One Adam McKay is the right number of Adam McKays

Plus: 'The Batman,' Oscars coverage, and what's making us happy!

View this email online by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when multiple Netflix sets were robbed. It was the week when Sam Elliott decided to opine about The Power Of The Dog. And it was the week when a Broadway theater was renamed after James Earl Jones. Let's get to it. Opening Argument: One Adam McKay is the right number of Adam McKays Lots of people first encountered Adam McKay's signature style in The Big Short, his 2015 Oscar-nominated movie about the 2008 financial crisis, based on Michael Lewis' book. It involves a kind of jokey, meta, look-at-the-camera way of explaining things that are perceived to be complicated. Sometimes, it points knowingly at what it's doing, as The Big Short did with the famous line "Here's Margot Robbie in a bubble bath to explain."  In Vice, which came out in 2018, McKay uses little narrated montages to fill in information about characters, and he throws big captions up on the screen. The style comes back in Don't Look Up when he does things like flash words on the screen to tell you that yes, "The Planetary Defense Coordination Office is a real place." It's McKay's thing, for lack of a better word, and you either dig it or you do not dig it, but he does it.  It really goes into overdrive in the upcoming Winning Time, HBO's limited series about the Lakers dynasty that McKay executive produced, and of which he directed the first episode. That first episode has your fourth-wall breaking, your explanations to the camera, your freeze-frames, your different film stocks, your big captions -- it has a ton of this. A lot of this. So, so much of this. And it continues throughout the series. And again, either this is your thing, or it is not your thing.  I was more concerned, however, to see these same tics all over Showtime's series Super Pumped, which is about (former) Uber head Travis Kalanick (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Adam McKay didn't make Super Pumped, but boy, would you ever think he did. Less than three minutes into the first episode, the conversation about a new "safe rides fee" (the Uber surcharge that was added in 2014 ostensibly to make rides safer) stops and the scene freezes while a narrator -- who would be doing an unnecessarily broad Quentin Tarantino impression except that he is, of all people, Quentin actual Tarantino -- says: "Let me English this s**t up for those of you too trusting of a smiling face to get the actual f***ing drift." The phrase "SAFE RIDES FEE" is thrown on the screen accompanied by a loud "THUMP THUMP THUMP" as each word lands. A couple of minutes later -- mere minutes! -- Kalanick introduces the character played by Kyle Chandler as a "shot caller" and a "baller," and yes, the screen shows his picture while displaying the words "shot caller" and "baller." This is all before the 5:30 mark.  Now look: As I said, Adam McKay has a thing that he does, and some people really like it, and it can be funny, and it's certainly stylish. But in excess, it can tip toward the obnoxious, it can flirt with the smug, and particularly if you're talking about a guy like Kalanick, I'm not sure making the whole thing more obnoxious or more smug is really the way to go. I think McKay's influence as someone who tries to dig into unsavory characters and weird moments in history with this kind of detached hard stare will certainly continue -- he's on tap to make a movie about Theranos, starring Jennifer Lawrence, for Apple. And in general, I don't think we're anywhere near the end of the boom in television and film about hustlers and scammers and plain old eager operators. But everybody does not have to use the same style, and that style -- which can be charming when used to talk about Magic Johnson and NBA defenses, isn't the best or the most palatable way to talk about guys who already seem kinda ... puffed-up. Honestly, it feels like Kalanick (as portrayed in this series) would embrace being a character in an Adam McKay series. Or, let's say, a McKay-esque series. How he comes off when these methods are used is, I think, how he sees himself. Bad-ass! No holds barred! Comin' at you hot! Life narrated by Quentin Tarantino! BALLER! And honestly, if you're eager for the McKay style to be applied to your life, it's probably better if you don't get your wish. Newsletter continues after sponsor message We Recommend: Our Oscars coverage is just getting underway, and I'll have more to say about this later, but all the documentaries that were nominated in the documentary feature category are so good. We'll talk about all of them, but I want to just gently point you at Ascension, which I'm nervous people won't find over on Paramount Plus. It's about work and inequality in China, and it's gorgeous, thoughtful, and meticulously made. You might know Stephanie Foo from her time on Snap Judgment or This American Life. She has a new book out called What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma. I was so moved by it, and it's somehow sharp-elbowed and generous and funny, and I highly recommend it. (Full disclosure: Stephanie and I share the same publisher and editor.)  I also recommend the FXX animated show Dicktown, which has now returned for a second season after a first season that ran as part of the animation anthology Cake. Dicktown is on its own now, and it stars John Hodgman as basically a grown-up Encyclopedia Brown type, and David Rees as a grown-up Bugs Meany type, and neither of them has ever grown up entirely, and it's just a very weird show I cannot explain completely but it's very funny and you should check it out. You can find it right on FXX on Thursdays, or catch episodes the next day on Hulu.  I didn't care for the two episodes I made it through of Peacock's series Joe vs. Carole, but I greatly admired the sharply thoughtful piece my pal Dan Fienberg wrote about it in The Hollywood Reporter. The hardest pieces to make interesting are not the ones about shows that are extravagantly bad; they're the ones about things that are boring and unnecessary, and Dan knocks this out of the park.  What We Did This Week: Rob Youngson /Focus Features If you didn't catch Glen's wonderful newsletter essay about changes to the Oscars (and how bad they are), you can catch it on NPR.org.  Glen also put his Batman hat on (so to speak) to write about the new Robert Pattinson version, The Batman. I wrote about the new Hulu series The Dropout, the latest entry into the vast repository of Theranos content.  Stephen talked to Bob Mondello and Bedatri D. Choudhury about the Oscar-nominated Belfast. Leah Donnella joined me to talk about some of the 2021 books from NPR's Books We Love feature that were about the lives of women.  Glen and Stephen talked up the Oscar nominees for best original song. Aisha, J.C. Howard, and Tre'vell Anderson talked about A Madea Homecoming. And of course, Glen sat down with our pals Andrew Limbong and Daisy Rosario to talk about The Batman. What's Making Us Happy! Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: What's making Andrew happy: Drug Church's forthcoming album, Hygiene What's making Daisy happy: Learning to knit with We Are Knitters What's making Glen happy: Self Center Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+. Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free episodes. What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: pchh@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Music, Books, Daily News and more! 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