What Is Making Us Happy

This message comes from Data ICQ. AI is everywhere, but companies struggle to prove results. For that, they need people, orchestration, and governance working as one. Data IQ is the platform for AI success, buuilt to bring it all together. Visit dataiku d. com slash npR Are you in the masters of the Universe window? If you were a kid in the eighties, you probably are, because ever since Mattel launched their line of Masters of the Universe action figures back then, there have been animated series, movies, comics and more worked to sell those toys to kids and nerds. Well, there's a new movie starring the whole gang He Man, Skeletor, Evil Lyn, men at Arms And the cast is stacked with big names, Nicholas Galatine Allison Bree, Idris Elba That's great news if you're already a fan, but does this wannabe summer blockbuster have anything to offer for literally anybody else? I'm Glenn Weldon, joining me today on NPR's pop Culture Happy Hour is podcaster Jordan Morris. He's the co host of Jordan Jessigo, and free with ads, say, Jordan. Hi, Glenn, I have the power to talk about this movie with you. You certainly Certainly do. Also with us is filmmaker, pop culture critic andyheart radio producer Joelle Moniqu K Joell. Hi, Glen. Let's get to it The new Masters of the Universe movie takes the basic plot points of the old eighties cartoon and adds a contemporary comic riff on them Here, Adam is a Sadsack HR professional on Earth, played by Nicholas Galazine. He longs for his lost youth as a royal prince on the planet Eternia But when the evil skeletor attacked, young Adam escaped to our planet and lost the legendary sword of power somewhere along the way. spoiler, he finds it, and returns to Eternia to try to defeat the villain and save the world Problem. He's still just a slubby guy who can't fight Can he learn to unlock the sword of power which grants him amazing powers and the body of a fitness influencer, along with a loincloth, a harness, a spray tan, and a blowout Masters of the Universe is in theaters now and it is an Amazon original film, so we should note that Amazon supports NBR and pays to distribute Some of our content Jordan, what's your take here? Were you a master of the Universe kid? I was. I was in the pocket, a kid over here. so I had some of the action figures. I definitely watched the cartoon while I was eating eggoos. But unlike some of the other properties of my youth, I haven't really kept track of this one. I know it's been rebooted a couple of times and had, you know Netflix series and new toys and video games and stuff. I haven't really paid attention. So this is the first masters of the universe thing I've consumed in a while. And yeah, I liked a lot of the Easter eggs. I think there's a few cast members here who just nail this. I think there's some, you know, terrific acting in this someome cool action, I think There's a lot of jokes. There's a lot of humor. This movie feels very punched up to me. There are four credited screenwriters, but I would also guess that probably six or seven people who had worked on Rick and Morty at some point all got two thousand bucks in a sandwich to come in and dump in a bunch of jokes. So yeah, sometimes it feels uneven, sometometimes it feels like unrelated jokes are coming in from off screen. I think this movie kind of lives and dies by whether or not you think it's funny. and Yeah, that stuff worked for me a little bit less, but there is a lot to enjoy. I'm glad you brought up the humor. I want to unpack that even more, but first Joelle. wouldould you make it? Oh, Glen. I was not a he man standan growing up. Itk me a while to discover the allure of hair metal. I got there I'm a fan of the comic book summer Bockbuster movie. and so I was eagerly awaiting this film. I said summer new kids on the block, we're getting some new stars or stars we maybe spent some time with on TV who are taking their big leap to a major motion picture. I was really excited for it. To me, if we're gonna to do a summer blockbuster and it's about the sword, you got to make these fight scenes have impact. I need to see new inventive stuff. I need to see creative ways of shooting it. And I think after the roller coaster ride that was the Mando action sequences specifically, this felt a bit of a let down. However, portions of the comedy really worked on me. I thought Goofy, good time over the top. My God, do we get some like class A like Just tongue in cheek, like it's very adult. I was shocked at how like winking and nudging it was to the audience in a more of like an adult context. And so in that way, like it really it pinged for me. I thought Costumes production design fantastic. Like if you're gonna do very like over the top in your face, kids show. kind of think visually, this is how you bring it to the screen So I think like as a non fan, I actually kind of left being like, this is fun and I would see a second movie. It's not perfect. I think we could have cut forty minutes from this movie and done just fine guys. I don't think you need most of that second act got to be real honest, but when it was working, it was hittden. All right, this is a good mix. You got some people like the action, maybe not the humor, some people who like the humor, maybe not the action. This was just a fascinating cultural experiment, social experiment for me because someone who is off book on superheroes and the deep lore of Star Wars and Tolken To sit through a movie as a normal And just like, ye, I feel like my long suffering husband must feel. E time Im forcing him to watch something. It's like, because this missed me, right? I was a Snot nose teen when all this stuff came out. and I would watch this, but I would watch it ironically with all my friends to laugh at how terrible the animation was. It has to be seed to be believed how bad that animation was, but I didn't internalize any of this. I didn't loveo it, I dismissed it, which is exactly what a lot of people have been doing everything I love for decades. So I get it. And I sat there thinking, boy, this stuff just isn't hidden for me. And there's no reason Joelle to your point to keep me here for over two hours. but I am so happy for the folks that this is gonna hit for because I can tell how ruthlessly it's been targeted to hit them. So Mzletov, you're in for a treat, if this is your thing, go in peace. I do think it's interesting that this is a Mattel studios production. Mattel also did the Barbie movie. Barbie is another piece of extruded plastic that is responsible for generations of young women's body dysmorphia. so like equal time. He man sccrewed up a lot of young men's body images. I know that for a fact, so they're screwing everybody ever good for them. Not to mention cats, right? I mean you see Cringingter and you're like Cringer and you're like, Geez, look at those hunches. I'm never gonna have those hunches. You're never gonna have those hunches. So one of the writers on this is Chris Butler He is a writer and director of animated films. He wrote and co directed Paranorman back in the day, wrote on a film called Kubo in the Two Strings, both of which I liked. Fantastic. He was interviewed on the reed carpet at the premiere of this movie. because he's a writer on this film too, he talked about how as a queer kid He was drawn to human, he maybe didn't understand why. He joked about, you how good he looks in a harness Where's the lie? And And he said he realized that when he went back and saw those the original series He loved it because it was Camp and he decided when he came on board this movie to steer into T And look I want to get your temperature on this because certainly There's always been a lot of queer coded stuff In the world of hean, startarting with that name, but apart from some prettyretty obvious and some pretty cringy gay jokes, which I was here for because I don't think were targeted to me. And the quQeen Nele drop, which I think it's more a flash Gordon riff. But I think the gayest slash campiest thing in this movie is Jared Leto's performance as Skeletor, which is, yes, he's wearing a mask The voice is buried under layers and layers of digital voice modulation But somewhere underneath all those ones and zeros This guy is having a ball and like he is giving classic gay Disney villain. he's giving Scar and Jafar. and you pick up a little bit of Frankenfurter? Oh yeah. the whole time I was waiting for him like he's looking for Prince Adam, right? But I was just waiting for him to, you know find Rocky. It's like is so Tim Curry. I mean the anticics of very hation bit of Adison De Witt, a bit ofege Sanders and All about Eve. Oh ye sure. I can't be mad at that. But I don't like Jared Letto as an actor. I mean, Recquem for Bream was twenty six years ago and also because he was jumping into that accent with both vocal records and because The audio mix was so crunchy and because You can't get any visual cues to what he's saying because the skeleton got no lips I was working at about eighty seven percent comprehension level of his dialogue. Did you guys have that problem? Yeah, Leto was going for it. and yes, a lot of digital being dumped onto his vocal performance. And yeah, I feel like I more got the tone of what he was saying rather than what he was actually saying a lot of the times. and yeah, and I like the tone and I think the leto stuff is a good marker for the stuff I liked in this movie. It's the over the top stuff, it's the camp stuff I thought that stuff worked really well. Some people in the movie know what movie they're in, some people do not. Leto definitely did. I. It's so funny when I was sitting down somebody' like the voice is going to be a big thing for me. they can't get the voice wrong. So I know like for suuper fans of He Man, like that voice needed to be on point. and I think they found a good overall tone for it. I don't know if I'mone say it's like pererfect. I do think maybe could have been clearr here or there If we were going to go full camp almost feels like I'll put it this way. I feel the studio pulling that back a little bit. I mean, like we're not going to go full to gay camp over the top, but we'll let you have your fun here and there I do think the overall look for him worked really well for me. I felt like the BDIys were working. I thought like the mouth movie of a lot of people with either no lower jaws or like the teve mouth thing doesn't work because there's not muscles which sometimes like pang for me when I'm watching skeletons on screen. but this kind of It worked. I think what made it work though was him opposite Allison Breee. Yeah, who plays Evil Inn, right? I think like he's having such a good time That's it, I finish. Of course, my lord. When I raise my fist, I get them'm done. Yes. That is the Christinw. You know for the future, my lord. She plays Evelyyn so well. That is a camp character. that like she's like two seconds shy of Cruella develilling this thing. Like it is such a delight to watch her And I think the two of them together playing almost two different types of evil and going back and forth, like every time we cut to them, I was like in the movie. like I really loved them. I wouldn't mind seeing like Just the two of them do the m.. a lot of fun. Yeah. And I also liked Alison Burry a lot in this. I think she really nails it. I wantna shout out another actor who I thought really understood the assignment. Camila Mendez, Veronica from Riverdale. She's a real pro at kind of staying in the moment, kind of letting you know that She knows what she's saying is bonkers. Yeah. And yeah, and I think she's perfect for this. She has to play this kind of like, you know, hard fight and hard punch and warrior woman. Tela. And she's she's in it, but also She's not spiking the camera going like can you get a load of this This gu except except. Jordan. Yes, please. I think she is. Okay. I think she is. And I think that's that's what I'm pinging on here. This movie's humor seems to me to be squarely in what I now think of as the current default approach. The sensibility we're getting a lot of these days, which I would call the comedy of de escalation, right Here' where if there's some thing in your big nerd property that's like this big overblown piece of nerd lore that you have to, you know work around The way you do that is you have all the characters comment on how nerdy and goofy and overblown it is. You call them Fisto, really? Sious like that. Yeah. Which I mean, Marvel didn't invent it, but they kind of perfected it. but it's now become so common, it's the air we breathe that no longer seems like it ever arises out of the situation or it's something that's happening. It just seems like this thing we do. It seems like When we process Nerd culture into something for the masses, we're making sausage, right? And that's just the spice we add to the sausage. And I know you've decried this approach on this show in the past, Jordan. So how does she fines that because not a lot of people in this movie are finesing that. Yeah, I also agree with you, Glenn. I think that this movie has a move that it does a lot. And that move is Music swells, leading the audience to believe something dramatic is about to happen And then the music cuts off and something silly happens. This movie does that so many times. And I do think it works in some cases and it doesn't in others.. But yes, you are absolutely right that the movie wants you to cry when you know, we're cradling an injured character. But then in the very next scene it's also like, get a load of this crap. this is kind of dumb, huh. You guys,'ve cracked it. we've cracked it because here's thing Okay. If this movie is forty minutes shorter, you don't care about any of that. Yeah, sure. That's true. I was like, okay, listen, is this is act one around the planet, kids got a problem. There's a disaster. He gets sent somewhere else. he has trouble getting back. He gets back. Okay. you know this movie already. You've seen it a dozen times. It's fine. It's a summer blockbzzer of He Man. I'm very cool with like paint by numbers. And in that first act, Idris Elba is carrying us. He put all of us on his shoulders and he said, I've got this. I understand the tone of it. I understand who I am. I can do the comedy, I can do the action sequences. I can make you feel a lot for a character in a very short amount of time. and then they take him away and you're like, brring it yourselfa back. you kind of need him. Like you need that level of energy and star power, I think And I think I really wish we had just been with saashar Zamata on Eth Shehe is killing this role. She is so funny as the head of the HR department. Oh yeah, she's really funny. She's really good. She plays Adam's boss Susie on Eth. She was really great. And I think that that was what was working for me. Like we' have these cameo people kind of come in deliver these really great funun, cheeky performances. all of that is good I don't know. I just thought maybe more of these like little cameos and keeping the tempo up could have done a lot to save this movie. Tly save it, but make it better I will say watching it at a screening with Both rep press and for I was gonna to say normals, but there were some real fans there. There were some meechanc standans in this audience that I didn't know existed. It was interestingar which jokes hit, which jokes didn't. The cheap gay jokes got a big laugh, entirely from me. But anything that riffted on the original series cliches, there's a way that characters laugh in the original series. Big hit It was the new stuff isstensibly there to bring in people who aren't like fans of this like anythingthing that was Adam As an HR guy trying to work toward conflict resolution which happens a lot Crickets every time in my Absolute. Cickets.. Yeah, that's a joke this movie also really likes is that, you know, on Eth, Adam is a, you know, wimpy HR guy who likes to ask for consent and use pronouns and stuff And haahaa, wouldouldn't that be funny if someone did that? And you know, and that's to contrast with the he man who solves problems with swords and punching.ure. And at some point this movie wants you to that solving problems with talking is the way to go. And maybe we've evolved more since the eighties. And isn't it time for a new kind of he man that solves his problems with talking And then it just has him beat a bunch of people up. So it's not looking into that too hard, but it takes a crack at maybe investigating the kind of toxic masculinity stuff that hean is part of. But it doesn't look at it that closely. Yeah. And I understand that you can't make this movie and have Hean and Skeletor talk it out you know over a matcha. I understand that that's that's not the ending anybody wants and that would be pretty sweaty in and of itself. But I think the fact that it spends so much time going like, isn't talking really the way to go and then just turns into punching. I think just kind of points to the fact that this movie It doesn't know what it's doing all of the time. I kept getting reminded of films like John Carter and Jupiter Ascending. But those films were not pegged to like a culturally ubiquitous tootem of body dysmorphia like hean like is. L this is a known IP. It should get butts and seats. I don't have a sense of it is going Yeah because I outside the w It's a great question. I do think that if you are a hean Stan and you have a kid who's kind of in the pocket too, if you have a ten year old or something, I think this would be a fun movie to see with them. You know, depending on how much your ten year old loves homo erotic humor. So, you know, there's theres some there's some adult jokes in this as we've mentioned. But I mean, I do think that the, you know, ten year olds of the world will like the action, they will like the talking cat. and they will want thousands of dollars worth of toys based on this. So I do think this could be a fun shared experience. What was really pinging me is in my Critics and fans screaming. All of the fans were older than me I did not see any baby in gear or chatting it up afterwards in the lobby, excited to hear about it. I think the amount of ten year olds who know about this property are probably very low I'll be interested to see who comes out for this film. I just think there's some kind of disconnect between this IP and the very young generation. All right. Well we're all coming down on this a little bit differently, which is healthy and good. I think we all kind of say, look, if this is your thing Go do that thing. Strap in. Yeah. All right. so up next, what is making us happy this week This message is from AT andT with your summer essential, the iPhone seventeen Pro. Its center stage front camera auto adjusts the frame to fit everyone into group selfies. Right now at AT andT, ask how you can get iPhone seventeen Pro on them with eligible trade in. Requires eligible plan, terms and restrictions apply subject to change Visit aTt d. com slash iPhone for details This message comes from Better Help Summer can feel like a sprint Kids home, trips to plan, routines flipped upside down It's easy to slip into survival mode, just trying to get through it. Then suddenly, it's over And you're wishing you enjoyed the days just a little bit more therapy can help you slow down and actually be present for the moments that matter. With betteret helpelp, you can connect with a licensed therapist from anywhere on your schedule. Don't just survive the summer Torive, visit betterhelp dot com slash and PR This message comes from Capeella University. You know that feeling when there's a spark building inside you, that you were meant for more? That's your own drive pushing you towards what's next. Cappella University gets that. With their Flex Path leararning format, you can set the pace and earn your degree without putting life on pause. You've built experience and know what you're capable of Now, this is your time to turn that momentum into more. The only real question is, what can't you do Learn more at capella. edu Now it is time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What is making us happy this week? Jordan kick us off. What is making you happy this week Yes, I would love to. Since this movie is powered by nostalgia, I thought I would give a recommendation that also gave me a lot of good nostalgia feels. It is a graphic novel called Raised by Ghosts. by Brianna Loenssen, a great cartoonist. This actually just got nominated for an Eisner Aard. That's The Oscars a comic book, so you know this is a good one. This is a memoir comic about growing up going to high school in the nineties So you know, you get a lot of great music references, you get a lot of great fashion, but it's not just that. there's also a really kind of like Beautiful sad funny story here. This is Brianna's story about growing up with divorced parents who are kind of absent in her, kind of like making her way into the adult world. And it has these kind of beautiful, like painterly visuals, but all the dialogue, I think this is really brilliant. All the dialogue is from her past notes in high school. So the notes you kind of fold up elaborately and hand to your friends and it's like diary entries too. So all of the dialogue is the stuff she was feeling and thinking at the time and then kind of going with these kind of largely dialogless visuals. It's a really, really clever way tell this story. So yeah, it's raised by Ghosts. It's by Brianna Loenson. and it's fantastic. That's a great pick. Thank you so much, Jordan. All right, Joell Muniqu, what is making you happy this week Glen, I know you share withith me and our love for interview with a vampire. I have seen first three episodes of The Vampireess Stop Joel, make that three. Jordan, welcome to the club. Oh my God This series had me nervous. If you follow Interview with the Vampire, you know he's been following Jacob Anderson's Louis deuont Boc for two seasons and what has been a blistering riveting retelling of Anne Rice's classic novel. They changed a lot of things. He's black now. He's dealing with a country trying to re enslave people. It's not at all relatable. It is dark and sexy and fun and I totally in the grip of this show This season, they're calling it the vampire Lestat. They're switching leads. Sam Reads Listat has been in the show from G, He's fant antastic And now he's taking over the lead role essentially. All the same characters are coming back, but it's Listat show and they're changing a lot to fit the tone of this new lead character. It's also a musical, notoriously challenging to do, specifically in the medium of television. We only have so many good musical moments on TV. you can count them It's daring and risky. and my God, if the first three episodes are any indication, they're pulling it off I really think the show is something special and I don't want people to miss it while it's airing. Joelle, I agree with you. I was worried about this season too because it's a big change. All I wanted it to be was funny. stay funny. It's stay funny. So that is Inview with a Vampire, the third season of which is now called the Vampire Listat on AMC. Thank you very much. What's making me happy this week? Documentary now was a very funny moncumentary series that ran on IFC for four seasons Bween twenty fifteen and twenty twenty two created by Seth Myers and Bill Hader, Fred Armison and Reese Thomas And it was just they did a series of parodies of groundbreaking documentaries, everything from salesman to Grey Gardens, to Macopus T teacher, to Jero Dreams of Sushi and many more. But the thing is it did it with this incredibly exacting level of detail and wit that made it all the funnier. It was also a show with a bit