Linda Holmes

This year's Oscar nominees include Wicked, The Substance, Emilia Perez, and Conclave. And we watched all the nominated movies so you don't have to. We're making some bold predictions for who will win, plus vouching for who should take home those shiny gold statues.To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy.

This year's Oscar nominees include Wicked, The Substance, Emilia Perez, and Conclave. And we watched all the nominated movies so you don't have to. We're making some bold predictions for who will win, plus vouching for who should take home those shiny gold statues.To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy.

The Netflix series Zero Day begins with a terrifying moment in which everything in the United States goes briefly offline. Thousands of people die, and even after everything is restored, a widespread panic leads to a government investigation of who did it. With a cast headed by Robert De Niro and Angela Bassett, the show hopes to be a paranoid political thriller for our times.

The Netflix series Zero Day begins with a terrifying moment in which everything in the United States goes briefly offline. Thousands of people die, and even after everything is restored, a widespread panic leads to a government investigation of who did it. With a cast headed by Robert De Niro and Angela Bassett, the show hopes to be a paranoid political thriller for our times.

Each episode of the new Max series covers one hour in a single day in a busy emergency department. The show manages to feel sympathetic to the hospital staff and to the patients in their care.

For more than 20 years on screen, Bridget Jones has been making her way through dating, working, having a baby, and even ending up in jail. Now in the fourth film, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, Bridget (Renée Zellweger) is dealing with a whole new phase of life, and a new pair of possible love interests.In the run-up to the Oscars, Pop Culture Happy Hour is watching all 10 best picture nominees – and you're invited to join us! Sign up for the NPR Movie Club newsletter series and tell us what you thought of the movies you watched this week. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture

The Peacock reality show The Traitors continues to be a delightful mix of treachery, foolishness, and Alan Cumming's outfits. In the United States, the cast is made up exclusively of so-called celebrities. So today on the show we're fantasy casting who we think should be on the next season of The Traitors.In the run-up to the Oscars, Pop Culture Happy Hour is watching all 10 best picture nominees – and you're invited to join us! Sign up for the NPR Movie Club newsletter series and tell us what you thought of the movies you watched this week. Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour

It is an adjustment to see Bridget Jones in a sad story on-screen. But in Mad About the Boy, Zellweger is still in touch with Bridget's tireless efforts to connect with her own sunniness, which have taken on new meaning.

Critic Linda Holmes has been playing The Sims since the early 2000s. Twenty five years in, she says she still finds the game charming but puzzling.

In the new action movie Love Hurts, Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan stars as a real estate agent who has remade his life after leaving the employ of his terrifying gangster brother. But when a beautiful and mysterious former associate (Ariana DeBose) returns into his life, everything goes haywire. The movie has hand fighting and a touch of romance--just in time for Valentine's Day.Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture