This week, a major theater chain changed hands, Jimmy Fallon wasn't going anywhere and a briefly reunited band warmed our hearts.
Here's what NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour crew was paying attention to — and what you should check out this weekend.
Tuesday
Tuesday is a very funny but also deeply disturbing, dark, emotional movie directed by Daina Oniunas-Pusić. Julia Louis-Dreyfus stars as a mother with a terminally ill teen daughter and Death visits them in the form of a macaw (yes, a parrot). It is a movie with some humor — at one point the parrot is rapping along to Ice Cube. It can be a little bit off-kilter, but it's got a lot of heart and great emotional beats and it's just a really weird movie that I think people should see. — Aisha Harris
Idaho’s new album Lapse
A lot of my favorite bands of the ‘90s played in a style called slowcore — these bands were huge on college radio and they still have cult followings today, mostly among Gen Xers like me. IDAHO, one of my favorite, lesser-known slowcore bands, just put out their first album in 13 years. It is called, appropriately enough, Lapse. I love this particular sound — the mix of clean and distorted guitars, the mumbly, but somehow still-evocative vocals, the way prettiness and sadness kind of swirl together. What's making me happy is both this new record and the chance for fans of better-known, like-minded bands to rediscover or discover for the first time something that they might have missed 25 or 30 years ago. — Stephen Thompson
Delicious in Dungeon
I've been watching Delicious in Dungeon on Netflix. It's everything I've ever wanted – cartoon cooking show, anime food, dungeons and dragons. Basically, you have a troupe that has lost one of their members. She was eaten by a dragon and they're trying to get her back — but it becomes more complex and mysterious. Instead of bringing food in they kill monsters and eat them, so they're making these meals in the various levels of the dungeons. It’s the perfect show. — Regina Barber
More recommendations from the Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter
by Linda Holmes
The story of what happened to the three stars of The Blair Witch Project is frustrating, to say the least, and it's a good reminder that being part of a highly successful project doesn't always mean getting rich.
We have an episode coming about the second half of the third season of Bridgerton, but in the meantime, tide yourself over with this Kathryn VanArendonk piece with the laudable (and accurate) title, "Bridgerton just can't pull off a climax."
I will be sitting down this weekend to watch Brats, the new Hulu documentary about the "Brat Pack" actors of the '80s, directed by one of its members, Andrew McCarthy. Eric Deggans wrote a very thoughtful review of it this week.
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.
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