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Pop Culture Happy Hour: Rating The Ratings And Whither The Weather Movie

Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour

When Stephen and I talked about Boyhood, one of our side conversations was about our bafflement that it was rated R, and this week, joined by Code Switch's Kat Chow, we dig a little deeper into that question. Are ratings really information for parents, or are they still judgments on the morality of your creation? Is there anywhere to go past what a past documentary already explored? Kat talks about being carded at the movies, Stephen compares film boyhood to real boyhood, and we hear from Julie Andrews on the topic of reason.

We do not talk this week about the new tornado movie Into The Storm, because we couldn't bring ourselves to see it, but we do take a moment to consider the disaster movie and, more specifically, the weather disaster movie. This leads us into a conversation about Twister so involved that our producer, Jessica Reedy, had an entire side conversation while we were taping and admitted later that she tuned back in and thought, "Wow, still talking about Twister." (We try to make Jessica's job eternally surprising.)

As always, we close the show with what's making us happy this week. Stephen is all about being made happy by a museum — but not just any museum. I'm happy about some of our PCHH projects as well as NPR's newest way to listen. (You can try it as a web app, too.) Glen is happy about a game that I can join him in recommending. And Kat is happy about a series she encourages you to enjoy so that you can drool over chefs and their creations.

Find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter: me, Stephen, Glen, Kat, producer Jessica, also-producer Lauren, and our dear pal Mike Katzif.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for NPR and the host of Pop Culture Happy Hour. She began her professional life as an attorney. In time, however, her affection for writing, popular culture, and the online universe eclipsed her legal ambitions. She shoved her law degree in the back of the closet, gave its living room space to DVD sets of The Wire, and never looked back.