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Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Avengers: Age Of Ultron,' Pop Culture Pariahs

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You may have heard about a plucky little indie film called Avengers: Age Of Ultron, which opened last weekend. (You might remember our show about the previous Avengers movie, but I don't, because I wasn't there.) We send you into this weekend with a not-too-spoilery discussion of the movie, alongside our pal Chris Klimek, who incidentally had a piece adapted recently into a charming video essay about the PG-13 rating over at The Dissolve. We talk about the Thor problem and the Black Widow problem, the importance of wit to the action sequences in this film, the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and voguing. Really. Voguing.

In our second segment, we're inspired by Stephen's recent Good Listener column, "Why Do People Hate Nickelback So Much?" (See also our previous show about the state of rock music.) He spends some time there pondering the question of why we turn on certain bands so enthusiastically, so we ported that conversation over to our show to talk about bands, directors, and even gadgets that suddenly become the most popular things to hate.

As always, we close the show with what's making us happy this week. Stephen is happy about a site that offers special performances by, as he puts it, just about every band that's ever had the word "indie" attached to it. Glen is happy about a trailer he's been waiting to see. Chris is happy about two things: a great tune and a good book. And I am happy about an opportunity to meet some new people and about a show that, at least right now, is doing its final stretch right.

Find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter: the show, me, Stephen, Glen, Chris, producer Jessica, and pal and producer emeritus Mike.

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

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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.