Linda Holmes appears in the following:
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 ...
Fans Anticipate Opening Of 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
The Best-Case Scenario: 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
There was something about finally sitting in front of the new Star Wars movie that felt like enthusiasm, but there was also something that felt like dread. I'm not a Star Wars-head, particularly, but I have enormous fondness for the original three movies, which I've seen a decent number of ...
Decency And Discipline And The Good People Of 'Fargo'
Monday, December 14, 2015
[Caution: This post discusses the plot of the first and second seasons of Fargo, right up until the end of the second season and the finale that aired the night of Dec. 14. Please don't be surprised that if you haven't yet watched it, it will give away what happens. ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Creed,' Crying And Other Visceral Reactions
Friday, December 11, 2015
This week's show brings Gene Demby to our fourth chair to talk with us about Creed, the Rocky sequel that really makes a pretty satisfying film on its own. Directed by Fruitvale Station's Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan as the son of Rocky's nemesis/buddy Apollo Creed, it not ...
'Toy Story' Is 20, And Celebrating With A Special
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Toy Story, Cars, WALL-E, Up, Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles, Ratatouille ... that's only some of the Pixar films that have come out in the last 20 years. This year, they put out two, and while The Good Dinosaur is not setting the world on fire, ...
The Golden Globe Nominations: As Marvelously Weird As Ever
Thursday, December 10, 2015
The best and worst thing about the Golden Globe nominations every year is that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association swerves wildly from what people might expect from awards season. Don't get me wrong: In this sense, "weird" isn't a bad thing. It can be a great thing. (And when I ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'The Good Dinosaur,' Pixar And Second Thoughts
Friday, December 04, 2015
The bad news about the latest from Pixar, The Good Dinosaur, is that it has some story issues that we get into on this week's show (with our friend Kat Chow), which place it lower than we'd have liked on the Grand Scale Of All Things Pixar. The good news, ...
'A Charlie Brown Christmas' At 50
Monday, November 30, 2015
Tonight (Monday), ABC will air a special at 8 p.m. ET called It's Your 50th Christmas, Charlie Brown, to mark the half-century since A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired in 1965. Then at 9, it will air the special itself.
There's so much about A Charlie Brown Christmas that you'd ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: A Conversation With Trevor Noah
Friday, November 27, 2015
It's Thanksgiving week, and Team PCHH is enjoying some downtime, which makes it a perfect moment to bring you a special show. On Oct. 31 — a few hours before our live show with Fred Armisen — I sat down for a chat here in Washington with Trevor Noah, who ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Master Of None' And 'Challenger Deep'
Friday, November 20, 2015
This week's show got a fresh news peg when Challenger Deep, the Neal Shusterman YA novel we discuss in our second segment, won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. Our own Glen Weldon had covered the shortlist a couple weeks ago with frequent fourth chair Barrie Hardymon, so ...
'Misery,' 'Misery' And 'Misery,' From Page To Screen To Stage
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
[This piece describes plot elements of Misery stretching back to the novel that was published in 1987. Hopefully, you've read it by now, or maybe seen the movie, which is also quite good and is 25 years old. The age of both will hopefully earn a bit of indulgence when ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' And Things We Meant To Do
Friday, November 06, 2015
Owing to the oddities of taping schedules, this week's show was recorded just before the opening of the World Series, so it's only fitting that we're joined by our former producer, music director, and favorite Kansas City Royals fan, Mike Katzif. As of the taping, Mike was on pins and ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: Back In Time To 'Empire' And Radio Voices
Friday, October 30, 2015
We've got a big live show this weekend and lots of other stuff brewing, so this week, we're replaying one of our favorite shows of the last year: the show we did with Gene Demby and Tanya Ballard Brown about the Fox show Empire and a discussion of public radio ...
When Everything's Gory, What's Scary?
Friday, October 23, 2015
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Bridge Of Spies' And Lots More Tom Hanks
Friday, October 23, 2015
We're always pleased as punch when Audie Cornish of All Things Considered joins us in historic Studio 44, and this week, she's here for our talk about Bridge Of Spies, the high-class Steven Spielberg drama starring Tom Hanks as an American lawyer who negotiates a complicated Cold-War-era swap of a ...