MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Every week, our friends on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast feature a segment called, What's Making Us Happy? And guests and hosts recommend the movies and shows and books and games that are bringing them joy. Well, Pop Culture Happy Hour host Glen Weldon is here to talk through his picks for this whole year, all of 2024. Hey there, Glen.
GLEN WELDON, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.
KELLY: So this is quite the standard. What has made you happy this entire year? Let's go category by category. Start with movies.
WELDON: Sure. My film pick is called "The People's Joker." And what makes me happy about this is its sheer audacity, the inventiveness of this film, which is an ultra-low-budget movie that purports to tell the origin story of the Joker if the Joker was a trans woman with some very strong and oddly specific opinions about the state of stand-up comedy in America right now. In this clip, we got the Joker talking to the Penguin at a comedy club because in this movie, they're both aspiring comics.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE PEOPLE'S JOKER")
VERA DREW: (As Vera) How about you? Do you have an act or material yet?
NATHAN FAUSTYN: (As The Penguin) Oh, yeah. It's mostly fish-based - but catch this - as, like, a metaphor for larger society. You know, like...
KELLY: This is bringing me joy, Glen, just hearing about it.
WELDON: You see, right? I'm telling you. And the filmmaker, Vera Drake, uses a lot of characters from the "Batman" universe to tell the story of her own trans journey. And, you know, that made, as you might imagine, Warner Bros. a little nervous. They were not too pleased about that. And honestly, the fact that it made a giant corporation so nervous really only adds to this film's transgressive, underground, anticapitalist vibe. It got a very limited theatrical run, as you might imagine, but you can stream it now for yourself.
KELLY: All right, so that's recommendation No. 1. Meanwhile, TV - you have a reality show that brought you joy this year?
WELDON: Yep. One called "Siren: Survive The Island." This is on Netflix. This is a Korean competition show that takes six teams of four women from various professions - you've got bodyguards, stunt women, police, firefighters, soldiers and athletes - and drops them onto a small island where, basically, Mary Louise, they play capture the flag for about a week. It's very intense. It is physically and mentally demanding. But it's also incredibly well-shot because there are cameras everywhere. So sometimes you're watching a split screen, right? There's one team trying to lure another team out of its base while still another team is getting ready to attack them both. It's great TV.
KELLY: (Laughter) I love this. I think I'm rooting for the firefighters just principle.
WELDON: (Laughter).
KELLY: But there we go. Video games - what you got there?
WELDON: The game making me happy this year is called "Thank Goodness You're Here!" In this game, which is available on a lot of different platforms, you're this tiny little guy tootling around a fictional British town of Barnsworth, where the locals keep asking you to do very British little jobs for them, like fixing the fryer at the chip shop and bringing meat to the meat pie shop or replacing the keg at the pub.
Now, I know this doesn't sound dynamic. It doesn't sound exciting. It kind of sounds like running errands, the game, but, you know, that's kind of the point because the comic sensibility of this game is very, very British. It is cheeky. It's dark. It's absurd, and it is filled with jokes and visual gags. and Mary Louise, you cannot help but play this game with a big, goofy grin on your face, start to finish.
KELLY: OK, last one, podcast - it's a podcast, but it is fiction. I don't understand yet, so explain.
WELDON: OK. This is called "Valley Heat," and this has kind of been a word-of-mouth phenomenon, this podcast. It had a slow build success, which makes sense because the podcast itself, the story it's telling, is also a slow build. And this is one of those things, Mary Louise, that benefits from going in as cold as possible. So all I will say is that it is a scripted comedy podcast that pretends it is not scripted and pretends it is not a comedy. What it does pretend to be is a podcast that some random guy is making about the people in his neighborhood.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "VALLEY HEAT")
CHRISTIAN DUGUAY: (As Doug Duguay) Welcome to "Valley Heat." I'm Doug Duguay. This is a podcast about the neighborhood, my neighborhood, the Burbank Equestrian District, Rancho Equestrian District, right here in Los Angeles, California. Brought to you by Jan Davis shirts and pants...
WELDON: Yeah. It starts there. It grows and grows, gets weirder and weirder and draws you in. They released new episodes this year, but start with the first one. The humor is dry as a bone. You'll know if it's for you right away. It is entirely for me.
KELLY: That is Glen Weldon, host of the NPR podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, sharing a few of the things that made him happy as we close out 2024. Thank you, Glen.
WELDON: And What's Making Us Happy New Year to you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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