This week, Nikki Glaser killed it, one year after Jo Koy um … didn’t, the Emmys rejected double-dipping (with respect to nominations) as strongly as your mom rejects double-dipping (with respect to chips and guac), the SAG Awards fed more grist into an awards-discourse mill already swamped with it, and fires in Los Angeles upended lives and the entertainment industry writ large.
Here’s what NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour crew was paying attention to — and what you should check out this weekend.
Demi Moore’s Golden Globes speech
Demi Moore won a Golden Globe for her performance in The Substance, and her speech was a really good encapsulation of the career that she’s had. I really loved that she was able to say to us and to the industry that she always thought that this was the kind of thing that she couldn’t strive for, that she was a “popcorn actress” and that she was never going to do anything that was worthy of awards. Having her be able to win this award, not just for fantastic work but for The Substance specifically, is a really fun and interesting part of her narrative for this season. I’m really hoping that she will be able to ride this wave into a career renaissance. — Cate Young
Funny Story by Emily Henry
I just finished a book by one of my favorite romance authors, Funny Story by Emily Henry. It’s about Daphne, who’s a librarian, and Miles, who is a bartender. They are forced to live together in a very romance novel way when their ex-partners become fiancées. This book is funny, sweet and incredibly cute. There are so many times where I just had to put it down and just chuckle to myself. Why am I sitting here, 37 years old, kicking my feet and grinning like a goofball because the book is so darn cute? It was a delight to read. If you are having some post holiday doldrums or just need a pick me up, this would be a great book to cure that. — Brittany Luse
Hard Truths
Hard Truths, directed by Mike Leigh, stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Pansy, a woman who is super prickly, irritable, angry, condescending toward everyone in her family, her dentist, retail workers, literally everyone she comes into contact with. This movie eventually zooms in on the source of all that ire and pain and we get a very fascinating character study of misery and also how it affects and infects different relationships that you have. Lots of people are talking about Jean-Baptiste’s performance here, which is absolutely incredible, but I also want to single out the performance of Michele Austin, who plays Chantelle, Pansy’s sister, who is like her complete opposite. She gives such a stunning performance. Hard Truths is in theaters now and I feel like we’re going to be talking about it during awards season, hopefully. — Aisha Harris
Faith Crisis Pt 1 by the Middle Kids
While digging through albums I meant to spend more time with last year, I got absolutely knocked out by a record that I managed to miss by a band I keep forgetting I already love. The record is Faith Crisis Pt 1 by the Middle Kids who are from Sydney, Australia. They play big, deeply relatable anthems and I adore them. The song “Highlands” is one I particularly enjoyed from the record which came out in February 2024. The whole song is a burst of big hearted restlessness. I love the vocals from Hannah Joy, she’s fantastic. The song is already a soundtrack to my life in 2025, even though I came to it a year late and I’ve known about it for like two days. — Stephen Thompson
More recommendations from the Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter
by Glen Weldon
Rise of the Golden Idol made a lot of Best Games of 2024 lists, but it’s not for everyone. It asks the player to closely examine various tableaux, read documents, and note the placement of objects to deduce the names and identities of various characters involved in a series of mysteries. You’ll need a good memory, an eye for detail and lots of patience, but each new puzzle draws you deeper into a weird conspiracy involving mystic artifacts, shady scientists and some deeply unsettling birds.
When I started playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, I loved the story, the characters and the setting. What I didn’t love – what I quickly grew frustrated by – was the gameplay itself. First-person shooters are intuitive, but Great Circle is a first-person action-adventure game, where you’re lining up jumps, sneaking past guards and getting drawn into combat without being able to see yourself in the scene. It made the game kludgy and tedious – I was forever misjudging leaps across chasms – until suddenly, something clicked. Now I’m in the zone, and challenges that took hours take a few minutes. So if you’re willing to let the game rewire your gaming brain a bit, it’s a really good time. Eventually.
The video series Dungeons and Drag Queens is back on Dropout. Game master Brennan Lee Mulligan once again leads Bob the Drag Queen, Jujubee, Alaska and Monét X Change through a tabletop adventure, giving us the chance watch the worlds of drag (wit, shade, fabulousness) intersect the world of Dungeons & Dragons (improv, collaboration, storytelling) and build something new, unique … and hilarious.
Dhanika Pineda 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.