Month: January 2025

Each week, guests and hosts on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour share what’s bringing them joy. This week: A documentary about yacht rock, Colouring’s new album, the game Pentiment and an action movie about TSA.

(Image credit: Netflix)

The beloved blue locomotive was first imagined in the 1940s — he starred in stories Rev. Wilbert Awdry told his son. Allcroft adapted Awdry’s The Railway Series into Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends.

(Image credit: Express/Getty Images)

Adapted from the Pulitzer prize-winner novel from Colson Whitehead, Nickel Boys tells the story of two Black boys who form an unshakeable bond at a segregated reform school in the Jim Crow South. It’s quite ambitious and unlike other prestigious book to film adaptations you’ve probably seen — most of it unfolds in the first-person perspective.

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Brittany has some predictions for the big trends to watch for in 2025. First, social media is OUT. Not that people will stop using social platforms, but rather, Brittany thinks what they mean to us will continue shifting. Second, politicizing food is IN. Brittany thinks food will increasingly become a marker of political identity. You are what you eat? No, what you eat is a sign of what you believe.

Plus, a lightning round of Ins & Outs
Is the club in or out in 2025?
How about wide-legged pants?
Let Brittany know your thoughts in the comments.

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Each week, the guests and hosts on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast share recommendations that are bringing them joy. Host Glen Weldon looks back on some of his favorite picks this year.

Mark Metersky was a medical student at a New York City hospital. He was frustrated with one of his patients when he saw something that surprised him.

(Image credit: Mark Metersky)