Pop Culture Happy Hour Fall Guide
Sep 23, 2026
A fall preview packed with movies and TV worth watching. Highlights include a Muslim hitman navigating single fatherhood, Andrew Scott’s Hamlet, a strange romance involving a wicker husband, and a darkly comic CIA thriller. Also on the radar: Almodóvar melodrama, Laika’s handcrafted fantasy, a divorce legal thriller, a new Avatar saga, and a three-timeline heist.
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Andrew Scott Makes Elsinore Worth The Hamlet Fatigue
- Elsinore connects Ian Charlson’s Hamlet performance with his experience dying of AIDS, mortality, and remaining closeted in 1989.
- The panel’s confidence rests largely on Andrew Scott’s ability to bring unusual depth to roles, with Aisha Harris saying that trust is rewarded.
Club Kid Puts An Unlikable Persona In A Heartwarming Plot
- Club Kid tests whether Jordan Firstman’s deliberately off-putting queer influencer persona can carry a sentimental story about unexpectedly becoming a father.
- The film’s central tension comes from placing an intentionally difficult personality inside a genre built around likability and emotional transformation.
Wicker Makes Weirdness The Main Attraction
- Wicker appeals because it promises original, human-made weirdness: Olivia Colman’s lonely fisherwoman commissions Peter Dinklage to build an Alexander Skarsgård-shaped wicker husband.
- The panel treats the film’s vulgar, horny, heartwarming combination as a welcome alternative to increasingly exhausting intellectual property franchises.
