Current:Home > reviewsWhat's Making Us Happy: A guide to your weekend reading, watching and listening -FundPrime
What's Making Us Happy: A guide to your weekend reading, watching and listening
View
Date:2025-04-13 15:16:48
This week we paid homage to an epic summer trifecta, saw new efforts to unionize in Hollywood, and bid farewell to DJ Casper, William Friedkin and Mark Margolis.
Here's what the NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour crew was paying attention to — and what you should check out this weekend.
Burn It Down by Maureen Ryan
I have been reading Burn It Down: Power, Complicity and a Call for Change in Hollywood by Maureen Ryan. It is one of those books that, while you read, you're screaming, you're gasping, you're tearing your hair out. You're running to Reddit to see if you can try to unravel who these anonymous sources are and what project they're talking about. It is just one of those books that you want to talk to everybody about. It is an incredible feat of reporting of how many sources Ryan talked to, how much knowledge she has collected, and how carefully she's thought about a lot of these issues. If you are a lover of media, this is recommended reading. — Cyrena Touros
The film crowdfunding site Seed&Spark
There's a website called Seed&Spark where the mission is to help independent filmmakers create long careers through developing audiences who support them, either financially, or through trading and offering services. The films that are coming out of there are so sweet, and beautiful, and passionate, and weird, and funny. It encouraged me to start going back into filmmaking — I haven't made a film since I graduated from film school. It's been a really incredible experience to watch people succeed, thrive and launch careers that are sustainable through this space. If you're the kind of person who just wants to support films I highly recommend Seed&Spark. — Joelle Monique
"All Over Again" from Brandy Clark's self-titled album
Lately we've been hearing a lot about the culture wars playing out in country music. As someone who's from the South and is a country music fan, I don't want those things to overshadow the amazing musicians who are making just phenomenal country music. What's making me happy in the last couple months is the new album by Brandy Clark. She is one of the most impressive songwriters — she writes for herself and others. She's also queer and her self-titled album, Brandy Clark, is one of my favorites of the year. — Jeffrey Masters
The musical episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
"Subspace Rhapsody" is a musical episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is streaming on Paramount+. In it, the crew of the Enterprise encounters — wait for it — a strange space anomaly that causes them to burst into song and reveal their most closely held secrets to each other. If you think: Well, that sounds an awful lot like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode, you're right — and they know it. They acknowledge it several times in the episode with fun little shout outs I won't spoil. It's got a terrific opening number and a grand finale that is corny as hell — but that kind of kind of works, right? They've got several great singers in the cast, including Celia Rose Gooding, who was nominated for a Tony for Jagged Little Pill on Broadway. Most shows wait a bit longer to pull out a stunt like this, but Strange New Worlds has always had a really good sense of humor about itself, and it really pays off here. — Glen Weldon
More recommendations from the Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter
by Linda Holmes
Eric Deggans had a terrific piece this week about brawl memes and folding chairs.
Also from our team at NPR, Bilal Qureshi looked at the billion-dollar summer of Taylor Swift, Barbie and Beyoncé.
I very much like the HBO docuseries Telemarketers, which premieres on Sunday. Focused on the Civic Development Group, a telemarketing outfit that did a lot of those "I'm calling on behalf of injured police officers" calls, it starts out seeming like it's about one thing — the grift of pretending to be representing the police — and ends up being about a bunch of other things. It's also a highly entertaining character portrait of some guys from New Jersey who you just need to watch to fully understand. It will also make you never answer a call again if you don't know who's on the line.
Emma Cline's The Guest is a very buzzy book right now, about a woman who gets kicked out of her rich boyfriend's house and has to figure out how to survive for a few days in the Hamptons with no resources except her ability to weasel into people's lives. I liked it a lot, and it gets its work done economically.
Beth Novey adapted the Pop Culture Happy Hour segment "What's Making Us Happy" for the Web. If you like these suggestions, consider signing up for our newsletter to get recommendations every week. And listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
veryGood! (6)
Related
- Tarte Shape Tape Concealer Sells Once Every 4 Seconds: Get 50% Off Before It's Gone
- At the Greater & Greener Conference, Urban Parks Officials and Advocates Talk Equity and Climate Change
- Out in the Fields, Contemplating Humanity and a Parched Almond Farm
- In a Bid to Save Its Coal Industry, Wyoming Has Become a Test Case for Carbon Capture, but Utilities are Balking at the Pricetag
- Retirement planning: 3 crucial moves everyone should make before 2025
- The man who busted the inflation-employment myth
- Disney cancels plans for $1 billion Florida campus
- A record number of Americans may fly this summer. Here's everything you need to know
- Pressure on a veteran and senator shows what’s next for those who oppose Trump
- Economic forecasters on jobs, inflation and housing
Ranking
- 'Most Whopper
- The U.S. is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story
- What you need to know about the debt ceiling as the deadline looms
- So would a U.S. default really be that bad? Yes — And here's why
- The Louvre will be renovated and the 'Mona Lisa' will have her own room
- Bots, bootleggers and Baptists
- Travel Stress-Free This Summer With This Compact Luggage Scale Amazon Customers Can’t Live Without
- One Year Later: The Texas Freeze Revealed a Fragile Energy System and Inspired Lasting Misinformation
Recommendation
Which apps offer encrypted messaging? How to switch and what to know after feds’ warning
Yes, Puerto Rican licenses are valid in the U.S., Hertz reminds its employees
Congress wants to regulate AI, but it has a lot of catching up to do
Khloe Kardashian Shares Rare Photo of Baby Boy Tatum in Full Summer Mode
Gen. Mark Milley's security detail and security clearance revoked, Pentagon says
If you haven't logged into your Google account in over 2 years, it will be deleted
Scientists Say It’s ‘Fatally Foolish’ To Not Study Catastrophic Climate Outcomes
Germany's economy contracts, signaling a recession