Linda Holmes appears in the following:
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Hail, Caesar!' And Backstage Stories
Friday, February 19, 2016
PCHH regular Stephen Thompson had the week off from the show, so I was joined by Glen Weldon as well as our pals Chris Klimek and Bob Mondello to talk about the Coen Brothers' Hail, Caesar!. Chris engagingly reviewed it for NPR, and Bob has covered the Coens ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: The Awards Show Problem And Product Placement
Friday, February 12, 2016
In September 2014, Glen Weldon (a great recommendation engine for podcasts) talked in our What's Making Us Happy This Week segment about Pitch, a show I'd never heard of about which I said with some interest, "I'd listen to that." Hit your little fast-forward button and jump about ...
Five Unromantic Comedies For Valentine's Day Non-Inspiration
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Sure, people fight about superhero movies and sci-fi movies and who was the best James Bond. But if you want to see some deeply felt disagreement, get in a fight about romantic comedies. Or, if you don't care to, just enjoy this Twitter debate I had a couple of weeks ...
Small Batch: The Super Bowl, From Peyton vs. Cam To Twitter vs. Coldplay
Monday, February 08, 2016
Sunday night's Super Bowl landed a huge TV audience for its battle between the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers, which the Broncos took 24-10. While a football game is a football game, the Super Bowl is also a huge pop culture event, from the halftime show to ...
Small Batch: How To Eat The Super Bowl
Friday, February 05, 2016
As you know if you are interacting with American commerce or popular entertainment at the moment, the Super Bowl is this weekend. Stephen Thompson, as he has explained for NPR in the past, has an annual Super Bowl party and chicken-eating contest called Chicken Bowl. This year will be ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,' 'Grease,' TV Musicals
Friday, February 05, 2016
This week's show had our toes tapping, you can believe that.
Kat Chow of NPR's Code Switch joined us to first talk about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the CW's musical comedy starring Rachel Bloom, who just won a Golden Globe. It has a title we'll talk about that might give you the ...
'Madoff' Tells Its Tale To The Camera
Tuesday, February 02, 2016
Breaking the fourth wall is like putting gold leaf on a dessert: good for a quick jolt of surprise and superficial specialness, but the more common it becomes in the culture, the less impressive its deployment by any particular creator.
We are in a fourth-wall-breaking moment, particularly in matters of ...
Following The Fad, Live 'Grease' Hits The Silver Screen
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Making A Murderer,' True Crime, Alan Rickman
Friday, January 22, 2016
This is a fun week for me, as Stephen and Glen and I get to welcome Sarah Bunting, who is not only the East Coast editor of Previously.tv, but also my former boss at Television Without Pity, the first site where I ever wrote professionally. Sarah and I ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'The Hateful Eight' And Theatrical Experiences
Friday, January 15, 2016
Sitting down to talk about a Quentin Tarantino movie — particularly in his modern incarnation in which he puts all kinds of gnarly material on the screen that wrestles, with varying degrees of success, with aspects of identity and politics and identity politics, not to mention history, sociology, and (perhaps ...
'The Revenant,' 'Mad Max: Fury Road,' Scoop Up Most Oscar Nominations
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Even Bears, Martians And Robots Can't Perk Up The Dull Golden Globes
Monday, January 11, 2016
In recent years, the Golden Globes have been picking up steam as a less stuffy, less predictable awards show than most others. From the marvelous hosting of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler for the past three years to glorious little moments like Emma Thompson tossing her shoes in ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'American Idol' Sails Off Into The Sunset
Friday, January 08, 2016
As Stephen mentions early in this episode, the original nut of what became Pop Culture Happy Hour was a conversation he and I had about whether we should take conversations we'd been having in written form about American Idol -- like this one — and have them in ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: In One Year And Out The Other, 2016 Edition
Friday, January 01, 2016
Every year at this time, we get together to make resolutions and predictions for the coming year — but not before we reckon, almost always embarrassingly, with last year's. Did Stephen quit Diet Coke? Did Glen's very bold box office prediction come to pass?
Because we're all about accountability, we ...
50 Wonderful Things From 2015
Thursday, December 31, 2015
More and more, I eschew end-of-year best-of lists for the simple reason that they're arbitrary and imply a comprehensiveness on which they can never deliver. What works for me is to compile a list that reflects some of the enormous gratitude I feel for getting to enjoy other people's work ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour Small Batch: The Very Spoilery 'Star Wars'
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Contains spoilers. No, really: contains spoilers.
When we talked about Star Wars: The Force Awakens on last week's full episode, we were sadly without our pal Glen Weldon. Plus, we were (as always) as absolutely careful as we could be about spoilers.
In this Small Batch, we're fixing ...
20 Things You Desperately Need To Know About Mariah's Hallmark Movie
Monday, December 21, 2015
Is that a trolling headline? Is it intended to bring several million people here to shout "I DON'T NEED TO KNOW ANYTHING!" between sips of something organic and single-sourced?
Oh, maybe. Welcome, appalled people.
But let's face it: Mariah Carey appearing in and directing a Christmas movie for Hallmark is ...
A Little Under-The-Radar TV: 'UnREAL'
Sunday, December 20, 2015
NPR's Weekend Edition has been chatting with TV critics about shows that they believe flew a little too far under the radar in 2015 — Maureen Ryan talked about The 100 last weekend, and Alan Sepinwall talked about Review. This week, I'm joining Rachel ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' And Toys
Friday, December 18, 2015
This week's show is about exactly what you might expect it to be about: Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Screening scheduling left Stephen and me without the delights of Glen Weldon, who will provide super-spoilery thoughts in a Small Batch a little later (stay tuned), but we welcomed Gene Demby ...
Baby Steps: Love And 'The Big Bang Theory'
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Note: This post discusses the events of Thursday night's episode. Be warned!
The Big Bang Theory is an odd show. It's an old-fashioned CBS multicamera sitcom that has thrived as everybody experimented with barely funny black comedy. But it's also weirdly modern, in that it captures a specific current cultural ...