Project Hail Mary and What’s Making Us Happy

about the latest and greatest in movies, TV, music, and more. And if you're a pop culture junkie who's not following the show yet,

“we're thinking you need to fix that right now by following Pop Culture Happy Hour on your”

favorite podcast app. Next week we'll be talking about the new album from BTS, and the sequel to one of our favorite horror movies from the last few years. You won't want to miss it, and now on to Project Hail Mary. Ryan Gosling has teamed up with the guys behind the Lego Movie and Spider-Man into the

Spider-Verse for the new Sci-Fi Movie Project Hail Mary. The sun is dying, and the Earth's population is under threat. The planet's only hope is to send a team on an interstellar mission from which they'll

almost certainly never return.

If that all sounds incredibly bleak, fear not, while the world may or may not be doomed, you can expect quirk, charm, and a cutesy alien creature to boot. I'm Linda Holmes, and I'm Ayesha Harris. Joining us on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is our fellow co-host Steven Thompson. Hey Steven. Hey buddy.

Also with us is Ronald Young Jr., he's the host of the film and television review podcast leaving the theater. Welcome back Ronald. Hello Ayesha, great to be here. So lovely to have you here. So, Project Hail Mary, it's based on a novel by Andy Weir, who also wrote the

Martian. A movie haven't seen since it came out, but I definitely was feeling Martian

vibes, so I felt vindicated when I learned after seeing this movie.

But he also wrote that book. It's built around a doomsday scenario, a mysterious phenomenon is causing the sun to dim, and Earth is projected to cool significantly within the next few decades. Many people will be wiped out. Ryan Gosling plays Rylan Grace, a molecular biologist who was chase out of the field after

publishing a controversial paper about life on other planets. These days, Grace, as he goes by, is teaching middle schoolers, but his radical views have caught the attention of Eva Strat, who's leading the international forced test for preventing the impending ice age. She's played by Sandra Huller.

Eva recruits Grace as one of her key experts, and he winds up on a one-way mission into space. Sometime later, Grace awakens from a coma to find he's the only surviving crew member on the ship. Eventually, he makes contact with an alien whose own planet is also under threat. Grace dubs him rocky.

He's voiced by James Ortiz, and kind of looks like a giant crab made out of a rock. It's kind of cool. Kind of cute. They bond and work together to try and fix the solar system. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller-Directed Project Hail Mary, which is in theaters now.

It's from Amazon, MGM Studios, so we should note, Amazon supports MPR and pays to distribute some of our content. And with that, let's fly off into space here, Linda. Give us your initial impression. Well, a lot of people who wasn't to this podcast know that the Martian is one of my favorite

movies every single year, is one of my core rewatchables. When this movie was coming up, I was really nervous about my expectations being too high, because I did expect it to have some Martian vibes to it. I also really, really like Ryan Gosling, particularly when he gets to be funny.

“So I had very, very high expectations going into this, which worried me a little bit, but honestly,”

I absolutely loved it. I thought it was great. I thought it was extremely entertaining. I think they find the right balance of like Rocky is very, very cute and funny,

but there's also a lot of other stuff in it. So it never tipped over to me

into like just another Rocky is cute and funny scene. I think they kept on the right side of that. There's a physical comedy bit with Rocky when he first visits grace on the ship that I think is just one of the most delightful little runs of physical comedy and silliness that I have enjoyed at the movies in quite a while. I do think Ryan Gosling is a very strong dramatic actor,

but also genuinely so, so, so funny. And that I think is where this has a strength beyond what the Martian has. Martian is also funny, but it's not as funny as this. I just had such a great time. I was giggling out loud a lot, which I always welcome, but I was also very moved by this basic story of trying to save humanity. This is a very well executed adaptation of what Andy Weird does. And particularly at a time when we are seeing so much voluntary reduction in science,

“scientific capacity, particularly in the United States, not to mention international cooperation, right?”

This is a story that I really welcome to give me a scientist who's a hero because he smart and knows a lot of stuff and is curious and interested in things and open to new friends? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Linda. Steven, how are we feeling about this? Well, it's interesting. I'm really glad Linda that you said what you said at the end there because one movie that this pinged for me,

ambitious it is theatrically. I know you're going to say though. But a movie that it

called to mind for me and you mentioned international cooperation is a rival. And this film is not as emo as a rival. No, but it's capturing some of what I love about a rival, including a long stretch of like a rival, trying to solve the puzzle of how humans could communicate with aliens when there is essentially nothing connecting them. There's no way into each other's languages in this film tries to kind of wrestle with that at the same time that it's equipping and wise

cracking and injecting these little doses of sweetness and sentiment and just heaping helpings of problem solving. This is a film like the Martian about problem solving. And so for me, it worked wonderfully. It is also visually stunning. It has this beautiful, sumptuous, only occasionally overbearing score by Daniel Pemberton that I thought was lovely. This film deploys visual effects

and music really, really wonderfully. I ultimately loved it though I have some quibbles with the

“pacing in the second half. I think it slows down for some stretches but it picks up or it left off”

and ultimately I found it enormously satisfying. Yeah, it is a two and a half hour movie and I do agree with you, even at towards the end, you might start to feel about a little bit. But Ronald, I am so curious. I think it was a good movie. I think it was a good movie over the start. I read the book and I think I would have appreciated going into this without the contextual knowledge of the book because every quibble that I have with the movie has to do with context that

I had reading the book that I wondered. I wanted to say, hey, do y'all know about this? And I didn't want to become that person to be like, well, that's not how they did in the book because it wasn't a matter of discrepancies between the book and the movie as much as I was just like, oh, there's more context about why this is happening on the screen that I felt like was completely missed. There's a couple of things about Rylan Grace's character that kind of explained his arc going on that

are echoed in the book. There's something about the flashback scenes being used as pieces to a puzzle that build out what's actually happening while he's on the ship that I thought was important

“that watching the movie and having not known any of this, I think I probably would have walked”

out a bit like this movie was great, just like everyone else. But I think I was Armstrong with some of the things that happened in the book that I missed watching the movie, but in that great movie and also, if you're going to get Lorden Miller to do a movie in space, yes, make it about friendship. Please make it about friendship and make it funny. And they do all of those things, which I thought was great. Yeah, yeah, that pesky problem of book versus movie,

which I totally sympathized with the Rylan, I am one of those people who did not read the book. Like I said, I didn't even know that this was a movie based on a novel by the same guy who did the Martian. Like because I've said this before, I try to go in as blankly as possible. So I had a good time with this. Rylan Gosling's charm goes so far. There's several men and I would who are around his age who are around his quote unquote type who think they have what

he has and they do not. And I can imagine this movie being played with one of them and it just not landing. Literally sat there in the theater thinking, you know what, Glen Powell is not Ryan Gosling. Yeah, I like Glen Powell. Glenn Powell is not Ryan Gosling. I thought you were thinking Chris Pratt is not what Ryan Gosling. Yeah. Other Ryan would have worked either Ryan. Oh god, Ryan Reynolds. No. No. Definitely not. No. So he's too smart me. Yeah. There's something about the way

he's able to emit both a sort of sadness and also just like defeatedness, but also eventually

“triumph that that arc really, really worked well. And I think the script is very tight and very good”

about that. And I like the fact that we don't really ever learn anything about his personal life.

There's a version of this movie or this story where it's always like I have a daughter at home or I

have a totally family at home. The interstellar model. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, look, we live in a society. Most people have a family. But like I'm glad I'm glad that this was just about this man who, you know, the weight of the world is literally on his shoulders. And what that does to him, well, he also tries to find the connection with this frigging rock. And the rock is great. Like Rocky, who is as we said, voiced by James Ortiz, and also is a puppet. There's something very

tactile about this character that is so refreshing to see in a movie that comes out in 26 that Anthropomorphic rock crab has so much expression and so much life to it. And for all the other

and what it may be saying about, you know, humanity. I just love seeing that connection. And it was

just very sweet. Like you Linda, I was giggling and just like getting and just like, oh, I love this. Well, you mentioned giggling, Aisha. I mean, it is so important that this film is made by directors who know how to direct comedy. Yes. The fact that this film is from the people who brought you cloudy with a chance of meatballs in 21 Jump Street really does affect the quality of this film in an enormously positive way. These are funny people. And they know how to pace a joke. They know

how to pace a comedic scene. They know how to pace physical comedy. And that really levens this film. And it's one of the reasons that a film that is like 2 hours and 36 minutes long doesn't have

“that effect that interstellar had on me where it felt six hours long. And I think that's in part”

because it is so punctuated with jokes. Yeah, you know, you mentioned Aisha, the ability of

Gosling to convey the comedy and also a certain sadness. I think the ability to mix comedy and deep melancholy is part of the leading man formula that often gets really kind of glossed over. It is absolutely a key part of Clooney. There is a sense of weight on him when he is good even when he is being funny. There's like a sadness. There's like a kind of a loss of opportunities. And you just get that. And I think Gosling has some of that. I do want to hear what Ronald has to say

about the pacing because I was jumping off of Aisha, but Steven just talked about not feeling like a felt long. And I'm curious because I know Ronald felt like it did feel long. Well, to me only towards the end, I think I started to be like, all right, wrap it up. But again, to be honest with you,

I thought the ending of the movie felt to me more satisfying than the ending of the book,

which is over 400 pages long. And by the time I got to the end of the book, I was really like, all right, wrap it up. I was like, pretty upset. By the time I'm like flipping through those last pages. But if we're kind of off time, I'm like, I'm quibbling. I'm like 10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes. I'm not talking like a whole 30 minutes. I don't want to want a different movie in that regard. The one thing I will say though, in terms of Ryan Gosling's character, nothing about his backstory

was what I, I didn't want more of him having a family, any of that, which is not in the book. But what I did want more of a stability that creates kind of room for why he makes decisions later in the movie. There's stuff that's seated throughout the book. That's like, oh, that's got it. This thing happens. There's an important conversation that happens between

“Eva Stratt and Rylan Grace, Eva Stratt played by Sandra Huller, which I think is really important”

and then the way it plays out in the book was just, I mean, it blew my mind. I had to put the book down and walk around for a bit and I felt like it was a little hamstring in the movie. However, I'm probably the only one who missed that in terms of why it ends up being the way it is. So I don't think it's a big deal. I don't think it's going to stop people from enjoying the movie. I will say if you're reading the book right now and you're like, I want to finish this before

the movie comes out. Stop. Go back and read the book. You know, I've been in the position too because sometimes you feel like if you watch them in the right order, then the book feels like an expanded version of the movie. Rylan, Rylan, Blue Beauty, feeling like a bold, lorized version of the book. You know what I mean? Both can exist. You know, in the same universe and both can be fine and interesting and fun. One of the

“things that I really liked about the general shape of this film was that I think they do a”

really good job with a really hard structure, which is, you know, you have this mix of this story and space. But when Grace wakes up, he has Amnesia and he doesn't remember what happened, but it kind of gradually comes back to him what happened. And I think integrating those flashbacks, especially when there's as much of it, as there is in this film, I'm going to say it's, I don't know, 60, 40 space flashbacks. Maybe. Yeah. And I think integrating those flashbacks in a way that

is at all elegant is really difficult. And I sort of feel like it helps that, as you can imagine, the flashbacks to how he got in this position, that's all pretty grim, right? Because it's people being like, the world is dying. Anyway, the people who are on this mission are probably going to just die in space, right? Yeah. So that's all pretty heavy. And so I think it really helps that so much of the space stuff is rocky being funny. And if you put this in the hands of an even

slightly different, I think, set of writer that screenplay here is Drew Goddard who's terrific and has written a lot of funny stuff that I have really enjoyed. Yeah. If you put this in a really different director, writer, actor, production designer, all the various creature wranglers,

it could really go, they would cute alien friend. Yeah. It could really go in a direction, mostly. There were moments when I watched this and I thought, this should not work. Yeah. Like, I should be sitting here being like, this is so corny. As I usually said, they've overly

anthropomorphized this little rock guy. Basically, he learns to speak English. They have a kind of

around about way they give him a voice and teach him to speak English. None of this should work. And then Rocky would do something cute and I would be like, yeah, I love him. I don't want to rock you doll after the minute. Rocky is kind of a dog. That's true. He is a dog. Yeah. It's true. You keep talking about him as a rock guy or a crab guy. You didn't see Anthropomorphized rotisserie

“chicken. Yeah. Oh, God. I don't know. That's what you ask. You know, I don't hear anything about that.”

No, I'm not a rock crab. Rotator talks, Steven. He looks like a rotisserie chicken. He's a dog. He's a little hungry. Steven. That's true. I'm hungry enough. Everything looks like a rotisserie chicken. It's basically a story of a man and his dog. Yeah. I mean, it's a dog scientist. The dog has enormous amounts of skill. So I don't want to be the dude being like the book again, but contextually, the book really does lay out that Rocky is very smart. And there he is, like a very inventive

visual. The look is a guy and his dog. That's what I'm talking about. But I know he deserves his dignity he's an engineer. He's brilliant. He just doesn't look like you and me. It's okay. But he just also like runs around and is little of all he's so cute. Oh my gosh. Well, Ronald, I did want to also ask you just before we started taping you had. You had some other thoughts of just like existential

“cripples. And I'm curious. Look, if you want to try to stand on those. But so I feel like when I”

sit down at the movie and the first thing I see is Amazon MGM Studios, you know, presents the movie that I'm about to see. Amazon, which is founded by Jeff Bezos, who also founded Blue Origin. And Jeff Bezos having a vested interest in space. To me, it feels like to watch his other

company present a two and a half hour dip into space in which the problem is solved by leaving Earth

or quarter of the Earth's population possibly dying is solved by leaving Earth and going into space. It felt like as a person watching this, I was making that connection like, oh, I don't know. I feel about that. Even though I am having a good time at this movie, I don't know if they were thinking of that connection as this movie was being made. I just, I don't know. It's just something that I thought about. Yeah, I think, you know, for me, the way that large corporations

function and the way that large corporations, I mean, other corporations mergers with media companies and things like that. One of the things that has really happened is that the way that tech in general is currently operating in society. For me, complicates a lot of scientist hero stories,

“space hero stories. It complicates any effort you might make to have like an AI movie. And I think”

all of those come with a lot of extra, like perhaps context that is not desired by the writer of the original story. Because I don't think that Andy, we are meant to be, you know, calling into mind any of that context when we wrote the book and yet here we are. But like, there aren't that many movie studios that art in some way connected to something that could give you weird feelings about the way that they approach a science movie, a hero space movie, et cetera.

No, that's fair. And just to clarify, they're not trying to send to everyone into space. They're trying to send like a handful of people who can possibly fix it. And then three heroes. Yes, yes, heroes in a rotisserie chicken. The alternate anniversary chicken rock. No, but I completely

understand that and that is the sort of larger issue, right? It's just the art in commerce has always

been fraught. There's a lot of tension and especially now when we as you said, there's just been so many mergers and acquisitions and interest in entities and what ultimately comes out and gets made is not always necessarily tied to how it gets put out there into the world. Or at least like not intentionally. So I understand you and I hear that concern and also at the same time, I'm just like, you know what? If one or two people have to go out into space to save the rest of us,

I'm okay with that. As long as it's not me, or anyone that I love and care about. Well, we want to know what you think about Project Hail Mary. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/pch and on [email protected]/nprpopculture. We'll have a link to that in our episode description. And up next, we're going to be talking about what's making us happy this week.

on your preferred podcast app and stay plugged in on all things, pop culture, happy hour adjacent, including what's making us happy every week. Which brings me to Ronald, I'm going to start with you. What's making you happy this week? Okay. So being a pop culture commentator, critic, enthusiast, I feel like there's a lot that I watch, but every now and then you miss something or you start it, and you don't finish it. So for years, I've been meaning to get back to this one show,

BoJack Horseman, which is Audent Flex. I'd watched the first season when it came out years and

years ago, and then never finished it. And I recently just started going back and just binging

“through the whole thing. I'm somewhere around season four. I think I'm about halfway. And man,”

what a great show. Just in case you missed it, the wordplay is great. The animal jokes are very funny. And it has a very dark gooey center that if you are into thinking about existentialism and the nature of life and what we're all here for as I am want to do, I feel like it's a show that will scratch a lot of inches for you. So I'm enjoying it now and I think it's evergreen content. So that's BoJack Horseman, which is available on Netflix. Well, Ronald, wait until you get to the end of

that show. I tell you. I have problems already. I'm like, do I finish this? And mentally, emotionally,

prepare yourself. But I will say every year, I watch the Christmas special for BoJack Horseman. So I

highly recommend that as well. So glad you mentioned BoJack Horseman. All right, Steven, buddy. What is making you happy this week? So these are loud and frenetic times. And in loud and frenetic times, I sometimes turn to music that calms my nerves, kind of settles my spirit and a record that I've kept coming back to in the last few weeks. It's one that just came out a little while ago. It's by an Austrian musician and composer named Manu Delago, working with a musician named Max

ZT. Now Manu Delago plays the handpan, which is like a steel drum you play with your hands. It produces this kind of soft, ringing percussion. Max ZT plays the hammer dulcimer.

Combined, they make this music that is so soothing and calming and lush and sweet.

The track that I want to play a little bit of has a title that is perfectly suited to vibe here. It's called Love All. So that is Manu Delago and Max ZT. They have a beautiful new record

“out together. It's called Duce. Thank you so much, Steven. Linda, what is making you happy this week?”

Well, I use a motivated by the good reviews that I have seen for the Fallen Rise of Reggie Dinkens. I have been motivated to go around reminding people how funny I think Daniel Radcliffe is, which because he started off as Harry Potter for a lot of people, even though he very quickly, you know, Justin started doing all kinds of other really interesting and cool stuff and I think that's well established now and no longer news to anyone. I think his participation in

comedy is still sometimes a little bit under the radar for people like flat out comedy. So I wanted to recommend two things. If you are not familiar with Daniel Radcliffe's very, very good work in comedy. One is the Lost City, which is a 2022 romantic comedy with Sandra Volac and Channing Tatum. Daniel Radcliffe plays the villain in this movie. He's very funny. I love it. A great movie. Also,

“the movie What If, which is a romantic comedy starring Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan from 2013,”

that one also includes Mackenzie Davis and Adam Driver. He is so good in this romantic comedy, which upends some of the traditional things that are played to be like, you know, the stuff in aroundcoms where you're like, that would not actually be good if someone did that. This is a movie that sort of knows some of that and forces the characters to reckon with it. And he's very funny in it and so charming. And Zoe Kazan is so good in it. And Adam Driver has his best line reading

of his career comedy-wise. In my opinion, is in this movie. It involves saying, I just had sex and I'm about to eat nachos. And so if you are still looking to enjoy more of Daniel Radcliffe being really funny, I encourage you to find both Velocity and what if known in some other countries as the F word, but in the United States it was released as what if. This is some weird the aliyank of story erasure. And I was going to say farting corpse movie,

erasure. So sorry, man. Oh yeah. Both good additions, both good additions. I love these pics, so thank you for that. Well, what is making me happy this week? Is that recently I appeared as a guest on the podcast Guide for the Film Penetic. This is hosted by Jason

that show, I got to choose Splendor in the Grass, which is what is making me very, very happy. This is,

“of course, Elia Kazan's 1961 melodrama about horror meetings and sexual repression in 1920s”

Kansas. Right around the time of the stock market crash, I love this movie so much. You've got

Natalie Wood and Warren Bady. They're playing these young lovers who kind of crumble under the

“weight of their parents' expectations and societal norms. And there is so much chemistry, so much”

heat between these two. Also got a screenplay by William Inge. And what I love about what we talk

about in the show is that it's like a very refreshingly progressive movie about therapy and teen

“angst given the time that it was made in and also the period that it's set in. It's very just like”

empathetic and sympathetic about young love and what that can do to a person. So yeah, Splendor in the Grass, if you haven't seen it or if you haven't seen it in a very long time, I highly recommend it. It's just such such a lush and rich movie all these years later. And you can find that available for rent online. That is what's making me happy this week and that brings us to the end of our show, Ronald Young Jr. Steven Thompson, Linda Holmes. Thank you. This was such a pleasure.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. This episode is produced by Huffs of Bathama, Liz Metzker, Kayla Latamore, and Mike Cassiff, an edited by our showrunner Jessica Readie. Hello, come in provides our theme music, and thank you for listening to Popculture Half-Boward from MPR. And if you're not already following the show, do that right now. I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all next week.