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tackles themes of rebellion, religion and they
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use and abuse of political power. I'm
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Happy Hour from Npr. Joining me today's
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Whalen Long she's the co host of
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from planet Money hate will and allow low
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welcome back. Also with this is Npr senior
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editor but lol caressing a lot A great
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to be here. great to have you rounding
1:02
up the battle is filmmaker, pop culture critic
1:04
and I heart radio producer Job Well know
1:06
Nick Welcome back to O L. A glad
1:08
glad to be back. It's always good to
1:10
have used to do in part to was
1:12
the follow up of course to Twenty Twenty
1:14
One's Dune Timothy. Shallow May returns is Paula
1:17
Treaties. When last we left Paul, he was
1:19
stranded in the desert of the planet. a
1:21
ruckus. He's being protected by the From or
1:23
Exes native population. A group called the Harkins
1:25
have seized control of the planet. It's the
1:27
only source in the universe of the Spice
1:29
which makes interstellar travel possible. Javier Bardem plays
1:31
a From and tribal leader. He seizes upon
1:34
one planted prophecy that suggests someone who acts
1:36
a lot like Paul might be the savior
1:38
who will lead them all. Than an uprising
1:40
to shake off the yoke of the
1:42
evil Harkin and the warrior Johnny played
1:44
buys. India isn't buying the whole prophecy
1:46
thing, but she is buying everything else.
1:48
that policy selling. Maybe you can. Imagine
1:54
you know any. New
1:57
additions to the dune part to cast include Florence
1:59
Pew and Awesome. Butler who plays the Sinister
2:01
Fade or Alpha Harken in his gunning for
2:03
Paul and Stellan. Skarsgard returns as the Evil
2:05
Baron Harken and like the first film due
2:08
in part to was directed by didn't even
2:10
Know who court the screenplay with Jon Spaihts
2:12
it's in theaters now We'll let me start
2:14
with you would think. Yeah I love
2:16
this spectacle of this movie. I mean I
2:18
found it really immersive and this the wrong.
2:21
Yeah I really felt like I was watching
2:23
a movie with a capital and you now
2:25
and ago. nine of just let myself be
2:27
like swept into kind of just the spectacle
2:30
of and then I ended up sure having
2:32
a great time. I feel like. Like.
2:34
The costumes and the sets and the
2:36
action sequences and the performances and added
2:38
up minute really satisfying way for me.
2:40
I found it to be more exciting
2:42
than a for thought. I enjoyed a
2:44
lot and I just really like the weirdness
2:46
of that. I mean Frank Herbert built
2:48
this like freaky little world and his
2:50
books and I liked that the movie
2:52
isn't afraid to lean into the some
2:54
like various odd such as you know
2:56
that you imagine that transport It is
2:58
a corny to say I not transported
3:00
to the desert planet of Iraq as I
3:03
had a great time. Burrow that is. What
3:05
a reduced transporting I get a dual. What about
3:07
you really? Not corny at all, I think.
3:09
spectacles either. One hundred percent the right. Word
3:11
use it is so much larger than
3:14
the first movie. Will certainly doesn't feel
3:16
small like these. Really hurting outward. I
3:18
love the piece of this beat up.
3:20
So much time happened over the course
3:23
is. this film and it moving don't
3:25
get too often the feeling of like
3:27
why am i here what's happening next
3:29
like a lot of movement i will
3:31
see me personally i still prefer movie
3:33
number one on to a little bit
3:35
more than i missed a lot of
3:38
be pensive congress the cities and this
3:40
low base was really working for me
3:42
but you are in access to build
3:44
gente congratulations we dot dove choreography as
3:46
every fight these that are so amazing
3:48
true and so many more women doing
3:50
so many cool things aren't really love
3:52
all the additions to the cast in
3:55
this new film so it's fun i'm
3:57
excited for the next wanna really enjoyed
3:59
the ride So I did miss
4:01
the brooding. Yeah the brooding. The brooding,
4:03
the whispering. There it is. Part
4:05
three hasn't been hasn't been officially announced yet, but
4:07
boy that ending kind of sets it up, doesn't
4:09
it? It's coming. Balal, you're gonna hop on this
4:11
sandworm with the rest of us? I mean there
4:14
was no choice. You have to be on it
4:16
whether you want to or not. I mean it
4:18
was definitely to what everyone has said a great
4:20
ride and that popcorn bucket is really the perfect
4:22
symbol for what this really all is. It
4:25
definitely encapsulates the experience.
4:27
I would say that as a huge fan of
4:29
the first film and not having read the
4:32
novel before I saw it, I was really
4:34
interested in the mystery and this cultural clash
4:36
that the first film set up. And I've
4:38
had the brooding and the moodiness of this
4:40
planet that was outside from which people have
4:43
now been exiled to Arrakis was all very
4:45
interesting in setting up something that turned into
4:47
something a bit different in this film for
4:49
me. And so I think for
4:51
me I felt a little bit of a tension between the
4:54
fact that I love this Fifty Shades of
4:56
Beige world and I'm into it and I
4:58
can get into the sort of like costumes
5:00
and the moodiness. But I
5:02
did feel like the ideas in this film
5:04
which really come to light I think with
5:06
this part, which I think
5:09
is where maybe the weirdness of Frank Hobart's book
5:11
has been described. And we're rubbing me the wrong
5:13
way here because I think that this is obviously
5:15
based on the Arab world and it's based on
5:18
Islamic history as well and some of those references
5:20
are used. And I just had some questions around
5:22
some of these things that were going on. But
5:24
then, yeah, the sandworms were there and you could
5:26
just let go. So I felt
5:28
a tension between the visual pleasure and the
5:31
ideas in this project. But we
5:33
can get into that. Yeah, let's get into that because
5:35
I mean I hear you what you're saying. But first
5:37
let's say that
5:40
I read the book, several of the books. I was
5:42
very impressed with how much texture he's
5:44
adding to this story with the movie. This
5:46
movie is a richer text than the book.
5:49
And that might seem odd to folks who
5:51
know the book because it's got this great
5:53
thick big hunk and glossary and all these
5:55
appendices. So I don't mean richer in terms
5:58
of lore or world building. because
6:00
these films ignore entire swaths
6:02
of lore. And I was happy, I was here
6:04
for it. I just mean
6:06
richer in terms of characterization and motivation, the
6:08
human stuff you need to ground, all this
6:10
stuff you talked about, the visually dazzling, the
6:12
technically impressive spectacle. Shani, played by Zendaya, is
6:15
a great example. In the book, she's a badass, like
6:17
she is here, but she kind of falls for Paul
6:19
right away, and then she kind of follows him around
6:22
like a puppy. And here, she's allowed to be a
6:24
more rounded character. She has an inner life. The
6:26
book tries to give her an inner life the same way it gives everybody an
6:29
inner life and just italicizing their thoughts. In
6:31
the David Lynch movie, he did it all
6:33
in voiceover. Here, they do it with acting. That
6:36
was great. Trust me, Bilal, in the book,
6:38
the Fremen are this monolith. Here, they're not.
6:40
They're divided into factions. Javier Baddem gets to
6:43
put some spin, some of his charm, into
6:45
like the three jokes that the movie has
6:47
in its crypt. And he kind of deepens
6:49
the characterization from the book. Even Paul gets
6:52
a scene which would never happen in the
6:54
book in a million years, where he kind
6:56
of goes over at one point to where
6:58
Chani and her friends are like, and he's
7:00
like, so what are you guys laughing at? And
7:03
I was like, oh, suddenly there's
7:05
this high school movie breaking out
7:08
in the middle of my sci-fi epic. That's when I
7:10
knew I was in good hands. But
7:12
can we talk about the Zendaya of it all? I mean, she
7:14
was a huge part of the marketing of the first film, but
7:17
we only really got to see her in
7:19
that first film, these kind of weird visions that look like
7:21
a New York commercial. Here, she steps into
7:23
her element. What'd you think of her and Timothee Chalamet?
7:26
Capital A acting. Really
7:29
fully invested in this character in a
7:31
way that I think kind of blows
7:33
everyone else out of the water. I
7:36
was so enraptured with what she
7:38
was doing that I was like, can we spend more time
7:40
with her? Like, I don't want to see her, you
7:43
know, leave her own counter rebellion. I want
7:45
to see just her do her daily activities.
7:47
Like she's so fascinating to
7:49
watch. There's a moment where
7:51
Paul kind of is
7:53
making maybe his first big swing with
7:55
her. And she turns and she's
7:57
like, stop looking at me like that. And to see.
8:00
her like swing from very
8:02
intense warrior and training
8:04
to like Love Six schoolgirl
8:06
so quickly. I was like, man, to your
8:09
point, I was like, Oh, I'm in really
8:11
good hands. Like I'm really invested in this arc.
8:13
Yeah, I was also very like besotted
8:15
with the Chani character and excited to
8:18
see her get to do so much
8:20
more stuff than she did in the
8:22
first film. And I think for me,
8:24
I also liked what they did with
8:27
her character because she is very skeptical
8:29
about Paul's Messiah narrative, right? She's not
8:31
buying it. She doesn't participate in some
8:33
of the religious fanaticism that seems to
8:36
overtake other characters, most notably Javier Bardem.
8:38
And I think I really enjoy having
8:40
that skepticism because that for me, the
8:42
kind of chosen one Messiah narrative gets
8:45
subverted in this film in a better
8:47
way than it does in the novel,
8:49
where you're actually not sure of people's
8:51
motivations and whether they even believe some
8:53
of the stuff they're saying, at least
8:55
I didn't feel like I knew whether
8:57
Paul was truly the fulfillment of this
8:59
prophecy, whether the prophecy was even worth
9:01
anything. And I think Chani is almost
9:04
like that audience surrogate that is kind
9:06
of keeping you on your toes because
9:08
she loves Paul so much and she's
9:10
so invested in him. But she's not
9:12
buying this part of his story. And
9:15
I liked that tension that was in the story because of
9:17
that. You cast in Deja because
9:19
she's great and you want her in your film and
9:21
she's amazing. It was interesting to me
9:23
in this film, the colorism
9:25
of it all, maybe there's this through
9:28
line of her telling Paul,
9:30
you can hang with us. You can
9:33
be one of our group, but you will never be
9:35
of the desert. You will not be. It's
9:37
a real push and pull as religious
9:40
fanatics are pulling him in and like,
9:42
no, you're our leader. Paul's struggling with,
9:44
I recognize myself to be an outsider, but also
9:46
I have skills that can help. And really for
9:49
the film to try to draw this line, I thought casting
9:51
a black woman in this role was an
9:53
interesting way to explore that narrative
9:56
and I think deepen it and maybe
9:58
make it more sharp than it might have been. been in
10:00
previous adaptations? I think for me, one of
10:02
the questions I had was that she is
10:04
sort of the only really, I mean,
10:07
aside from Javier Bardem's character who has a
10:09
lot more comedy sort of that he's able
10:11
to provide in the beginning, she's really the
10:13
only one talking back about this planet and
10:16
its tribes and its people and their perspectives.
10:18
And I found the descriptions of like the
10:21
tribes being fundamentalist, easily prone
10:23
to sort of like exploitation
10:25
and mythology. And I was
10:27
just a little disappointed that she was kind of
10:29
the only one that sort of
10:31
had that role in this film. And that
10:34
in the new edition of Cast Members, Extraordinary,
10:36
you know, Pew, Les A of
10:45
different racial backgrounds added to this film's
10:48
cast that are not just frankly, a
10:50
vague chorus of brown people kind of
10:52
shaking in the background. I found
10:54
a little bit unsettling to be honest with you, because I
10:56
feel like that was a critique by some critics of the
10:58
first film. I think there was an
11:00
opportunity to, if they are going to make a screenplay
11:02
adaptation of this for 2024, to potentially
11:05
add a little more nuance and a little more
11:07
inner life to some of the characters who are
11:09
here. But she's the only one really. She
11:11
kind of, you know, is such a solo presence
11:13
in my experience of this film. No, I
11:15
hear you. The film does gesture towards setting
11:17
up some kind of generational divide
11:20
among the Fremen. She's the younger
11:22
people and it's implied that there's a lot of
11:24
people on her side, but then it's demonstrated that
11:26
no, she's the only one who
11:28
feels that way strongly. Lots of people
11:30
came out of that first film, as you mentioned, convinced that
11:32
Paul is a white savior. Lots of people came out of
11:34
the book thinking the same thing, which
11:36
is why Herbert wrote the follow up,
11:38
Dune Messiah, to make it more explicit that no,
11:41
Paul is a fanatic who is leading his people
11:43
to hell. So it's interesting exactly what you're saying, because
11:45
the first movie, we see that there
11:47
are competing interests at work, but
11:49
he is concentrating on telling Paul's story
11:51
to get him to Arrakis. But
11:54
in the second movie, I Would say
11:56
that I think it becomes even more explicit
11:58
that the film is about the exploitation. Station
12:00
and Manipulation of People like the From
12:02
right? Because it is saying that there
12:04
are systems in place Be systems have
12:06
been in place for generations to the
12:08
some familiar that exist to exploit and
12:10
manipulate are just from And but people
12:12
like the From and it's a pretty
12:15
bold anti colonialism, anti white supremacy metaphors
12:17
with terrible optics because you've got these
12:19
brown faces looking up at a literally
12:21
blue eyed white guy who's not only
12:23
white guilt show on his alabaster well
12:25
as I think with his detention of
12:27
it being a film right it's like
12:29
a visual experience. And been a It's Infirmary
12:31
going to be an experience on the screen.
12:33
I read about the next books which may
12:36
be the sequel will finally can bring this
12:38
to a close that you know this is
12:40
a very problematic character and I think this
12:42
was a bit like the Two Towers to
12:44
me in the sense that their their needs
12:46
to be a third film to kind of
12:48
see what happens often but the film is
12:50
a visual experience and that means in the
12:52
images on the faces and the sensory of
12:54
at all. And I also feel like you
12:56
know the costuming and a lot of the
12:58
marketing is a Rebecca Ferguson berber. Jewelry and
13:00
kind of veils on. This is part of the
13:02
marketing and the packaging of this film which I
13:05
think people raises questions and the for some I
13:07
was a huge defender of it as a prism
13:09
room as Brown and I was like i don't
13:11
actually affects me as an era of interesting to
13:13
say about these questions but I feel like I'm
13:15
this is a little bit less comfortable for me.
13:18
That was like a letdown like you were hoping
13:20
they would like. go in a certain direction exploit
13:22
them themes in this line and it didn't It
13:24
didn't go there. For you I mean maybe cast
13:26
more Arab actors even and I don't think
13:28
everything is perfect. industry representation perfection. But I
13:30
do think that this book i'm in Vienna
13:32
have some of the best performances in this
13:34
film are given by the deserts of Jordan
13:36
and the you a so shut up to
13:38
them you know a guy says that I
13:40
volunteer landscape and the culture in the North
13:42
Africa Mm sort of cultures of of that
13:44
this world is based on our during a
13:46
lot of work and bringing a lot of
13:48
the mystery and magic to this the storytelling
13:50
as as for like bad mood to be
13:52
fleshed out morbid screenplay was not the point
13:54
is reserved. The submersion and I kind of
13:56
world building. that allowed to your point
13:59
when i was leaving my screening someone
14:01
turned me like I don't understand why she
14:03
was so mad at Paul so
14:05
yeah no I agree with you there's
14:08
definitely an optics issue and I think
14:10
it's interesting because what the movie has to do is
14:13
not only subvert the chosen one
14:15
trope but also subvert the aura
14:17
of Timothy echolome who's the lead
14:19
right because I think that you
14:21
automatically like your brain is like
14:24
feeling that pull of like he is the
14:26
hero he is the unquestionable hero here the
14:29
film actually has to do the work of making you question
14:31
that and I think maybe for some people
14:34
it doesn't get all the way there right in
14:36
in conveying that and maybe I had the benefit
14:38
of having read the novel I
14:40
was primed to be skeptical in a
14:42
way that other moviegoers if you're only
14:45
kind of you know interacting with like the
14:47
aura of Timothy echolome you're not gonna feel
14:49
that all the way yeah I mean we'll
14:52
know did take a risk especially with that
14:54
first film I think because for years for
14:56
decades people said this book was unfilmable and
14:58
then David Lynch's doom came out and people
15:00
said told you that film
15:03
didn't work as Lynch is gonna Lynch what will know
15:05
this is he loaded this up
15:07
with like star power with Breck of
15:10
Ferguson sure but Timothy echolome and you
15:12
cast Oscar Isaac the Internet's furry boyfriend
15:14
and he's just so soulful and he
15:17
strips away a lot of that lore
15:19
to tell Paul's story in a very
15:21
clear and simple and very familiar
15:23
chosen one storyline but
15:26
that leaves you open because then you get
15:28
people's coming out of this second film going
15:30
well why is everybody so mad at Paul
15:32
he's dreamy and that's the risk because exactly
15:34
you're single because of the visual aspects of
15:36
this it's attempting to subvert something without subverting
15:38
it well now it's got many other new
15:40
internet you know hot things right can we
15:42
talk about the Austin Butler performance because I
15:44
did feel like I mean he wasn't really
15:47
even I don't know around when in my
15:49
mind when the first film came out so
15:51
it's like this has truly you know managed
15:53
to really get an influence pew and like
15:55
again they do also as I mentioned who's not
15:57
in it for that long but this is a pretty
15:59
extraordinary cast of like young Hollywood in
16:01
one place. And I think his performance
16:04
too was, I liked
16:06
the extent to which he kind of camped
16:08
out and you know, was campy. The sections
16:10
with him were, I would have liked to
16:12
have even seen a little bit more of
16:14
that because he was actually quite fantastic in
16:16
this film in my opinion. And I'm
16:19
curious what were you guys thought of that
16:21
too? Yeah, he was. What if Stellan Skarsgard
16:23
was slithery because he was doing a Stellan
16:25
Skarsgard impersonation, but he was also camping it
16:27
up. You humiliated
16:30
our family. You
16:32
humiliated me. Yes. Or
16:35
die. I
16:38
really liked it. I had a moment
16:40
kind of what you were thinking below
16:43
where I was like, oh, I wanted to see more of him. And
16:45
then I was like, could we have introduced him in the first film?
16:47
And I'm like, I'm not sure it would have worked. And so I
16:49
ultimately I'm satisfied with what we got, which was
16:51
essentially like a Fade Rousa short film kind of
16:54
plopped in the middle where we suddenly go black
16:56
and white and you got to spend a lot
16:58
of time with him. And I was like, that's
17:00
kind of interesting. You know, it was kind of
17:02
like an unexpected choice to have this kind of
17:04
big diversion where you spend so much uninterrupted time
17:06
with him. But I, I really liked it. I
17:08
thought it was like very cool. Okay, I
17:10
really wanted him set up as like a
17:13
real counter to Paul in a
17:15
way. He's essentially the active big bad of
17:17
this film. He's the one who's able to
17:19
like, go out and make plans and is really
17:21
stopping Paul from accomplishing some goals. What
17:24
if we had opened with the bad guy
17:26
instead and really gotten to luxury in his
17:28
he's so deliciously evil. I wanted more
17:30
of it. Well, you tell me do you guys
17:32
find the ending satisfying because I mean,
17:34
you know, it is setting up a part three,
17:37
even though part three hasn't been greenlit yet. Okay,
17:39
I found Paul's mom, Rebecca Ferguson character gets
17:41
a moment where I was like, okay, she's
17:43
bad, but I love it. I love love
17:45
a villain and she got to really be
17:47
in her villain
17:51
bag for a moment. Rebecca, first is like
17:53
just delightful in that type of role.
17:56
And so I really enjoyed that final
17:58
duel. But it's not that
18:00
whole consuming feeling of like, I gotta rush
18:02
out of the theater and talk about like,
18:04
what's gonna happen now? It
18:06
doesn't propel me into theory corner, which I felt
18:09
it was okay. I am
18:11
looking forward to 23, but I think it maybe could have
18:13
been more. I was satisfied with the
18:15
ending. I liked the note that it ends
18:17
on and a note of kind of ambiguity
18:21
and a note of unfinished business.
18:24
And so, I mean, I am desperately hoping for
18:26
a third movie, but I like how this ended.
18:28
It definitely does feel though like you need that
18:30
third one. It's not meant to stand by itself,
18:33
yeah. Well, I think to
18:35
me the like complexity that Frank
18:37
Herbert wanted us to understand about the savior
18:39
kind of narrative is, I feel like it
18:41
needs to be resolved for me as a
18:43
viewer. And I do think some
18:46
of the things that I've raised for me that are questions
18:48
are actually gonna be in that third film, but it did
18:50
feel to me like this is a trilogy and we've just
18:52
seen part two. I wanna be on the
18:54
sandworm in the Plankwind that Rebecca Ferguson gets, like
18:56
this little pod thing. So
18:58
I think we're all on board for a part
19:00
three for different reasons. The real question is,
19:02
are we all on board for part 17 or
19:05
so when there's earthworm
19:07
human hybrids and the wheels fall off,
19:09
but we'll see. Tell us what you
19:11
think about Dune part two. Find us
19:14
at Facebook at facebook.com/PCHH. Up next, what
19:16
is making us happy this week? This
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it is time for our favorite segment of This
21:17
Week and Every Week. What is making us happy
21:19
this week? Waylon kick us off. What's making you
21:21
happy this week? What's making me happy is the
21:23
return of a podcast that I thought
21:25
was a one season, one and done. But
21:27
then it came back after a years long
21:30
hiatus. It's called the Open Ears Project. It's
21:32
out of WNYC. It's a classical music podcast.
21:34
And the way it's structured is they bring
21:36
on a guest for each episode. Sometimes it's
21:38
someone very famous like Tom Hiddleston. Other times
21:41
it's just an interesting creative person or a
21:43
thinker. And they talk about a piece of
21:45
classical music that means a lot to them.
21:47
And they tell that story of why it's
21:49
so meaningful. And it's a monologue. So it's
21:52
not an interview. They're just speaking in
21:54
an uninterrupted way about why they love this piece
21:56
of music. And then in the second half of
21:58
the episode, you hear the piece in its entirety.
22:01
It's just really lovely to hear people
22:03
talk about things that move them and
22:05
it's really well produced and I think
22:08
classical music can be really overwhelming and if you want
22:10
to get into it sometimes you don't know where to
22:12
start but this is great because it'll be like here's
22:14
a piece of music that means a lot to me
22:16
maybe you'll like it too and then you just get
22:18
to hear it. So that's the
22:20
Open Ears Project from WNYC. Great
22:22
recommendation. Joelle, what is making you happy this week? Okay
22:25
so I have been in my reading bag
22:27
since last year. I'm trying to read five
22:29
books a month. RF Kwang
22:31
is my favorite writer working right
22:33
now. I'm absolutely obsessed with her
22:35
and I finally got the first book she came out
22:37
with called The Poppy War. Oh my
22:40
gosh, a devastating read. Difficult I
22:43
say with a capital B but
22:45
also deeply profound. I
22:47
think the way she explores
22:50
oppressed people's rage is really
22:52
interesting to me. It's something I think I get from a lot of
22:55
black feminist writers but not a lot in
22:57
my fiction in a way that is this
22:59
deeply satisfying and this
23:02
deeply thought-provoking. She uses
23:04
traditional Chinese mythology and
23:08
religion and storytelling
23:10
and imbues it into all of her
23:13
stories in such a lovely way that
23:15
really has exposed me to an entirely
23:17
new world of fantasy and religion and
23:19
culture that I'm deeply inspired to explore
23:21
further. So I can't recommend The Poppy
23:23
War enough. It's a trilogy. It's beautiful. If
23:25
you finish those and need more you should
23:28
read her next book, Babbel, which is my
23:30
favorite thing. Love, love, love. So that's Poppy
23:32
War by RF Kwang. Excellent,
23:34
excellent. As you can tell
23:36
an enthusiastically received recommendation.
23:38
Thank you Joelle. Bilal,
23:41
what's making you happy this week? I think this
23:43
time before the Oscars is actually wonderful for those
23:45
of us who I grew into the movie readers
23:47
because so much stuff is playing in the theaters
23:49
and things have been re-released or so what's making
23:51
me happy is in the assortment of things that
23:53
you can watch. I saw the taste of things
23:56
which was Francis entry to the Oscars and it
23:58
didn't get nominated for the International film
24:00
Oscar, but I thought it's one of
24:02
my favorite films I've seen in a long time. You know, it's
24:04
been marketed as a kind of like, don't go in hungry, it's
24:06
a movie about food and two chefs who live in 19th
24:09
century France in a farm. Juliette Binocia's in
24:11
it, so it has a lot of these
24:13
things that may seem like your cliche kind
24:16
of international Oscar submission.
24:18
But I found it to be a
24:21
really stunning kind of film and thoughtful
24:23
about relationships, about creativity, about making art.
24:26
It's beautifully shot, part of
24:28
the like, what's making me happy is just the
24:30
range of things that are playing right now, which includes
24:32
Dune II and includes the taste of things and the
24:35
zone of interest. And so you can really have quite
24:37
a range these days. And so I enjoyed
24:41
enjoying that as a part of a kind of
24:43
fixed menu of things available these days. I
24:45
mean, yeah, this is a popular film. It's so popular
24:47
that Ayesha picked it for her. What's
24:50
making us happy recently. So that is the taste
24:52
of things. Thank you very much below. What
24:55
is making me happy this
24:57
week, DeafieQuest, D-E-S-I-Q-U-E-S-T is a
25:00
Dungeons and Dragons actual play YouTube show
25:02
with an all Deacy cast. Great
25:04
performers that I know from Critical Role
25:06
and Dimension 20, Anjali Bhamani, Omar Najam,
25:08
Rick Ashenkar and Sandeep Parikh from the
25:11
Guild and the DM is Jasmine Bilar.
25:13
So if you like D&D, but you
25:15
want to expand beyond the kind of
25:17
Eurocentric, Taunchers and Tunics medieval
25:20
vibe, this drops you
25:22
into a gorgeous world inspired by the
25:24
mythology of the, as they say, the
25:26
Indian subcontinent. The players are bringing this
25:29
deeply shared cultural references to their gameplay
25:31
with such passion and such humor. I'm
25:34
loving this story. I'm loving the players.
25:36
I'm loving the characters. And I'm learning
25:38
a lot. At one
25:40
point, this character is trying to persuade this
25:42
other character to do something. And
25:45
it's going fine. The dice are with him. But
25:47
then he decides to call this other character uncle
25:50
and everything just changes. The vibe goes
25:52
completely off and it's filled with moments
25:54
like that that are so wonderfully specific
25:56
that is Deacy quest on
25:58
YouTube. I can't wait. to check that out.
26:00
Wow, that sounds amazing. It's so good. That
26:03
is what is making me happy this week. If
26:05
you want links for what we recommended, plus some
26:07
more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter at npr.org/Pop
26:09
Culture newsletter and that brings us to the end
26:11
of our show. Will and Wong,
26:13
Boal Qureshi, Joelle Monique, thank you so much for
26:16
being here. Thank you, Glenn. Oh, thanks. This
26:18
was so fun. Thank you so much. Of course.
26:21
This episode was produced by Hafsa Fatima and edited
26:23
by Mike Kacip. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy.
26:25
Engineering was performed by Patrick Murray and Hello Come
26:27
In provides our theme music. Thanks for
26:29
listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon
26:31
and we'll see you all next week. This
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