Pop Culture Happy Hour guests and hosts share what’s bringing them joy : NPR

Kristen Wiig in Royal Palm on Apple TV+.

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Kristen Wiig in Royal Palm on Apple TV+.

Apple TV+

This week we rewatched Captain America, the Golden Bachelor’s relationship followed the same path as so many others before it, and the reboot fever continued to burn so hot you couldn’t avoid catching it.

Here’s what NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour the crew was attentive – and what you should check out this weekend.

The enigma of fire

The enigma of fire premiered in Cannes last year. It’s a truly disjointed neo-fairy tale set in Wyoming. These three kids just want to play video games, but their mom gives them the mission to bake her a pie because she’s not feeling well – and only SO can they play their video games. So that kicks off an epic little adventure – and it’s so charming. It’s shot on 16mm – it’s unlike anything else out there at the moment. I am completely in love with this movie and hope other people get a chance to see it. — Monica Castillo

Royal Palmstreaming on Apple TV+

Royal Palm stars Kristen Wiig, Allison Janney, Carol Burnett and Laura Dern. This is a group of women who are not in their 20s or 30s, but are just having fun. The action takes place in the late 1960s. Kristen Wiig plays a woman who wants to fit in with all the rich mavens at an exclusive Palm Beach club. There is a subplot about a women’s awareness group led by Laura Dern’s character. It’s frothy, fizzy, good, silly fun – with excellent costumes. Is it great TV? I don’t know yet, but it’s great. — Danielle Kurtzleben

Screenplays by Alfred Hitchcock, by Tony Lee Morale

I am obsessed with this beautiful book called Screenplays by Alfred Hitchcock compiled by Tony Lee Morel. You open it and you can see the storyboards of the bird attack on the gas station. You can see the high zoom effect from vertigo as it is sketched. It’s like this holy grail of storyboards. Hitchcock said that once he finished planning and drawing the storyboards, the film was finished – filming was just a formality. I use it as a treat for myself; every time I finish something I don’t want to do, I can go see the next movie. — Walter Shaw

The People’s Joker

You may have heard of The People’s Joker when its planned extended premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival was abruptly reduced to a midnight screening. This is the Joker’s origin story – if the Joker was a trans woman with a very funny narco-socialist view of almost everything, but especially bizarrely, contemporary stand-up comedy status… what if Gotham City was a combination of backgrounds and green screen animations from the crowd. It’s also a queer coming-of-age tale and romantic comedy with some very in-depth knowledge and jokes about Batman’s deep history, particularly the Joel Schumacher films and voice cameos from members of the Los Angeles alternative comedy scene. Everything about this movie makes mega-corporations that own intellectual property like The Joker, Gotham City, and Batman very nervous. When it was pulled from TIFF, most of us thought we’d never get to see it, but somehow it managed to get an extremely limited theatrical release this month and the next one.-Glen Weldon

More recommendations from Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter

by Linda Holmes

After talking last week about how much I love Netflix’s sports competition Physics: 100several people told me that I should move on Mermaid: Survive the Island. Just like Physics: 100, it is a South Korean competition show on Netflix that puts a variety of very fit people through grueling experiences. But! Instead of an individual series of fitness competitions, Mermaid: Survive the Island is a team competition. It pits teams of women – Team Police, Team Firefighter, Team Athlete, Team Stunt (made up of stuntwomen), Team Guard (bodyguards) and Team Soldier – against each other in what is basically a big game of capture of the flag which takes place over approximately one week. It took me a full playthrough to figure out how it works, but once I did, I was hooked. Highly recommended. And perhaps the best thing about it is that they almost never talk about the fact that they are women. They just are, which is similar to how men exist on television most of the time.

The podcast Who killed the video star? on the history of MTV may seem like an exploration of a well-known topic: why did MTV stop showing videos and focus on music? But luckily, when you listen, you’re in the hands of wonderful writer, funny person and former MTV host Dave Holmes, and Dave knows his stuff. It’s a fascinating piece of history, and he’s the best possible guide to that angle. (I also recommend his memoirs, Party of aa book so fascinating and entertaining that I got sunburned because I was hypnotized while reading it and lost track of time.)

I’m still going through the episodes I have of HBO. The sympathizer, based on the novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, premieres Sunday. And while I have some doubts about a few things, including the quadruple use of Robert Downey, Jr. in four different roles, Hoa Xuande’s central performance is captivating, and I very much look forward to seeing more and to talk about it with people.

Beth Novey adapted the Pop Culture Happy Hour segment “What’s Making Us Happy” for the web. If you like these suggestions, consider subscribe to our newsletter to get recommendations every week. And listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on Apple Podcasts And Spotify.