Pop Culture Happy Hour: The Goldfinch and What’s Making Us Happy

Finn Wolfhard and Oakes Fegley do Vegas like the Rat Pack. (Warner Bros.)

Today’s Pop Culture Happy Hour is a special one for me because Jess Reedy summoned me to huddle with Barry Hardymon, Katie Pressley, and host Stephen Thompson on The Goldfinch — John Crowley’s new film adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Donna Tartt that remains far afield of my usual bailiwicks of fisticuffs and rocketships. Plus I get to shout out Meow Wolf, perhaps the highlight of my visit to New Mexico last week.

Do You Feel Lucky, Punk? How to Talk to Girls at Parties, reviewed.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties, John Cameron Mitchell’s expansion of a Neil Gaiman short story, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival a year ago. I don’t know why we’re only seeing it now, but I’m glad we are. Here’s my NPR review.

We Need to Talk About Keoghan: The Killing of a Sacred Deer, reviewed.

Writing a review the same day I see a film or a play will never be my favorite way to work, but the results aren’t always bad. It’s trickier when the subject is as provocative and original as Yorgos Lanthimos’ movies tend to be. His latest, a mix of Greek myth and The Shining-era Stantley Kubrick, is well worth seeing even if it’s not quite as strong as The Lobster.