Glen Weldon
Glen Weldon is a host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. He reviews books, movies, comics and more for the NPR Arts Desk.
Over the course of his career, he has spent time as a theater critic, a science writer, an oral historian, a writing teacher, a bookstore clerk, a PR flack, a completely inept marine biologist and a slightly better-ept competitive swimmer.
Weldon is the author of two cultural histories: Superman: The Unauthorized Biography and The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Atlantic, Slate, McSweeney's and more; his fiction has appeared in several anthologies and other publications. He is the recipient of an NEA Arts Journalism Fellowship, an Amtrak Writers' Residency, a Ragdale Writing Fellowship and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts for Fiction.
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A nuanced, flawed hero lends the latest Disney animated feature surprising depth, even if its grab-bag depiction of a world drawn from Southeast Asian cultures feels shallow. -
Netflix's new animated series takes the cheesiness out of Guillermo del Toro's giant-robots-vs.-giant-monsters franchise; more's the pity. -
A gay couple (Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci) take a trip through Great Britain's Lake District as they deal with the knowledge that one of them is dying. -
The great Alan Tudyk gets a role he can sink his sharp pointy alien teeth into on a darkly funny series boasting an ensemble cast of characters with surprisingly nuanced interpersonal histories. -
Watching musician/actor John Lurie paint and grumbly pontificate in an unnamed tropical locale is sometimes puzzling, often intriguing and always soothing. -
The latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been downsized to fit the television screen — and pay loving, sharply observed homage to TV sitcoms of different eras in the process. -
The sequel to 2017's Wonder Woman is bright, entertaining, frequently funny — and overstuffed with villain backstories that crowd out the action. -
If you could watch it at home in 2020, it's here — four NPR critics give their picks for the best in streaming or broadcast TV in a year when current events turned the industry upside down. -
'Wolfwalkers' Is A Rich, Densely Packed Visual FeastThe story is simple, the themes surprisingly complex, and the hand-drawn animation is stunning in this stylish tale of a young girl yearning for freedom. -
Riz Ahmed gives a quiet, intense and profoundly unsentimental performance as a rock drummer who suddenly loses his hearing and stubbornly refuses to accept it.
