There have been some fantastic movies released this year, and we know you can’t see them all. So we’re recommending four recent movies we missed that you should add to your watchlist: The Furious, Tuner, She’s The He, and Heresy.

If you need a few more fun film recommendations, check out these episodes: 

Fun movies you may have missed

Our favorite movies on Tubi

We debate the best movies to watch on an airplane

Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour:

Letterboxd / Facebook

Our weekly newsletter

Support Pop Culture Happy Hour+

On Wednesday, the federal judge overseeing the Kennedy Center lawsuit ordered the center to give him a status report on the center’s operation and programming within the next few weeks. Judge Christopher R. Cooper also said that the Kennedy Center must explain the purpose and status of the tarp and scaffolding that have been placed over the front of the arts complex, where until recently both President Trump and President John F. Kennedy’s names were both displayed.

In a directive issued last Tuesday, Judge Cooper had given Kennedy Center administrators three days to update him on the arts complex’s immediate plans regarding construction, programming and public access. Trump, who now serves as the center’s chairman, had announced July 5 as the date the venue would close for major renovations.

Last Friday, on Cooper’s due date, lawyers for the Kennedy Center filed a request asking for an extension. In that filing, Matt Floca, who was promoted as the center’s president and CEO in March, said that the Kennedy Center’s current management intends to present its board with “an array of options” for trustees to vote on at their next meeting on an unspecified date in mid-July.

According to Floca, the options are a complete closure for extensive renovations; a partial closure “enabling some continued public access and limited programming” while some renovations are undertaken; and “a highly limited series of phased closures to address only the center’s most serious infrastructure needs while scheduling and maintaining a full slate of programming.”

In his newest order, Cooper denied Floca’s request for an extension. And he mandated that the center file a status report within seven days of the center’s July board meeting or by July 31, whichever date is earliest. He also ruled that the report must “indicate the purpose for and status of the tarp and scaffolding,” which were erected by workers over the center’s front signage in the early morning hours of June 13.

When asked for comment Wednesday, the Kennedy Center pointed back to the documents its legal team submitted to the court.

I tend to romanticize summer. The movies and TV shows I grew up with made me think that the season was about adventure and big-time transformation.

I imagined myself building a tight-knit friend group and getting out of a pickle together, like in The Sandlot or Camp Nowhere. Or traveling across the world, say, to Greece, like Lena Kaligaris, a character in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, having a whirlwind summer romance and returning an entirely different person.

I’ve never actually had a summer like that.

Even when your expectations are more modest than mine, “so often, the summer just flies by, and we haven’t taken the picnics or gone for the day trip or whatever it was that we thought we were gonna do,” says happiness expert Gretchen Rubin.

Rubin, author of The Happiness Project and host of the podcast Happier With Gretchen Rubin, has been sharing ideas on social media about how to make the season more memorable and satisfying.

She walks through four exercises to help you get what you want — and more — out of the season. Print out our worksheet here, fill it out and stick it on your fridge to keep you accountable. Or take a screenshot and post it to Instagram (don’t forget to tag @NPRLifeKit!).

🍑 Give your summer a theme

Pick a single word or phrase that you want to embrace this season — something that captures the feeling you want to have over the next few months.

“My theme for the summer is ‘ketchup,’” Rubin says. “It has a kind of a summer feeling, because you think of putting ketchup on your burger.”

“It’s a metaphor,” she says. It means to look for “whatever I could add [this season] to make something elevated and more fun.”

Meanwhile, my theme word this summer is “juice.” I no longer think that I need to travel far or completely transform to have a delicious summer. I just need to take advantage of the abundance that the season offers: ripe peaches and tomatoes, juicy softball pitches and the opportunity to feel juicy in my body when I wear a bathing suit.

Print out our worksheet here, fill it out and stick it on your fridge to keep you accountable. Or take a screenshot and post it to Instagram (don’t forget to tag @NPRLifeKit!).

Malaka Gharib/NPR

hide caption

Advertisement

toggle caption

Malaka Gharib/NPR

🪣 Create a summer bucket list

What do you want to do this summer? On my bucket list: ride the Ferris wheel at a summer fair, have more barbecues at my parents’ house and see the sunrise at least once.