Summer Guide

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It's getting warm outside. The sun is shining. It's time for the three P. Pollen, popsicles, and the pop culture happy hour guide to what you should be watching and listening to this. Sure, we've got a superhero for you, but we've also got blockbuster directors, interesting auteurs, and one film we truly honestly. Believed we might never get to see. I'm Linda Holmes, and today we've got a guide to what we're looking forward to this summer on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NP. We are.

Joining me today are my co-hosts, Stephen Thompson. Hello Stephen. Aunt Glenn Weldon. Hello, Glenn. Hey, it's summertime, the living is easy, the pizza is cheesy, my favorite Jefferson is wheezy. Very good, very good. And Aisha Harris. Hello, Aisha. I'm sorry that you have to follow that. So it's okay, Linda. I'm just happy to be here and not happy about the pollen because I I do apologize if I sound a little ugh. Making you wheezy.

I think I felt that I needed to involve the pollen just because it's so omnipresent in everyone's lives. So When I first moved to the east coast a friend asked, Do you have allergies? and I said no and they said, Oh, you do now Very reasonable. All right. Before we get started, please keep in mind that these are just some highlights. So don't worry if we don't get to everything you're excited about.

Some of the best stuff of the summer may well turn out to be things that aren't even announced yet. So just take it as a rough sketch of some of the things we're looking forward to.

Steven, I'm gonna start with you. You've got a new film from one of the creators, I would argue, of the summer blockbuster. Yeah, my first pick is Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day coming out June twelfth. You know, I gotta say, gang, I just went back to the movie theater and re-watched the movie Project Hail Mary because I enjoyed it so much. I realized in re-watching it,

just how hungry I had been for like new kind of blockbuster fare that is not just regurgitating old intellectual property. And watching the trailer for disclosure day before that screening. Made me excited about this. It looks like a it's a paranoid thriller. It's Steven Spielberg. There appear to be aliens involved. You got Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, who I've has kind of graduated to the tier of actors where I want to see anything they're in, even if it's

potentially bad, which this does not look like it's gonna be bad. It looks I mean it's a Spielberg y thriller who has surer directorial hands than Steven Spielberg, at least if you're stretching out over the course of careers lasting fifty years. So I'm excited about this film and kind of feel, having watched the trailer, like the less I know about it, the better. I just know uh suspense, intrigue, aliens, and I'm like, all right, Spielberg, I'm in.

Yep. I mean, yeah you're right. He's been making films for fifty years. He is seventy nine years old now. Just from the trailer, it feels like this is more in the minority report War of the Worlds, Spielberg, less about wonder and awe, more about dread and uncertainty.

wrestling with mortality and legacy. I don't think you get to this movie without going through the Fablemans, which creatively was kind of a look back for him, a kind of a taking of stock. I think he's wrestling with stuff he didn't wrestle with as a young director, so I'm in. I completely agree and I also just like I say the same thing about these

filmmakers of a certain age, whether it's him or Spikely or or even Francis Ford Coppla. Look, Megalopolis, that was a a mess. But the fact that they are still making these movies and able to bring them to theaters and get people into theaters. I think is what excites me the most about this. So it kind of feels like we're back in the nineties and the the eighties. It's like we have a new Spielberg movie. Yay. That's exciting. My butt will be in that seat at the very first opportunity.

I agree with Glenn that it looks like it is low wonder and high dread, which to me is Spielberg. Appropriate to the time. Yeah. His Christopher Nolany kind of Zone which is not necessarily my favorite Spielberg. Yeah. But w we will see. It looks grim to me. And that worries me a little bit, but I'm always hoping for the best. Again, that is disclosure day and it is in theaters on June 12th.

Now, Steven, you talked about being eager for things that are not regurgitated IP. I am here to stick up for. I'm as excited about this movie as you are. I am here to stick up for some things that are regurgitated IP, specifically in this case, Spider-Man brand new day, which is arriving on July thirty-first. I will admit I am pretty tuned out of superhero movies at the moment. But I have always really enjoyed the Tom Holland Spider Man.

This is the first movie with this character since Spider Man No Way Home in twenty twenty one, which was the multiverse one. You may remember that at the end of that movie Peter Parker basically made everyone in his life I forget him, including MJ, who is again played here by Zendaya. I just like them together. I find them really appealing. And I think it's been interesting to see him mature in this part from, you know, Captain America Civil War ten years ago.

to this kind of older and sadder version. There's some emo superhero business going on here, which is not my favorite, but the trailer does have a joke or two. Mark Ruffalo is showing up as Bruce Banner and you know on top of everything else, they've added Tremel Tillman. All smart people at this stage of life are adding Tremel Tillman to their projects if they can possibly figure out how to do it because he's an amazing presence. I am choosing to be very hopeful about this movie.

I think the challenge in this franchise is topping its predecessor. Does it even try to top its predecessor, which was such a a feast of fan service and great jokes? And then a bunch of years passed, so I'm very curious this is another one I will be first in line for, but how do they top all those Spider Men and all those villains? When you said twenty twenty one, I was like, wait, how old are these? It's feeling like euphoria. It's just too much time. Lots of people need time off. That's true.

And look, of course I'm in, I'm me, but the promotional materials make reference to Peter Parker undergoing, quote, a surprising physical evolution, unquote. Which it's a dog whistle for the OG nerds out here. I think that is in reference to A certain run of Spider-Man back in nineteen seventy one that I'm not gonna spoil here in case I'm right, but just let it be known, all hands on deck. Let's still put it that way.

So again, that is Spider Man brand new day, which is arriving on July thirty first.

Now, Aisha, I mentioned in the intro a movie that I thought we might never get to see. Yes. You have chosen that movie as one of your picks. So let's talk about coyote versus acme. Yeah, let's keep the IP train going here. I am excited about Coyote versus Acme because it just feels like a fun premise. So we don't know a lot about it, but it's supposedly loosely based on this humorous New Yorker article that came out years ago by Ian Frazier.

about Wiley Coyote hiring a lawyer played by Will Forte to represent him in a lawsuit against ACME, the company that if you've grown up watching Looney Tunes, you know their stuff is all over the various weapons and and And Yeah. feels like right for comedy, right? It feels fun. It feels uh a new way into this very old franchise. You've also got John Cena in this movie and look, John Cena I'm never gonna be sad about seeing in a movie, excited for that.

The thing that is most intriguing to me, though, out of all of this, is the fact that the screenplay is by Sammy Birch. Now, Sammy Birch. Co-wrote the Todd Haynes film May December, which is probably one of my favorite movies of the last like several years. It's just got that. Humor, that campiness level, that bite to it that I'm hoping we we will see in a movie like this. So that seems very promising.

Now, the reason, Linda, that you mentioned that we were all afraid that we were not gonna see this is because this movie is a few years old now. It was infamously shelved by the Warner Brothers Discovery after it was finished because the company wanted to like write off its$30 million budget. That was a big thing. Warner, you know, we all know how they work these days. It's funny because of the teaser trailer which came out on April fifteenth, Tax Day.

The He's your trailer features a Wiley Coyote holding up a sign that says happy tax day. And then if you blink and you miss it, I had to s someone else had to point it out to me. But like it flips over very quickly the sign and then it says, check your write-offs, which is like, ooh. We're gonna get you Warner Brothers for dropping this film.

So Warner Brothers is no longer behind this. It's been picked up by another company, a distributor. And so when it does come out, it will be in theaters August twenty eighth. I am intrigued. I'm seated. I wanna see Wily Coyote go head to head with Acme, that darn company that makes it ineffective. Products.

Yeah, this has been an extremely online cause celeb for years now. So this is vindication. That's always good to see. It also means there's a lot more expectations for this film now than there ever would have been. Story. Yes. And like if that had been the story of the emoji movie, I would be clamoring to see the emoji movie. And so if this is actually good, wow, so much the better.

I think what has made this story compelling to me is that the people who worked on it are extremely proud of it. Right. Yeah. And I feel so acutely for the people who worked on it so incredibly hard and then were basically just told Tough darts were literally throwing it in the garbage. And I don't want that to happen to anyone.

So, you know, nobody at Warner Brothers is ever gonna say, Oh, we we deeply regret that we were gonna do this, that we that we did this because of how good it is. They that's not the issue for them at all. But I do think there is a certain w sense in which it would be a richly enjoyable pantsing of executives for this to be received as awesome. And so I'm really hoping that that will happen. Because I think people who do stuff like this.

I think this move you should be embarrassed and you should be kind of told that you're doing a bad job w if you're gonna take stuff that's already done and and throw it in the garbage, regardless of how good it is. So yeah, I'm rooting for this one to be good, but I'm also, as Glenn and Steven sort of both alluded to, I'm not expecting it to be citizen cane and I'm trying to make sure that I that I don't. So again, that is Coyote versus Acme coming to theaters.

August 28th. Let's see it. All right. Glenn, you have a movie. You talk. All right. Well I I just want to say at the top, both of my picks are n neither one of these things are sure things. There is a bolus of worry in my gut about both of them. There are things coming out this summer I'm gonna like. You pick some of them, uh Supergirl's coming out. I love the comic it's based on, I trust the team, but both of these picks

Come with real reasons to be wary. Not my baseline pessimism, but I mean like specifically on guard. The first one is stop. Train there's an exclamation point between each of those words, of course, that is coming to theaters june twelfth. This is a comedy starring RuPaul and a lot of queens from RuPaul's drag race, including Jujubee and Ginger Minge and Brooklyn Heights and Latrice Royale and Monet Exchange and Marsha Marsha Marsha and Simone. And if you're asking Yaglin but what's it about?

I worry that you are not the target market for this particular product. Definitely not. It's about drag. That's the subject. That's a sensibility. Technically it's about a runaway train. Jujuby and Ginger Minge are the they call them stewardesses, attendants, whatever. Rupal is the president. And that's the premise. Reasons to worry. This is not RuPaul's first time anchoring a movie. I refer you reluctantly to the two thousand seven film Starbooty, which let's just say is a tough sit.

But there have been Drag Queens leading other films too The Bitch Who Stole Christmas, Hurricane Bianca, Slay Stop that train is parodying a kind of disaster movie that we haven't made since the nineteen seventies. So there's the finger on the pulse worry. Okay, soul plane erasure. Who's gonna say? And there aren't some nineties there were a lot of nineties disaster movies too. In a way like Shark Native. And I could see RuPaul playing the president in Sharknado. Yeah. Sorry.

And I love you all. But here's why I am ultimately hopeful, it comes down to one word. When you see this trailer, you notice that it's got solid jokes. And I don't want to downplay that. That cannot be overstated how important that is, but that's key. But this ensemble, something happens, you know, when you get the feeling that you and the casting director.

Could have drinks, like that you share the same taste in entertainment. So Sarah Michelle Geller, Drew Drogi, Rachel Bloom, friend of the show, Guy Branham, have to mention that, Ricky Lindholm, Chris Parnell, Matt Rogers, and inevitably Charles.

That bodes extremely well. This is Stop That Train and Theaters June twelfth. Also, not for nothing, it's Pride Month. I live in a small town in rural Virginia. When I go to see this in my local theater, I will be sitting in that audience with every queer person in seven counties. Don't do that. Love it.

I'm excited for this too. Between this and look, I'm not gonna lie, scary movie, the new scary movie that's coming out. It's a summer for silliness and I'm here for it. We need this. We need this. You guys, it's gonna be a great summer. I believe it!I believe it! Listen, it could ha it could happen. What could go wrong? Couldn't keep a straight face. We're smiling by the end of it.

All right. So again, that is stop that train coming June twelfth. We have more picks to come. We're not even close to done, and we will have more in just a second. All right, we are back with the second half of our summer guy.

And my second pick is the movie Power Ballad, which is arriving in theaters on June 5th. It's directed and co-written by John Carney, who also made other movies about music, including Once, which I love, and Sing Street, which I really, really love, and which I feel like fewer people maybe have watched.

In Power Ballad, Paul Rudd plays a wedding singer who meets a former boy band star played by Nick Jonas. They get along, eventually They talk about music, they share some songs they've written, and Jonas's character kind of swipes and makes a hit out of one of Rudd's songs without really kind of crediting him or, you know, giving him his due for that.

And this leads to kind of conflict between them. The film was really well reviewed out of South by Southwest. I'm very excited to see it. It is not revolutionary at this point to be in the bag for Paul Rudd, but I really am. I'm excited to see him have what looks like a pretty Juicy part. I think Carney is really good at making movies about music and musicians. I'm hoping this is another one. I think Nick Jonas is one of those people where I'm kind of still waiting to see.

sort of entirely what is there in a movie like this. He has done some acting. He has done some stage work. I believe he was in La Miz at one point, or at least a a presentation of Le Miz. He was in the last five years. He's certainly trying, I think, to expand the sense of who he is as a former boy band dude. I'm curious to see it. I'm really hopeful. And like I said, good reviews out of South by Southwest that sort of say

It's got a little more acid than some of the other Carney movies about music. So yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm curious to see where the acid comes in there because when I think about John Carney's work, the words that immediately jump to mind are shaggy and good hearted. And I think that those pair really well with music, but at the same time you can only kind of

reiterate that so many times. And so if this has a little more darkness to it, I think Paul Rudd certainly can bring that. And Nick Jonas, it's it certainly sounds like the part he was born to play. Yes, I agree his range or even his abilities as an actor are still in question. But if he's playing sort of a version of himself, I feel like this could be

a way to see a little bit more of that range. So this is actually on my short list too of like things I'm most excited about. So I'm glad you picked this, Linda. Yeah, I'm psyched. I love a music movie. Again, that is Power Ballad, and it is coming on June 5th. Aisha, you actually have the next pick. Tell me about I Love Boosters. Ugh, I love boosters. Well, I don't know much about it. But this really comes down to the pedigree who is behind this and who is behind this is.

Bay Area legend Boots Riley, whose Sorry to Bother You is a fantastic film that I think if you somehow still have not seen this movie, go see it. It is bonkers, weird. It's very timely, even though it came out in 2018. It still feels very, very timely. It's about unions and about working class and all those things. And I love boosters.

What little I know about it is that it's a fashion heist movie, so you've already got me there. I love heist. I love I love those types of movies. And then the cat. Kiki Palmer, Naomi Axis. Taylor Page, Lake Stanfield, who also starred in Sorry to Bother You, Will Poulter, Demi Moore, Don Cheadle. Do I need to say anything more? To me, this is a dream cast. I have no idea how all these pieces are going to fit together, how all these actors are going to interact with each other.

But I trust Boots Riley. He is one of those filmmakers who has very, very sharp and critical sensibilities while also being able to have fun and never feeling like it's this didactic sort of like we need to, you know, get everyone to come together and fight the power. That's there, but it's always fun and it's always weird and it's you never know where he's going with what he's doing. And so that is why I am just like super psyched for this and I cannot wait to just immerse myself in this movie.

Aisha, you just said the key words there, which is like Boots Riley's music and movies can be didactic, but they are also weird. Yes. And I think that combination really, really works for him. I mean, sorry to bother you goes in directions. I did not see it going. Super. Super audacious, but there's also in a lot of his work is this undercurrent of playfulness and joy and silliness. And I'm right there with you with this.

You know a Brut's Bradley project because it's uniquely him. Sorry to bother you, and I'm a Virgo. They have these moments of pure Idiosyncratic, singular weirdness, as you mentioned, Stephen. They also tend to be, you know, a little shapeless, a little chaotic in a way that feels fully intentional. That's the aesthetic, but you're either along for the ride or you very much aren't. I mostly am, and I'm here for big swings, and this guy is all big swings.

Yeah. I hope it is a true heist'cause nothing would make me happier than a true heist movie done by an idiosyncratic director, as as you've all mentioned. So yeah, I will absolutely check this out. I love boosters is coming sooner than some of our other picks, May twenty second.

Glenn, you have the next pick. I have heard of the vampire Lestat. Tell me about the actual process. Okay. So the Vampire List Dot comes on AMC on June seventh. This is essentially the third season of the show Interview with the Vampire on AMC, which is based on books by Anne Rice. And the idea of the books and the show is that Louie is a very soulful Guilt ridden vampire who goes public by revealing the existence of vampires like him to a journalist.

Those first two seasons on AMC were revelation because They used it as a jumping off point, the books. They kept the essentials of the storytelling and the characterization, but they streamlined and interrogated and inflected and reimagined everything else. The making Louis black, for example, opened the world up. It added layers of meaning and nuance, which are not things anyone ever looks to those books for. Jacob Anderson as Louis and Sam Reed as Lestat. They make those characters.

You know, great and and hella queer and hot as hell, both together and apart. But oh man, am I worried now? Because now the show is pivoting to the story of the second book in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and changing the name of the show, as I mentioned, to the Vampire Lestat. And when I read that book in college

I was done with this series because the prose is what it was. It's largely Lestat's backstory as well. But the parts set in the modern day in that novel, which was nineteen eighty five when the book came out. are about Lestat deciding that he wants to become a rock star. A Satan inflected hair metal adjacent rock star. And let me just tell you, those parts of the book are hilarious. They are the most

Steve Busemi on thirty rock, how do you do fellow kids? Backwards baseball cap carrying two skateboards nonsense. Just as fundamentally okay boomer understanding of what music uh looked and felt like. But you know who's great? The team behind this show. They get it.

And it turns out that what they've captured is lightning in a ball, because certainly AMC keeps trying to give us this immortal universe. They've done the show The Mayfair Witches and Talamaska, neither of which have the wit, the spark, the ingenuity of this show.

Which goes to prove it's not the plot, it's not the characters, it's the approach that matters. The team at interview with a vampire and now the vampire stuff. They found a way into these characters to the story that those other shows didn't. And Sam Reed, who's now gonna be carrying the show, basically it's about him. He's great. I have confidence. I'm so worried. But I have hope that's the vampire Lestat on AMC june seventh. To me, if you can in a way that is witty.

play into the idea that a supernaturally dark and emo person can easily pass himself off as a band guy. Thank you. That sounds potentially funny to me if it's done in a way that's witty as opposed to a way that's super heavy and serious, if that makes sense. All right. Again, the Vampire Lestat, June 7th on AMC and AMC Plus. Steven, you are bringing us home with, of course, some music.

The music, an album I'm excited about. I think it is perfectly timed to come out on June 12th. It's the new album by Olivia Rodrigo. It's called You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love. And look, I don't turn to Olivia Rodrigo for blazingly original music. I turn to Olivia Rodrigo for pastiches of sounds I love. performed with wit and verve and humor and style and incredibly catchy choruses.

single from this record is already out. It's called Drop Dead, which is a very Olivia Rodrigo title, complete with no capitalization. But then when you listen to the song It is not an Olivia Rodrigo kiss off song, it is the exact opposite. It is a swoony, swoony, swoony love song. Let's hear a little bit. That is a very rom-com movie trailer.

It is also incorporating so many of the of the moment pop inflections, the kind of speak singy passages, the way the music drops out for those last couple of dramatic words. She's a pastiche artist, and I I mean that not as a criticism, but sort of just as a commentary of what she's all about.

She is operating off of a pretty deep catalogue of influences. Her first couple records evoke not only Taylor Swift, but famously bands like Paramore, the first song from the record Drop Dead, Name Checks Just Like Heaven by The Cure. So, you know, she's got a very, very savvy team. I think she's a really interesting artist. I think she's really, really, really good at what she does. This particular song has kind of already gotten its hooks in me, even as I

clench my teeth at some of the speak singing of it all. It's still kind of swoony and magical. And like I said, man, this summer, this is it. This is our summer to thrive. I can just feel it. Yeah. You talking about that makes me realize that Olivia Rodrigo and uh Bruno Mars and the weekend have way more in common than I think we ever really give them. They're all kind of pastiche.

they're drawing from very familiar sounds, but they still make music I enjoy listening to. And I agree. It's not necessarily not to say that they are not necessarily the most original original pop stars out there, but they know how to make a good catchy song and I loved Guts. Guts is a great, great album. Guts is a really, really good record. I like both of her s her first records a lot. Yeah, she's fun. So I'm excited for this too.

Love it. All right, again. So that is Olivia Rodrigo's new album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, out on June 12th. Well, that is all of our pick. It brings us very close to the end of our show, I will only say it may or may not be a great summer, but I know it will be a great summer to talk to all of you. about all of these wonderful things that we're gonna see and listen to and many things that we probably don't even know about yet. So I am excited about all of those things to come.

Aisha Harris, Glenn Weldon, Stephen Thompson, thank you very much for being here to do the summer guy. Yeah Thank you. Summer guide. And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio and you get to listen to all of our episodes. sponsor free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org slash happy hour or visit the link in our show notes.

This episode is produced by Mike Cassiff and Huff Sopathama and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening. It's Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes. next time.