Pop Culture Happy Hour

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 Dungeons and Dragons onto the mechanics of videogames. You and your companions embark on an epic quest, going through dark dungeons and dangerous wilderness — all while being confronted with choices that change the game in ways big and small. But what makes it so beloved?

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 and his wife, played by Kerry Condon, decide to buy an old house and refurbish its dilapidated swimming pool. But there is a catch: the pool is haunted.Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour

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 long-deceased parents; the other of two lonely men and neighbors who long for connection. Directed by Andrew Haigh, the film stars Andrew Scott as Adam, a TV writer living a lonely existence in London, and Paul Mescal as his neighbor Harry. Adam's parents are played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell.

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 powerful Taiwanese crime family, and then secretly raised her youngest son (Sam Song Li) in the U.S. to protect them both from being targeted by rival gangs, while her oldest son (Justin Chien) was left in Taiwan and is now a remorseless killer. But when danger threatens the family, they must band together by any means necessary.

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 highlighting books about show business, including a memoir, a history of the Oscars, and a biography about two iconic film critics.

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 the story of how Percy (Walker Scobell) finds out the startling truth that his father is a Greek god. Percy soon discovers what that means, with the help of some faithful friends. The series also features Jason Mantzoukas and Megan Mullally.

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 to learn a new language, take a cooking class, or research your family's genealogy. Or maybe you just want to save a ton of money. Today, we're presenting an episode of the podcast Life Kit all about the ways to get the most out of your library.

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, and whether we are inclined to bask in our victories or fret about our defeats.

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, and then we boldly make new ones for 2024.Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour, or donate to your local NPR station at donate.npr.org/happy

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 we didn't get to talk about, and now's our chance to show them some love. Today, we're making recommendations for great movies we missed in 2023.

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 portrayal of Enzo Ferrari's complex personal life, defined by relationships with his wife (Penelope Cruz) and his mistress (Shailene Woodley). Ferrari is the latest film from director Michael Mann, but how does it stack up to his previous work such as Heat and Collateral?

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 patriarch Fritz (Holt McCallany) directing several of his sons into the sport, with disastrous consequences. Directed by Sean Durkin, and starring Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White as two of the sons, the film considers the way their father's version of masculinity and strength echoes in their lives.

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. In this festive episode, All Songs' annual celebration of the season returns with a trip to a snowy cabin in the woods – as they attempt to throw a party for the ages. Eggnog will be had, plenty of delightful holiday music will be played – and some special guests might just drop by, including Carly Rae Jepsen, Robert Glasper, and Olivia Rodrigo.

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 the new film, Fantasia Barrino plays Celie, who survives the abuse by the men in her life and longs to be reunited with the sister who was taken from her. The film also stars Danielle Brooks and Taraji P. Henson. Directed by Blitz Bazawule, The Color Purple is in theaters on Christmas Day.Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour, or donate to your local NPR station at donate.npr.org/happy

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 authors that he finds reductive and drowning in stereotypes. So, he sets out to write the ultimate Black novel under a pseudonym, with all the tropes and simplifications he thinks publishers expect. But his life gets very complicated when it turns out that he's right. The cast includes Issa Rae, Sterling K. Brown, and Tracee Ellis Ross. It's the directorial debut of Cord Jefferson, a writer whose credits for television include Watchmen, The Good Place and Station Eleven.

The Netflix film Maestro is an Old-Hollywood style biopic about the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein. Bradley Cooper directed, co-wrote, and stars in the film as Bernstein. It examines Bernstein's life through the lens of his complicated marriage to his wife played by Carey Mulligan. And of course, there are many scenes in which we watch Cooper passionately conducting orchestras of both the work of classical composers as well as Bernstein's own music.Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour, or donate to your local NPR station at donate.npr.org/happy

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 distractions. When silence isn't cutting it, sometimes you need music that'll fill your head without distracting you with words. Today, we're recommending three great songs to help you study.

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 film is remembered as a fan-favorite centering Black women's lives, but this acclaimed adaptation was received quite differently among female viewers and male viewers. Today, we revisit our episode about the original film from our three-part documentary series Screening Ourselves, which explored films through the lens of representation – and misrepresentation – on screen.

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, in the new movie musical Wonka, Timothée Chalamet takes on the iconic role. In this prequel, Wonka arrives in the big city with dreams of opening a chocolate shop, but his plans are complicated by a host of corrupt villains. Wonka is directed by Paul King, who also directed the Paddington films.

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 Neighbor Totoro). The heron in question is part-heron, part-man who serves as a guide for a boy as they navigate a realm somewhere between life and death. The English dubbed version features the voices of Robert Pattinson, Mark Hamill, and Florence Pugh.