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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TheBetween Two Fernsmovie that dropped last week on Netflix expands on the Web series' proven formula, but its sheer joke density rewards repeat viewings. -
The new film is "less a victory lap than a cakewalk." Everything about the TV series — those aspects you loved, and those you didn't — is reproduced here with astonishing fidelity. -
The NPR Movies Team picks the 12 films they're most looking forward to seeing — movies that will likely end up in theaters or on streaming services sometime in the next few months. -
Netflix's 10-episode series — a prequel to the 1982 film — is, like the original, breathtaking to look at, but its thinly-drawn characters can't carry their narrative weight. -
Whether they're watching sitcoms, prime-time dramas or something else altogether, our television and pop culture critics present a guide to the new programs and series coming out soon. -
The film, about a wealthy clan who play a deadly game of hide-and-seek with a young woman (the fantastic Samara Weaving) marrying into the family, is fast, fun and not for the squeamish. -
FX's surreal, gorgeous, not-quite-a-superhero-show concluded with neither a bang nor a whimper, but instead with time travel, Pink Floyd, forgiveness and an outpouring of empathy. -
"What if superheroes were evil?" isn't the rich fodder for storytelling the series thinks it is, but some compelling performances keep the show from descending into depressing nihilism. -
When it's super hot, sometimes cold thoughts is all you've got. Three NPR colleagues offer suggestions on what to watch, hear and read to get in a chilled state of mind.
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We know it sounds sordid, but there's something missing in the 2019 version of Scar's bad-guy anthem — and it's the very thing that made the mustache-twirling original so iconic.
