Glen Weldon
Glen Weldon is a host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. He reviews books, movies, comics and more for the NPR Arts Desk.
Over the course of his career, he has spent time as a theater critic, a science writer, an oral historian, a writing teacher, a bookstore clerk, a PR flack, a completely inept marine biologist and a slightly better-ept competitive swimmer.
Weldon is the author of two cultural histories: Superman: The Unauthorized Biography and The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Atlantic, Slate, McSweeney's and more; his fiction has appeared in several anthologies and other publications. He is the recipient of an NEA Arts Journalism Fellowship, an Amtrak Writers' Residency, a Ragdale Writing Fellowship and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts for Fiction.
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Glen Weldon shares his favorite series this fall, and details on the HBO Max show Task, Netflix's Long Story Short, and Apple TV+'s Pluribus.
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The coming months will bring new seasons of Stranger Things and Slow Horses, a mysterious new science fiction series from Apple TV+, and a new Ken Burns documentary about the American Revolution. -
Rom-coms, heist flicks, a sports/horror mashup, a pair of Broadway musicals, a biopic of The Boss, festival award winners and lots of showbiz sagas — here's what NPR critics are watching this fall. -
Dylan O’Brien and James Sweeney star as unlikely friends in the new movie Twinless. They meet in a support group for people who have lost their twin and form an interesting bond, but there’s a lot they don’t know about each other. Directed and written by Sweeney, the film has a wry sensibility, great chemistry, and dares to take some dark turns you probably won’t see coming. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy. -
Back in 2005, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal captured lust shading into love, and love decaying into heartbreak. The movie got a lot of things right — but not everything. -
Netflix’s The Thursday Murder Club is a cozy British mystery set at a posh retirement community. The movie stars Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, and Ben Kingsley as retirees who have formed a club that researches cold cases to pass the time – until a real murder, and a plucky new member, show up on their incredibly bucolic doorstep. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy. -
Austin Butler, Zoë Kravitz and Bad Bunny star in Caught Stealing, the new grungy, throwback film from Darren Aronofsky. Butler plays Hank, a sad sack bartender at a sticky East Village dive bar in the 1990s. When his British punk neighbor Russ, played by Matt Smith, asks him to cat sit, Hank finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. His life comes apart as the criminal underworld becomes convinced he knows where a huge cache of stolen cash can be found. Will Hank fight back? Can he? Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture -
In The Roses, Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch play a vicious couple spiraling toward divorce. A Little Prayer tells a more tender story about a relationship on the rocks. -
Steven Spielberg's Jaws turns 50 this year. It’s been called the perfect movie, the first blockbuster, and the film that changed why we go to the movies. As it returns to theaters, we head back into the water to revisit the classic creature feature with fresh eyes – lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy. -
We launched Pop Culture Happy Hour 15 years ago this summer, and we had a lot of pent-up hot takes. To celebrate this milestone, today we’re breaking open a time capsule to revisit some of our memorable early moments and see how they’ve held up. To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy.
