Furry Road: Isle of Dogs, reviewed.

Boss (Bill Murray), a former baseball team mascot, is part of a pack of exiled canines.

It's no shocker that I loved Wes Anderson's new stop-motion adventure of Isle of Dogs. It's a mild shocker that I didn't cry watching it. Either time! My NPR review is here. UPDATE: I'm on the Pop Culture Happy Hour episode where we hash over some of charges of insensitivity and cultural appropriate that a few critics have levied against the movie, too. That's on the same page as the review, but you can hear below, too.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: "Isle of Dogs"

Linda Holmes, Stephen Thompson, Glen Weldon, Chris Klimek

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Annihilation! (emphasis mine)

Gina Rodriguez and Natalie Portman breach the perimeter in Annihilation. (Paramount)

"Annihilation" and What's Making Us Happy

NPR

Here is a joke you will not hear on today's episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour, wherein I join old friends Linda Holmes and Stephen Thompson and new friend Daisy Rosario to dissect (heh) Annihilation, the new thriller from Ex Machina writer/director Alex Garland starring Natalie Portman and involving lots of cool but hella gross body horror stuff:

 Portman hand

Portman finger

Portman foot

Portmanteau

(Bows.)

Let nothing, nothing go to waste. You can hear the episode here.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Black Mirror Season 4, discussed.

U.S.S. Callister is a standout among the new Black Mirror episodes released this week. (Netflix)

I'm on today's episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour, weighing in on the new season of Netflix's cautionary-tale tech anthology Black Mirror. One thing I should've said had there been time is just how much the open format of the show contributes to its ability to build tension. Two of my favorites among the six new episodes are "U.S.S. Callister," which runs a nearly feature-length 76 minutes, and "Metalhead," which clocks in at around 40 minutes—not even long enough to fill a network hour. Anyway, I was happy as always to join Linda and Glen, and especially glad to get to speak with Brittany Luse, whom I had not met previously. You can hear the episode below, or on whatever smart device you've got. Or both. I mean, we're all cuffed to our digital appendages now, despite the warnings of Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker.

In the "What's Making Me Happy" segment, I plug my latest Christmas mixtape, Noel Means Noel, which remains available for your halldecking, merrymaking edificaiton, along with most of its predecessors. Merry Eight More Days of Christmas.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Blade Runner 2049, Pop Culture Happy Hour: Blade Runner 2049, Voigt-Kampff'd.

Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford have a lot to talk about. (Stephen Vaughn / Alcon)

Any debate over whether Blade Runner 2049, a 35-years-later sequel to the cultiest cult film in the history of movies, has general-interest appeal should be put to rest by virtue of the fact that Stephen Thompson—the host of the three-way discussion of the film the comprises today's Pop Culture Happy Hour—liked it, too! Pal-for-Life Glen Weldon and I are this movie's core constituency. But when the Kung Fu Panda-loving Mr. Thompson gives his approval to an intense, nearly-three-hour dystopian future flick, you know it's got some moves.

You can listen in here, where the episode is posted along with my review from last week. I had to write it just a couple of hours after I saw Blade Runner 2049, but I think the piece stands up. I'm seeing the movie again tomorrow night at the National Air and Space Museum. I'm looking forward to spending another 163 minutes with a new stone classic.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Logan Lucky, discussed.

Workaholic artist Steven Soderbergh on the set of Logan Lucky. (Bleecker St.)

I dropped by NPR HQ to talk about Steven Soderbergh's return to features, Logan Lucky, with screenwriter and author Danielle Henderson and regular Pop Culture Happy Hour panelists Linda Holmes and Glen Weldon.  When we recorded this discussion, I'd taken the opportunity to see the movie a second time after filing my review, and my opinion on it had evolved a little. Anyway, you can find the episode here.

I wish I could put my finger on why it read to me as condescending in a Coenesque way the first time but not the second. I love the films of Joel and Ethan Coen. But the ones Logan Lucky most recalled for me, Raising Arizona and Fargo, are not among my favorites.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Atomic Blonde

The Mondo two-LP blue-and-yellow-vinyl edition of the soundtrack to David Leitch's stylish Charlize Theron-headlined, set-in-1989 espionage thriller Atomic Blonde that I ordered won't arrive for several weeks, I'm told. Until then you and I will just have to make do with our extant libraries of New Order, The Clash, A Flock of Seagulls, etc. And with this thrilling recorded-in-one take episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour, wherein host Linda Holmes and regular panelists Stephen Thompson and Glen Weldon brought me in to talk about how much we all like watching Ms. Theron kick ass. It's a lot more satisfying that watching her play second-fiddle to some grunting no-talent clown in a tank top.