What's making us happy: a guide to your weekend viewing

This week, the math was still not mathing, the opera lived to cause arguments another day, and Jake Gyllenhaal looked ... really different Here's what the NPR's _Pop Culture Happy

Hour _crew was paying attention to — and what you should check out this weekend_._ VENTRILOQUIST MEGAN PIPHUS Megan Piphus is – believe it or not — _Sesame Street_'s first Black female

puppeteer. She's been on the show since 2021, and she voices the Muppet Gabrielle. I've been following her on Instagram and I just think she's so delightful. In addition to

being on _Sesame Street_, where she did a whole segment on Wash Day for Black kids with natural hair, she was on _America's Got Talent _belting out "My Heart Will Go On"

_without moving her mouth _which is amazing. She has a lot of little side projects going on. Check her out on Instagram or on _Sesame Street._ _— Aisha Harris_ _TENET_ [embedded content] I

have been having so much fun watching the Christopher Nolan movie _Tenet_ over, and over, and over again. In addition to enjoying the story, I bought the Blu-ray, so I was able to watch some

of the behind-the-scenes featurettes. There's a scene in the movie where one of the cars like _un_-flips over. _They built a car that un-flips over._ Movies are awesome: A bunch of

people who have skills got together and made a thing — and it was pretty, and fun, and they told me a story. How is that not incredible? _— Cate Young_ TAKING PART IN SEASON 3 OF VIRTUAL BIG

BROTHER [embedded content] I am part of the _Big Brother_ hive – I really enjoy watching the show. And over the weekend I had the opportunity to participate in a _Virtual Big Brother _in

which TV writer James Rogers III basically stages his own version of _Big Brother. _He casts contestants from across the Internet and he hosts and quizzes those contestants on different

trivia moments. And ... I won! It was wonderful. _— Tre'vell Anderson_ REDISCOVERING FAMILY DECORATIONS For a long time I could not find motivation to get out my Christmas decorations

because I live by myself. But this year I got out my Christmas stuff just to be enjoyed by me and the dog, including a ceramic Christmas tree that my grandmother made ... maybe in the

'70s? I shared a picture of this on Instagram and Bluesky and the number of people who said "my family has this exact thing" made me really happy. _— Linda Holmes_ MORE

RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE _POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR _NEWSLETTER _BY LINDA HOLMES_ The first game I sat down to play on my new PS5 was _SPIDER-MAN 2_, which came out in October. This is _wildly

_current compared to what I normally do gaming-wise; my PS4 and I were still picking our way through _Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 _(from the olden days, 2017). So far, so good. It's

entertaining, it's got a solid story, it looks great, and I can function pretty well in the early going when it comes to fights. Look, if you're not somebody who's done it for

most of your life, keeping track of eight buttons long enough to reach the point where muscle memory can guide you is quite difficult. But this game has enough hand-holding for me, and it

lets me fail (and fail and fail) and just keep learning. And that's what you want. If you follow film festivals and the like, you don't need me to recommend the film _ANATOMY OF A

FALL_, now available for rent or purchase on demand. Sandra Hüller stars as a woman whose husband has come to a bad end, and who finds suspicion falling on herself. It does invite you to

guess at her guilt or innocence, but more than that, it examines the decline of her marriage (including in flashbacks) and considers the effects on her son. All episodes of FX's _A

MURDER AT THE END OF THE WORLD _are now streaming on Hulu. It's a tricky, twisty mystery about a death that takes place at a secretive tech billionaire's remote, wintry hideaway

during an exclusive, invite-only conference. I had mixed feelings about the way the story wrapped up — I've seen both positive and negative reviews of that element of it from critics —

but if you like moody, icy, Nordic-feeling mysteries that are slow and deliberative, it's well worth your time. ------------------------- _BETH NOVEY _ _adapted the Pop Culture Happy

Hour segment "What's Making Us Happy" for the Web. If you like these suggestions, consider __SIGNING UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER__ __to get recommendations every week. And listen to

Pop Culture Happy Hour on __APPLE PODCASTS__ __and __SPOTIFY__._ Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.