Pop Culture Happy Hour
Episodes
The Pop Culture Hill I'll Die On
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Maybe you think you shouldn't read a book before seeing the movie adaptation, or you're convinced season two is the best season of The Wire. We've all...
Marvel's Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is an all-ages animated series that's got style and energy – and original songs – for days. It's the story o...
2024 Sundance: Best Movies
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Over 75 feature films premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year, including a deeply personal coming-of-age story, a film starring Saoirse Rona...
Vanderpump Rules
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For more than a decade, Vanderpump Rules has been a hit reality show on the Bravo network. The show reached new heights of tabloid infamy last season ...
Jacqueline Novak's Get On Your Knees And What's Making Us Happy
26 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In her smart and funny comedy special Get On Your Knees, performer Jacqueline Novak delivers a kind of Ted Talk on the subject of oral sex. It's also ...
Barbie
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Barbie was the biggest movie of last year. We saw the memes, we heard the songs, and it was 2023's highest grossing movie. It recently racked up eight...
2024 Oscar Nominations
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This year's Oscar nominations were announced today and Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer leads the field with 13 nominations. Other leading nominees inc...
The Zone Of Interest
22 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In The Zone of Interest, a German couple and their family live a bucolic life, but over the garden wall lies the Auschwitz concentration camp. The fat...
Origin And What's Making Us Happy
19 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Origin is the story of a writer who faces personal loss at the same time she works on a book based on her unified theory about systems of oppression. ...
Echo
18 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The new Marvel series Echo spotlights Maya Lopez (played by Alaqua Cox), whom we first met as the stoic badass enforcer for the criminal Wilson Fisk (...
Bluey
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The TV cartoon Bluey is a hit with young children. But it's also found a devoted following among their parents, who've embraced the show's emotional d...
Our Emmys Recap
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The 75th annual Emmy Awards are over, and it was a big night for The Bear, Beef, and Succession. Plus Elton John earned his EGOT, and Jennifer Coolidg...
Lift
15 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the new Netflix action-comedy-heist movie Lift, Kevin Hart plays an experienced thief and con man whose crew is backed into a corner and forced to ...
Mean Girls And What's Making Us Happy
12 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mean Girls is a film adaptation of the Broadway adaptation of the beloved Lindsay Lohan and Tina Fey comedy. The songs are there, the dances are there...
Baldur's Gate 3
11 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Baldur's Gate 3 was the most acclaimed video game of last year and recently won Game of the Year at The Game Awards. It maps the experience of Dungeon...
Night Swim
09 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the new horror film Night Swim, Wyatt Russell plays a former baseball player who's been forced into retirement due to the early stages of MS. He an...
All Of Us Strangers
08 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The movie All of Us Strangers is a wistful fantasy drama that tells two intersecting stories about different kinds of love: One between a son and his ...
The Brothers Sun And What's Making Us Happy
05 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The new Netflix series The Brothers Sun is a fun genre mashup of action, comedy, and family drama. Michelle Yeoh plays Eileen Sun, who married into a ...
Books We Love: No Biz Like Showbiz
04 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
NPR's Books We Love is a roundup of favorite books of the year, sorted and tagged to help you find exactly what you're looking for. Today, we're highl...
Percy Jackson And The Olympians
03 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The delightful new Disney+ series Percy Jackson and The Olympians is a new adaptation of a beloved series of books by Rick Riordan. The series tells t...
How To Get The Most Out Of Your Library
02 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Your local library is a great source for books. But it can also be a great resource for helping you with your new year's resolution. Perhaps you want ...
2024 Pop Culture Resolutions
01 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Do you make resolutions in January? We do. Today, we make pop culture resolutions for 2024, and we check in on what we resolved to do this last year, ...
2024 Pop Culture Predictions
29 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What do we do at the end of every year? We hope, we fear, and we make wild guesses. Today, we're checking-in on how we did making predictions for 2023...
Great 2023 Movies You May Have Missed
28 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We cover a lot of new movies around here, and some even become our new faves of the moment. Yet at the end of the year, we always have a list of gems ...
Ferrari
27 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The new film Ferrari tells one chapter in the life of a man who wanted everything to go as fast as possible. Starring Adam Driver, the film is a portr...
The Iron Claw
26 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The very good new film The Iron Claw tells the tragic story of the Von Erich family. They were professional wrestlers in the early 1980s, with patriar...
All Songs Considered Holiday Extravaganza
25 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Pop Culture Happy Hour team is off today. So we're bringing you a very special holiday extravaganza from NPR Music's All Songs Considered podcast....
The Color Purple And What's Making Us Happy
22 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Color Purple was a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, then it was a movie, and then, a Broadway musical. Now it's a movie adaptation of the musical. In...
American Fiction
21 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In American Fiction, Jeffrey Wright stars as an author who finds that the books he loves to write aren't selling. What is selling is books by Black au...
Maestro
20 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Netflix film Maestro is an Old-Hollywood style biopic about the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein. Bradley Cooper directed, co-wrote, and s...
Songs To Help You Study
19 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Maybe you're at school and need to concentrate while hitting the books. Maybe you're trying to get work done and need some sounds to drown out distrac...
Screening Ourselves: The Color Purple
18 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple has been adapted a few times. Next week, a new version based on the Tony-winning musical hits theaters. The 1985...
Wonka And What's Making Us Happy
15 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The story of Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory has been told and retold, both in the classic Roald Dahl children's books and in two hit films. Now...
The Boy And The Heron
14 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The lovely new animated film The Boy and the Heron is the first film in 10 years from visionary Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, My N...
Taylor Swift's Eras Tour
13 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Taylor Swift has had a very big year. Her career-spanning Eras Tour is on pace to become the biggest and most lucrative concert tour in history, and t...
2023 Pop Culture Favorites
12 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As we come to the end of 2023 we find ourselves in the familiar position of wrapping up the year. From the sublime to the slightly ridiculous we're ta...
Diddy, Hip-Hop, and #MeToo
11 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, a civil lawsuit was filed against rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs by his ex-girlfriend and former protégé Cassie Ventura. She alleged to ha...
Poor Things And What's Making Us Happy
08 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the wild and wonderful new film Poor Things, Emma Stone plays a woman brought back to life from the brink of death. She's a clean slate, unconcerne...