Each week, Pop Culture Happy Hour guests and hosts share what's bringing them joy. This week: Riddle of Fire, The People's Joker, Palm Royale and Alfred Hitchcock Storyboards.
MacNeil, who created the even-handed, no-frills PBS newscast "The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour" in the 1970s and co-anchored the show for with his late partner, Jim Lehrer, for two decades, died on Friday
Fans of Hot Ones refer to those celebrities who make it through the sauces without complaint as Spice Lords. This week, Conan O'Brien became a Spice Legend.
Why is a famous elementary particle in the news? Where is Chechnya and what did it ban? Which prince is Andrew again? If you know these things, you'll get at least a 3 out of 11.
President Biden has been pushing new regulations to promote electric vehicle production to combat the climate crisis — and former president Trump is using those regulations as a talking point against Biden. To break down how cars became the latest weapons in the culture wars, host Brittany Luse is joined by NPR's transportation correspondent Camila Domonoske and Dan Brekke, a reporter and editor at KQED in San Francisco who covers transit. Together, they talk about why Americans are so invested in their cars — and how cars became more than just a policy battle.
Then Brittany discusses a new HBO documentary series that is making waves right now: Quiet On Set. The show alleges a pattern of sexual harassment behind the scenes at Nickelodeon, and includes interviews with several former child stars describing experiences that range from taking part in sexualized gags to facing downright sexual abuse while working for the network. Brittany looks closer at the trouble with child performers with Joan Summers and Matthew Lawson, co-hosts of the Eating for Free podcast. They discuss what makes child performers especially vulnerable to abuse — and they ask why society demands performances from children.
This ambitious thriller comes across as an empty stunt — a democracy dystopia that sidesteps the politics of the present moment. But Kirsten Dunst is excellent as a battle scarred photojournalist.
Ursula Villarreal-Moura's debut novel movingly portrays its protagonist coming to terms with an imbalanced, difficult, and sometimes harmful friendship that was also a key part of her life for years.
The new film Civil War depicts a contemporary America torn apart by a military conflict between the federal government and an alliance of secessionist states. Directed by Alex Garland (Ex Machina), the film follows a small band of journalists led by Kirsten Dunst's jaded war photographer. They embark on a harrowing journey to the heart of the conflict, encountering brutality and bloodshed along the way.
In her new novel, Leigh Bardugo drags readers into a world of servitude, magic, power struggles, and intrigue — one where there isn't a single character that doesn't have a secret agenda.
The new Apple TV+ documentary Girls State asks: how would high school girls do things if they were in charge? The film is a follow-up to 2020's Boys State, and this time, follows an annual high school program that gives hundreds of girls a chance to create a mock government, complete with elections and a Supreme Court. It was made during the 2022 session, which ended days before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and the case is very much on the minds of the girls in the program.
Biomedical engineer Rachel Lance says British scientists submitted themselves to experiments that would be considered wildly unethical today in an effort to shore up the war effort.