of decades older and maybe a little wiser? Would you freak out? In the delightful new movie My Old Ass, a teenager named Elliott (Maisy Stella) faces this very scenario. Her older self is played by Aubrey Plaza, and she's got some advice to impart. But her younger self may or may not take it.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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27:31

Fall Guide

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/18

Fall is beginning, and it's the perfect time to talk about all the great things we're excited to watch and listen to between now and the end of the year. Today, we're offering up a guide to spotlight some of the movies, TV, and music we are looking forward to this fall.Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhourLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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16:25

2024 Emmys Recap

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/16

Last night's Primetime Emmy Awards included big wins for Hacks, The Bear, Shōgun, and Baby Reindeer. And if you're nostalgic for shows like Schitt's Creek or Happy Days, the telecast had you covered.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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21:46

Speak No Evil And What's Making Us Happy

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/13

Never visit your weird new friends at their enormous isolated country estate. That's a basic rule that an American family fails to follow in the new horror thriller Speak No Evil starring James McAvoy. By the time they figure out they are in way over their heads, it's much much too late.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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16:01

Rebel Ridge

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/11

In Netflix's new film Rebel Ridge, Aaron Pierre plays Terry, a young Black man who enters a small Southern town to post bail for his cousin. But when the local cops seize his money, he faces off against the corrupt chief of police (Don Johnson). Things escalate, and soon he uncovers a sinister conspiracy that threatens his life.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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14:19

The Front Room

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/10

Maybe you think you've seen every scary mother-in-law fiction has to offer — you absolutely haven't. In the new movie The Front Room, a pregnant woman (Brandy Norwood) allows her mother-in-law (Kathryn Hunter) to move in. In a film that's part creepy and part very darkly funny, the two women square off for control of the house and the child on the way.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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14:13

The Perfect Couple

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/09

We all love a fancy wedding. The music, the flowers — the body washing up on the beach. At least that's what happens in Netflix's fun new thriller The Perfect Couple. Based on the novel by Elin Hilderbrand, the series stars Nicole Kidman as the matriarch of a wealthy Nantucket family that suddenly finds itself in the middle of a whodunit. And in this family, it seems like almost anybody could be guilty.Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhourLearn more about sponsor message

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20:38

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice And What's Making Us Happy

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/06

There's a reason Beetlejuice was a hit back in 1988: it delivered both the spectacle and big stars of a major studio film, and the hilarious, weird vision of director Tim Burton. Now he returns with the sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice — which stars Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Michael Keaton, and Jenna Ortega. But does Beetlejuice Beetlejuice capture any of the original's silly, surreal, singular magic? Should it even try?Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR

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11:09

Songs To Boost Your Confidence

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/05

Maybe you're going up for a promotion, or just got out of a bad relationship. Whatever it is, your mood needs a boost. Today, we're recommending three songs that make for great motivators and pick-me-ups when you need them most.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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18:45

Kaos

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/03

In the clever new Netflix series Kaos, the Greek Gods are a rich and powerful modern-day family. They're led by an impulsive and deeply insecure Zeus (Jeff Goldblum), who lives on Mount Olympus with his wife Hera (Janet McTeer). But there is a plan to overthrow Zeus that depends on a slew of gods, demigods and mortals working together, whether or not they are aware of the roles they each are playing.Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhourLearn more about sponsor message

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34:10

Reality TV, Romance, And Race

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/09/02

Some people may flinch at the genre of reality TV – it's full of tropes and manipulative editing and ridiculous premises. It's been referred to as a funhouse mirror of our culture. But it can reflect back to us new ways of understanding what we accept as a society – especially when it comes to things like gender, sexuality, class and race. Today we're bringing you an episode of NPR's Code Switch that zeroes in on the The Bachelor and Love Island. Learn more about sponsor message choices:

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22:07

Afraid And What's Making Us Happy

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/08/30

The new movie Afraid is latest in the well-established genre of "the computer is alive" stories. John Cho plays a dad who has a chance to try out a very advanced AI system at his home — and it does a lot more than talk back.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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16:12

The Crow

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/08/29

In the new film The Crow, Bill Skarsgård plays a man who gets brutally murdered alongside his soulmate (FKA twigs). He returns to life as an unstoppable figure of vengeance, hunting down their killers. It's not a remake of the 1994 cult classic; the filmmakers are pitching it as a brand new reimagining of the comic book series that inspired the original film. But how does this new movie stack up?Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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18:11

Sabrina Carpenter's Album Short N' Sweet

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/08/28

Sabrina Carpenter has had two of the year's biggest hits with "Espresso" and "Please Please Please." Now, she's released a new full-length album called Short n' Sweet, which serves up more catchy silliness and high drama. But does the album keep that "Espresso" magic alive?Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhourLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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19:43

When Celebrities Portray Themselves

Pop Culture Happy Hour ·

2024/08/27

It's practically a tradition for famous people to portray a really offbeat version of themselves in TV and movies. The latest season of Only Murders in the Building features Eugene Levy, Zach Galifianakis, and Eva Longoria all playing fictional versions of themselves. So we thought it would be the perfect time to talk about about the many ways actors portray themselves on screen, and why it does and doesn't work.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy

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