Pop Culture Happy Hour

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Pop Culture Happy Hour is a fun and freewheeling chat about the latest movies, television, books, comics and music.

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Uncut Gems And What's Makin...

01.17.2020

A gambler, a rock, a ring, and Kevin Garnett are the primary ingredients in Uncut Gems, a thriller directed by Josh and Benny Safdie. Adam Sandler stars as compulsive gambler Howard Ratner, and the film is so tense that calling ...

Pop Culture Happy Hour episodes:

01.17.2020 Uncut Gems And What's Making Us Happy A gambler, a rock, a ring, and Kevin Garnett are the primary ingredients in Uncut Gems, a thriller directed by Josh and Benny Safdie. Adam Sandler stars as compulsive gambler Howard Ratner, and the film is so tense that calling ...
01.15.2020 The L Word: Generation Q From 2004 to 2009, the Showtime TV drama The L Word examined the lives of a group of queer women in L.A. The show was uneven, but it also marked an important milestone for queer representation on television. Now, the ...
01.10.2020 1917 And What's Making Us Happy The war epic 1917 startled a lot of awards watchers Sunday night when it won the Golden Globe for best dramatic film. That's in part because it's just now going into wide release. 1917 is directed by Sam Mendes and ...
01.06.2020 2020 Golden Globes Recap We've just gotten done watching the Golden Globes. In TV, Succession, Fleabag, and Chernobyl won multiple awards. As for the movies, big winners included 1917, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Joaquin Phoenix, Renée Zellweger, Awkwafina, and Taron Egerton. We ...
01.03.2020 We Revisit Friends Created by Marta Kauffman and David Crane, Friends was little more than a bunch of pals who hung out, dated and broke up with each other and a variety of guest stars, and had unrealistically large apartments. But 25 years ...
01.01.2020 Our Pop Culture Resolutions and Predictions It's New Year's Day, so it's time to make some resolutions for 2020. We'll talk about what we want to change, how we hope to improve our lives, and what we plan to do. We'll also check in on last ...
12.27.2019 Little Women And What's Making Us Happy Greta Gerwig was nominated for an Oscar for directing 2017's Lady Bird. She's following it up with an adaptation of Little Women that features two of her Lady Bird stars, Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet. Ronan plays Jo, the free-spirited ...
12.25.2019 Cats What has ears, tails, Andrew Lloyd Webber music, and the Idris Elba/Taylor Swift duet you've been waiting for all your life? That's right, it's Cats, the new film adaptation of the musical that became a surprise smash in the 1980's. ...
12.20.2019 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker And What's Making Us Happy It's time to say goodbye to a story that began in 1977 with a movie then known as Star Wars. Nine films later, this branch of the saga concludes with Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker. In this chapter, director ...
12.18.2019 Our 15 Favorite Things Of 2019 We loved a lot of things in 2019. And now, as the year comes to a close, it's time to give you just a taste of some of our favorite things of the year. We've got movies, music, television, and ...
12.13.2019 The Mandalorian, Baby Yoda, and What's Making Us Happy The Mandalorian is the highest profile and most expensive original series to debut on the Disney+ streaming service. Set in the Star Wars universe soon after the fall of the Galactic Empire, it follows a be-helmeted, be-armored bounty hunter played ...
12.11.2019 Marriage Story What's the opposite of a love story? It might be the new Noah Baumbach film Marriage Story, starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson as a couple we meet when they're just starting their divorce. For the next two hours, we ...
12.06.2019 The Irishman And What's Making Us Happy The movies and the mob have made a winning combination for decades. The Godfather, Goodfellas, The Departed — and that's on top of television projects like The Sopranos. Now, Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese brings you The Irishman, and he's put ...
12.04.2019 The Morning Show Apple TV Plus launched a few weeks ago, and its highest profile series was unquestionably The Morning Show. Apple spent a massive amount of money on it and landed a cast that includes Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell. ...
11.29.2019 A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood And What's Making Us Happy Who can possibly play Fred Rogers? That's a question that the new film A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood tries to answer with a performance from Tom Hanks as the beloved TV host. In the movie a journalist played by ...
11.27.2019 Knives Out Whodunit? Was it Jamie Lee Curtis? Chris Evans? Michael Shannon? Don Johnson? Toni Collette? This is the question at the center of the marvelous new comedy Knives Out. The film is directed and written by Rian Johnson, of films like ...
11.22.2019 Frozen 2 And What's Making Us Happy 1.3 billion dollars will buy a lot of ice. That's how much Frozen made after its release in 2013. The film also gave Disney princess fans two new favorites in sisters Anna and Elsa, and it made a star of ...
11.20.2019 The Crown Netflix's The Crown is back for season three, and it's got a fresh polish in the form of a brand new cast playing the British royal family. This time out, the great Olivia Colman steps into Claire Foy's sensible brown ...
11.15.2019 Dolly Parton's America And What's Making Us Happy Dolly Parton might be one of the most famous women in the United States. She's one of our great country singers, she produces television including an upcoming Netflix series, and she has her own theme park. And now, inevitably, she's ...
11.13.2019 Last Christmas There are a lot of Christmas movies with a lot of different inspirations. The new film Last Christmas, is inspired by Wham! song of the same name. The film is directed by Paul Feig and written by Bryony Kimmings and ...
11.08.2019 Doctor Sleep Stephen King's novel the shining was about a haunted hotel and a boy named Danny Torrance with psychic powers. In 2013, Stephen King wrote a sequel. In that book Danny Torrance is all grown up, but still haunted — literally ...
11.06.2019 Watchmen HBO's series Watchmen is not strictly an adaptation of the landmark comic book series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons — it's technically a sequel. It stars Regina King as an ex-cop in Tulsa Oklahoma who's not-so-secretly the masked vigilante ...
11.01.2019 How To Survive The Election Year We know — you're tired. The next presidential election is still just over a year away, but it feels like the last one never ended. And if that's how you feel, imagine what it's like for folks who cover this ...
10.30.2019 Dolemite Is My Name Dolemite Is My Name is a new Netflix biopic about comedian Rudy Ray Moore, who created a flamboyant alter ego and became a blaxploitation legend in the 1970s. The film stars Eddie Murphy, who's joined by a fantastic cast that ...
10.25.2019 Jojo Rabbit And What's Making Us Happy Jojo Rabbit is already an Oscar favorite. The dark comedy from director Taika Waititi won the audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival. That's preceded a best picture nomination in 10 out of the last 11 years. Based on ...
10.23.2019 Parasite Even if you've seen a lot of movies about class struggle, you can bet you've never seen one like Parasite. From director Bong Joon-ho, it tells the story of two families, one with a lot of money and one that's ...
10.18.2019 El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie and What's Making Us Happy The Emmy-award winning series Breaking Bad chronicled the transformation of Walter White, a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher played by Bryan Cranston, into a ruthless and deadly crystal meth kingpin. It ended in 2013, after six seasons. The show also ...
10.16.2019 A Conversation With Terry Gross Last month at an Advertising Week event in New York, Linda Holmes had the chance to sit down with a legend of public radio and of good conversation. Terry Gross has hosted Fresh Air since 1975. She still brings listeners ...
10.11.2019 The Politician And What's Making Us Happy Ryan Murphy and his collaborators are responsible for everything from Glee to American Horror Story. And now, they've made their first project for Netflix. It follows Payton Hobart, a high school student determined to be president of the student body, ...
10.09.2019 Our 2019 Fall Book Preview Summer is turning to fall where we are, and that means it's time for a couch, a blanket, and a book. Fiction and nonfiction, essays and memoirs, we've got some ideas for things you can read this fall. And we're ...
10.04.2019 Joker And What's Making Us Happy In the new Todd Phillips film Joker, Joaquin Phoenix plays Arthur Fleck, an aspiring comic. Neglected by the world and beaten down everywhere he turns, Fleck does what any discouraged clown would do: he becomes a menace.
10.02.2019 Netflix's Unbelievable The Netflix series Unbelievable brings together a group of actresses including Kaitlyn Dever, Toni Collette, Merritt Wever, Dale Dickey and Danielle MacDonald. It's based on a true story about a young woman named Marie who was sexually assaulted and pressured ...
09.27.2019 Fall Movie Preview And What's Making Us Happy In our fall movie preview, we will cover the ones we're excited about, the ones you'll be hearing more about, and the ones that might be picking up awards in a few months. Whether you like comedies or dramas, and ...
09.23.2019 The 2019 Emmys It was a huge night for Fleabag and a coronation for Game Of Thrones, and there were a few surprises and big moments along the way. The awards got spread out quite a bit this year, including a historic acting ...
09.20.2019 Downton Abbey And What's Making Us Happy If you thought the end of the series Downton Abbey would be the end of the Crawley family's adventures, a new film has arrived to prove you wrong. The movie continues the story of this very wealthy group and their ...
09.18.2019 Hustlers Anyone who's surprised at the big weekend the new film Hustlers had at the box office probably shouldn't be. Not only does it star popular women like Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu, with drop-ins from Cardi B and Lizzo, but ...
09.13.2019 The Goldfinch And What's Making Us Happy Donna Tartt's 2013 book The Goldfinch won a Pulitzer Prize for its story of a boy whose mother dies in a bombing. It's an epic tale of grief, abandonment, friendship, drugs, and a stolen painting of a goldfinch. Now, The ...
09.11.2019 Steven Universe: The Movie The animated show Steven Universe has told the story of a human-alien hybrid boy and the race of alien women called Gems who've helped raise him on Earth. The show has told lighthearted stories of life in the fictional Beach ...
09.06.2019 It: Chapter Two And What's Making Us Happy The 2017 movie It was a massive blockbuster, and became the highest-grossing R-rated horror film of all time. Adapting the Stephen King novel of the same name, it tells the story of seven misfit kids in the late 1980s, and ...
09.04.2019 The Movies Of 1999 Just about every week, we talk about what we're watching or reading or listening to right now. Today, we're doing something different. We're going back 20 years to talk about some of the movies of 1999, including Drop Dead Gorgeous, ...
08.30.2019 Fall TV Preview It's autumn again. And that means we're getting a wave of new television. So it's time for the annual fall TV preview. Whether you like superheros or detectives, broadcast or cable or streaming, we're here to share what we're excited ...
08.27.2019 The 2019 MTV VMAs We just spent three hours watching the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, which are never really about awards so much as moments: big performances and the memes and soundbites we may or may not remember for years to come. This ...
08.23.2019 The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and What's Making Us Happy The gang takes a look at Amy Sherman-Palladino's award-winning comedy, starring Rachel Brosnahan as a '50s housewife-turned-comedian. And, as always, What's Making Us Happy this week. Guests: Writer Katie Presley and Weekend Edition Books Editor Barrie Hardymon. (This episode originally ...
08.21.2019 Glow The panel discusses Netflix's new wrestling comedy GLOW with NPR's Code Switch Kat Chow. (This episode originally aired on June 23, 2017.)
08.16.2019 Where'd You Go, Bernadette And What's Making Us Happy In Maria Semple's novel Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Bernadette Fox is a wife and mother who mysteriously vanishes from her ordinary life in the middle of a personal crisis. Her daughter is left to piece together what happened. The new ...
08.14.2019 Succession Of all the TV shows about monstrous rich people, the HBO series Succession might be one of the most cutting. It follows heartless media mega-mogul Logan Roy and his ruthless children as they try to outmaneuver each other. And while ...
08.09.2019 Veronica Mars And What's Making Us Happy Back in 2004, Veronica Mars was a high school student working for her private-eye father on the side. After three seasons on the air and a crowdfunded movie in 2014, Veronica is back. Now an adult and still a detective, ...
08.07.2019 Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw The new film Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Jason Statham. The two play their characters from the Fast & Furious franchise, spun off into a fresh adventure. They race a mechanically enhanced ...
08.02.2019 The Farewell And What's Making Us Happy In The Farewell, Akwafina plays Billi, a young woman whose beloved grandmother back in China is diagnosed with lung cancer. The family decides not to tell the grandmother that she's got only months to live — a decision that Billi ...
07.31.2019 Once Upon A Time In Hollywood Once Upon A Time In... Hollywood is writer-director Quentin Tarantino's ninth film. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a fading western actor named Rick Dalton and Brad Pitt as his loyal stuntman Cliff Booth. It's set in the changing Hollywood of ...

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Pop Culture Happy Hour

What's Pop Culture Happy Hour about?

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Pop Culture Happy Hour episodes:

Uncut Gems And What's Making Us Happy

The L Word: Generation Q

1917 And What's Making Us Happy

2020 Golden Globes Recap

We Revisit Friends

Our Pop Culture Resolutions and Predictions

Little Women And What's Making Us Happy

Cats

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker And What's Making Us Happy

Our 15 Favorite Things Of 2019

The Mandalorian, Baby Yoda, and What's Making Us Happy

Marriage Story

The Irishman And What's Making Us Happy

The Morning Show

A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood And What's Making Us Happy

Knives Out

Frozen 2 And What's Making Us Happy

The Crown

Dolly Parton's America And What's Making Us Happy

Last Christmas

Doctor Sleep

Watchmen

How To Survive The Election Year

Dolemite Is My Name

Jojo Rabbit And What's Making Us Happy

Parasite

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie and What's Making Us Happy

A Conversation With Terry Gross

The Politician And What's Making Us Happy

Our 2019 Fall Book Preview

Joker And What's Making Us Happy

Netflix's Unbelievable

Fall Movie Preview And What's Making Us Happy

The 2019 Emmys

Downton Abbey And What's Making Us Happy

Hustlers

The Goldfinch And What's Making Us Happy

Steven Universe: The Movie

It: Chapter Two And What's Making Us Happy

The Movies Of 1999

Fall TV Preview

The 2019 MTV VMAs

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and What's Making Us Happy

Glow

Where'd You Go, Bernadette And What's Making Us Happy

Succession

Veronica Mars And What's Making Us Happy

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw

The Farewell And What's Making Us Happy

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

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