Pop Culture Happy Hour - Normal and What’s Making Us Happy

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

Bob Odenkirk has pivoted from sketch comedy to dramatic acting and, most recently, to late-middle-aged action star. In the new film Normal, he plays a small-town sheriff who finds out his small town isn’t so normal after all, which will of course require some sexagenarian butt-kicking. The cast includes Henry Winkler and Lena Headey, and was written by Derek Kolstad, the mind behind the John Wick franchise. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopcultureSubscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour  See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour, the podcast that keeps you up to speed on the latest and greatest in movies, TV, music, and more. If you're a pop culture obsessive who's not yet following us, you can fix that right now by following Pop Culture Happy Hour on your podcast app of choice. Next week, we'll be talking about the new season of the Netflix show beef, and we'll have a deep dive on all the ways Michael Jackson has been portrayed on screen, how hard he worked to shape his legacy in real time. So make sure to listen. Now, on to the show. So the Liam Nisification of comedy legend Bob Odenk

have you been keeping up on it? Because it is proceeding a pace. He's already pivoted from sketch comedy to dramatic acting and most recently to late middle-aged action star in the film's nobody and its sequel. Now he's starring in normal,

playing a small town sheriff who finds out his small town isn't so normal after all, which will of course require some sexagenarian butt kicking. I'm Glenn Weldon joining me today to talk about normal. on 9PR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is Ronald Young Jr.

He's the host of the film and television review podcast leaving the theater. Hey, Ronald. Hello, Glenn. Also with us is writer Chris Klimak, hey, Chris? Hello, Glenn. Hello, Ronald. Briefly, briefly, before we begin, I want to buoy the spirits of anyone who shares my disappointment

upon learning that normal Minnesota is a fictional town by telling them that I have, in fact, been to liberal Kansas, and when I was there, I took a photo of a liberal police car. All right. There we go. In normal the film, Bob Odenkirk plays. Let me check my note here. Let's see, I've got it right here.

Ah, Sheriff Ulysses, who's recently accepted a gig as temporary sheriff in a small Minnesota town to get away from a troubled marriage and some mysterious unpleasantness in his past. That doesn't remain mysterious for long because flashbacks. Turns out the town is friendly enough. The mayor is played by Henry Winkler, the local bar keep by a blink and you'll miss her, Lena Heedy. But it's hiding a dark secret, a secret. that quickly turned super hyper-meagovilant.

Normal was written by Derek Kulstad, the creator of the John Wick franchise, who also wrote Nobody. It was directed by Ben Wheatley, theuteur behind Meg to the Trench, but also some really terrific British horror films like Kill List and a Field in England. Normal is in theaters now, Chris, our action guy, would you make of this little film? Oh, boy, this is tough, because I want to love this movie so deeply. And, you know, it just won't let me, Glenn. This is a movie that continually feints towards something less conventional,

weirder, more original, and then keeps yank in the wheel back in the direction of the most predictable resolution to any scenario to establishes the big, dumb gunfight. I was initially kind of hooked because I kind of, you know, I mean, I've written about all the John Wick movies and nobody and Colstad seems to do one thing. And here it looks like he's actually doing something else. This movie looks like it's going to be a little more high noon, a little more Fargo, you know, than John Wick or the middle-aged guy who has a violent past and has been pushed too far. And then, you know, again, it just, at every turn it keeps on disappointing me. It becomes this sort of one man against the world mismatch that we've seen so many times. I am shocked at how many cliches, how many appendages. how many appendages from other movies you can suture together in the space of 90 minutes.

If this movie were any more derivative, ultimately, it would be called the normal and the furious. So I am, I'm disappointed. Guys, I'm disappointed. Hold me. Right, Ronald. Are you going to hold them? Are you disappointed too? Where'd you come down?

Oh, man. Okay, so there's three movies that I thought of while watching this. Hot Fuzz, Assault on Precinct 13, and 30 Days of Night. All three of those movies are way better than this one. To reference those three movies, I feel like, and to come up with this, I think Chris Clemick said it best. It is disappointing. This was a film that I think was not serious enough and not fun enough to be anything. If it had been more serious, I think it would have been a better movie.

If it had been more fun, I think it would have been a better movie. But it falls down somewhere in the middle where I would like to right now be arguing with Chris about how stupid this movie is. But this movie ends up kind of being a nothing bird. Like, I want it to be so stupid and silly that we're arguing over like, oh, Ronald, like, come on, man, you're supposed to just have fun in this film. That's what the debate I want to be having. But instead, it kind of just falls tonally flat because of the serious elements. And it's just not fun enough for me to just turn my brain off and watch it. I wasn't really a fan.

Okay. Well, maybe I'm going to surprise you guys here because I don't think this is a bad movie. Because I think this thing is barely a movie. This is a gesture. toward a movie. It's the concept of a movie strung together with masking tape and bailing wire. Everything about this feels like it was hastily patched together in post. There is so much ADR in this movie. There are Madam Webb amounts of ADR. Every time a character is not on screen or turns away from the camera even briefly, they get all this extra dialogue. It's always wildly unnecessary. It's either just restating something that we already know or in the fight scenes. It is these.

invariably, these cheesy 80s action movie, wisecrack catchphrases like, suck on this, and you're a slippery one. Look what I've hooked. And it was like, that's what they came up with. Things happen. So many things happen in this movie for no other reason than to deliver that kind of like serotonin hit

to the adolescent brain to make a 14-year-old go, cool. How else to explain how many final destination deaths we get in this thing? And look, we all possess that adolescent brain, and the adolescent brain doesn't ask much of what it consumes. It asks something very specific and very narrow, which is good because that's all this movie is capable of delivering. And in fairness to this film,

I'm going to be a little bit more generous than I think you guys are. I'd say about 60% of the time, I was like, well, that's fun. But then drive it home, I was like, there's a reason 60% is not a passing grade. I was going to say, that's not a passing grade, Glenn. That's right. Because if almost half the time, this movie, which wants to be a breezy good time,

is just huffing and puffing. It is just out of breath. And like in the hands of a decent action filmmaker like Sam Ramey, which has a lot of, like, there's a lot of stuff. Some of those like cheesy ADR catchphrase stuff, that's early Sam Ramey all over the place.

You should have actually gotten Bruce Campbell to ADR and the quips. This is the thing. Like that's when the goofiness is the point in here. I don't know what the point is here. Because if you're going to be this glib and this frictionless with how you treat violence, you need to make that the vibe.

It needs to be frenetic. It needs to be breathless. You need to turn this thing into a transporter or a crank. And otherwise, you're just doing whatever this is. And I don't know what this is. Yeah. It's my issue. I think you're right.

I mean, Chris Clemick, you said Bruce Campbell. I mean, you have Bob Odenkirk. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, you have it right there. You have a guy who has comedy chops and serious chops. I mean, there's a point in the movie where we start to get into the dark past of the character. And I remember thinking, oh, that's why you got Odencirk.

Because for a while, I was like, this is going to be a little. have been anybody. It didn't have to be Bob Odecker. For the depth, right. Yeah. Yeah. But he starts to turn and starts to talk a little bit about his past. And then I said, oh, okay, you needed some serious acting. Like, I can believe this person, you know, having a good time. And I can also believe this person has a dark secret in his past that exists. So I feel like if you have him, then use the full breadth of his experience in the film. But they just couldn't quite do that. Right. So Odenkirk actually contributed to the story here. He has a, has a story. credit on this film. Now, I think we should all be well past the point where we're surprised that

people who become famous and successful in comedy also have this deep well of sadness that they can tap into on screen. You know, we've seen Robin Williams do that. We've seen Adam Sandler do that for crying out loud, right? So I mean, of course. Yeah, Carrie and Eternal Sunshine. And, you know, and Odenkirk is a, is a tremendous actor. But I want to use that to talk about one of the screenwriting deficiencies here. This movie, this is, you know, again, 91 minutes with credits. You're You're thinking that if ever we're going to elide the monologue that's kind of awkwardly shoehorned into the movie where we find out what kind of emotional baggage our hero is dragging around. That's the only reason Lena Heady is in this movie is so that he can unburden himself to her over drinks. And then later revise the thing that he said.

So we get it twice. I think that kind of backstory is of great use to an actor, right? It's useful for them to know what they're carrying around. The audience doesn't need it. You know, like, that is why you get Odenkirk. That's a, I mean, I said the same thing about Sandra Bullock and gravity. The movie stops for, I mean, another, like, tight 90-minute movie that stops as you could just like, here's why I'm sad.

Like, it's enough. You're a good actor. I get that you're sad. It's actually deflating for me to find out exactly why. Huge strike against what wants to be a svelte 90-minute good time. You put it out something that factors into my theory of the case here. I feel like this movie was made for streaming. with all the narrative training wheels

that streaming content has nowadays where characters just stand around and state and restate who they are, what their relationships are with other characters, what they're about to do, what they're doing, what they've just done. And if your audience is on a couch on a Sunday afternoon, you can get away with that.

But I'm telling you, every time one of those flashbacks came up, every time somebody told me who they were, what they're about to do, in the theater I just felt trapped. I felt prodded. I felt talked down to. I felt condescended to. And look, I want people to enjoy

films and theaters. I want movies to come back. Agreed. This film does not benefit from a theatrical setting. This movie is made to fold your laundry to, I'm going to say it. It's not deserving of your full attention because it doesn't know what to do with it. Watching this film, it's like, well, what do you look at? What? What?

Here's a decapitation. So would you tell folks, I mean, obviously we're not recommending this film, but would you tell folks to see this in a local sit-uplex? I really wouldn't. No, I wouldn't recommend it. And I think you're right. That's one of the new ways that I judge sitting in a theater now, which is to say, could I just be sitting at the house watching this? And this is one of those,

especially for it to be Derek Kolstad. Like, sometimes I'll rewatch John Wick and wish I was in a theater. Right. Sure. I don't want to be on my couch. I want to be at a theater watching this. With normal, I just, I got to be on my couch. Please. Let me, I want to scroll Instagram. I want to go like a bunch of pictures to this film. I mean, yeah, apparently they're not thinking that all the way through, you know? I can't go that far. I mean, as far as I will go with you, Ronald is wishing that this movie was called Eight Week Sheriff. It sounds like a Bravo show that

you would be on Pop Culture Happy Hour talking about and that I wouldn't go near. We are told that he is the sheriff for the interim period of eight weeks until the next election, which I really have some questions about continuity of government in normal Minnesota because it can't Henry Winkler, the mayor, can't he just appoint an interim sheriff or something?

Do they have temp sheriffs? Is there a... That's actually a good example of one of the ways in which this movie kind of feints towards something more interesting than what we get. There is an early scene where he is in the armory of the sheriff's department. And one, like, chides the secretary

of the receptions, whoever, for leaving the door to the weapon storage unlocked. But then he's looking at all the military hardware they have in there, all the C4 explosives, he says, and he actually says, why do you have this? And she says, well, you know, after 9-11, the old sheriff applied for all these grants.

Like, that was a real thing, right? There were news stories about that for years about these like podunk municipalities getting decommissioned military hardware and why? Like nothing good can come from this

and it's like, oh, is this going to be a satire about the overarming of law enforcement? Of course not. No, I mean, like, that's the closest thing this film gets to a point of view. Like, this film so months

to be Rebel Ridge, which ironically was, you know, a streaming film. But this is like first draft. There's a film I would have watched in a theater, Glenn. Absolutely. We all liked Rebel Ridge, right?

Rebel Ridge really good. We did. But like, This is Rebel Ridge without a take, without an angle, without a point of view, without a reason for existing. Yeah. There's also, I'm not going to make a big thing of this, because certainly the movie doesn't make a big thing. There's a queer character here. Trans, possibly non-binary character.

In a storyline that is so underwritten, it feels like good old-fashioned tokenism. You know, a shorthand for us to underscore how bad the bad guys are because they don't accept trans people. Yes. That's how we did this in the 80s. Why are we still doing this? It's so funny because you say that. You mean in the 80s because they would have been doing it for black characters. Or women.

Yeah, or women. Yeah, anything that's like, it's like sexist or racist. Oh my God, this person is evil. Which, to be clear, I don't agree with sexism or racism. To be clear. Bold take, Ronald. Bold take. Hey, listen, you got to say it these days.

I'm not trying to get canceled on a pop culture happy hour. It's like to use it as a trope in like a film to say, this person's so evil, they can't even accept queer folks. And I'm like, yo, that's definitely a nuanced stance. But if you use it as just black and white in films, you actually. actually undercut the importance of acceptance and inclusivity. And in this film, you definitely do that. I'm like, they have bigger fish to fry in this film, but you want us to care about this one issue, which of course we do care about, but it adds to the mess.

It just adds to the mess. What about the sheriff being named Ulysses? You could be sheriff, growing up. I think that's right. I think that's the irony. I think like even more than the sheriff in Twin Peaks being named Harry S. Truman, comma, sheriff. I think Ulysses is a, you know, he's a, like,

like Madonna, Bono, you know, just a one-nameer figure of mystery. Well, I think we've exhausted all our takes on what is a pretty exhausting film. It turns out 90 minutes can still be a waste of time. Too long. Too long. So we're not happy with this film, but you know what's coming up next? What is Making Us Happy This Week? Now it is time for our favorite segment of this week and every week.

What is Making Us Happy This Week? Ronald, I need happy. What's making you happy this week? You know what? I got a simple one. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel. There's a lot of drama going on on Bravo's Summerhouse right now. And I have been an OG stand. The network that brought you eight week share? When you said eight-week sheriff, I'm like, what is he looking at my notes? Right now, Bravo is genuinely making me happy. And there's a lot of drama going on in these reality stars lives, the stars of Summerhouse. You've got your Kyle's, you've got your Amanda's, you've got your Carl's.

Carl is my favorite character. And of course, you have Sierra, West. And there's a lot of drama going on right now between Sierra West and Amanda. I won't bore you with all the details. But between Summer House and the real housewise of Rhode Island, which is a lot of The newest. You made that up. No, I did not.

I did not. Which is the newest iteration of Real Housewives. I just feel like I'm just having a good time. I'm easy, breezy into the summer. I turned it on. I turned my brain off. And then I followed the discourse on threads. I'm having a good time.

Bravo was just really making me happy right now. All right. So that is Summer House and the Real Housewives of Rhode Island on Bravo. Don't judge me, Glenn. I don't like when you judge me. Sorry. Sorry. I just, the name is funny.

The name, it's a funny name. It's a funny. Thank you very much. Ronald. Chris Klemick, what is making you happy this week? Glenn, Light and Magic. The Disney Plus streaming docu-series, Light and Magic.

I don't know how I missed it in 2022, but the idea that Lawrence Kasden, you know, who of course wrote Raiders the Lost Ark and then rewrote Empire and then, you know, becomes the writer-director of The Big Chill and lots of other great movies did a multi-part documentary

about the, history and evolution of industrial light and magic, the pioneering visual effects house that started to create the revolutionary effects for Star Wars 77. I'm only one year behind on the second season, which I got to say was not as interesting to me, because the first season, it goes from Star Wars up through Jurassic Park, so it's that inflection point, right? We're getting away from models and miniatures and composites and all the visual effects technology that have dominated, really the first century of cinema, pushing towards the digital revolution. In season two, you know, it's just, it's just not as much fun to watch all this, this footage of people sitting

there, clicking mousees instead of painting models and, you know, Phil Tippett, like animating his stop motion or go motion to use the Tippett term for his, you know, animating his, ad-ats and his tontans and things like that. But I was just delighted by it. You get to see, you know, in addition to people who normies would probably recognize, like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, you know, you get. Visual effects legends like Phil Tippett and Dennis Muran and John Knoll, and you actually get to see them age over the course of these interviews over decades, which becomes kind of unexpectedly moving on top of just all the film nerd stuff. I will never not get a dopamine hit from seeing someone paint a model of a Star Destroyer or whatever. So light and magic on Disney Plus, it made me very happy.

Just a quick note, Jurassic Park, another film that if it is in theaters, I am watching it. I do not want to watch that on my couch. I want to watch that in theaters. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. What's making me happy this week? Well, anyone who knows me knows that there's only one job to which I feel temperamentally suited,

which is, of course, lighthouse keeping. I wanted to be a lighthouse keeper, all my damn life. I was born too late. Some people watched Robert Eggers the lighthouse and saw a shattering chronicle of the sent it to madness. I saw a vocational training video. Every so often, an abandoned lighthouse comes up on Zillow, and I'm the guy who posts it to the group chat and tries to convince my friends that we could all pitch in and make this happen. It will never happen for me because my friends are no fun at all. But who did make it happen are the folks at Project Lighthouse on YouTube and

on Instagram. They are the underscore Lighthouse underscore centers. This is a father and son who are restoring a decommissioned wolf trap lighthouse in the middle. of the southern Chesapeake Bay. They're also doing one farther north. Both of those lighthouses are ones that I sent around to my friends. I still have their listings in my phone, and I envy these guys so much, less so now that I see how much work is involved, which is a tremendous lot. But, you know, whenever a poster there turns up in my feed, my black, desiccated husk of a heart skips a beat, I become a romantic for like a brief two-minute window. The content isn't particularly romantic, of course. It's just, you know, property renovation content. I have

consumed so much more paint stripping content than I thought I ever would in my life. And my algorithm doesn't know what to make of that because my algorithm is just a steadily stream of like fitness gaze and drag queens and Tolkien deep dives. And then there's these two guys celebrating because they've just installed a door. I am so in for the long haul on this. I can't wait to see how things turn out. That is the underscore lighthouse underscore centers on Instagram and Project Lighthouse on YouTube. And that is what's making me happy this week.

That brings us to the end of our show, Chris Klemick, Ronald Young, Jr. Thanks so much for being here and showing me that I wasn't wrong about this movie. No problem, Glenn. No, Glenn. Your response was quite normal. I need that reassurance sometimes. This episode was produced by Hufza Fatim and Mike Katzif and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy, and Alokam in provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

And once again, if you're not already following the show, do that right now. I'm Glenn Weldon and we'll see you all next week.