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Pop Culture Happy Hour: Tiny Plastic Men And The Teenage Blues

NPR
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We're encased in ice as we prepare to send you this show, but when we taped it, our hearts were warm from enjoying The Lego Movie, also known as "I'm sure it's good, but is it really that good?" We'll try to get to the bottom of whether it really is that good, and we'll talk about the super-terrific Chris Pratt, the wonderful Will Arnett, and whether — as has already been suggested — this might be one of the truly great Batman movies.

And then we'll turn our attention to something that Hollywood does not always do so well: teenage characters. Are our visions of our teenage years too dark? Not dark enough? What does it take to make adults care about a young character whose problems may, from a distance, seem slight? (I also manage to tell a very, very awful story about myself, so get ready for that.)

And as always, we wrap up the show with what's making us happy this week. Stephen is happy about an old friend who went off and became even more beloved than before, who's returned (hooray!) to talk about some terrible, terrible music. Trey is happy about one Michael Sam inspiring a helpful conversation about the NFL, and also about the upcoming season of Game Of Thrones. Glen is happy about a remake that's competing with another, much more high-profile remake. And I am happy about a particularly amazing scribble, and about a panel I sat on with several neat women you can follow.

Speaking of following, you can find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter: me, Stephen, Glen, Trey, producer Jessica, also-producers Nick and Lauren, and eternal pal and music director Mike Katzif.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for NPR and the host of Pop Culture Happy Hour. She began her professional life as an attorney. In time, however, her affection for writing, popular culture, and the online universe eclipsed her legal ambitions. She shoved her law degree in the back of the closet, gave its living room space to DVD sets of The Wire, and never looked back.
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