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December 21, 2012 Laura Dern is Amy Jellicoe, a health and beauty executive who returns from a post-meltdown retreat to pick up the pieces of her broken life in the HBO series Enlightened. Series creator Mike White talks about the tone of the show, and whether it's possible for people to really change.

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December 20, 2012 "Big Data" had just as much to do with President Obama's victory as phrases like "Etch A Sketch" and "47 percent," says linguist Geoff Nunberg. Big Data is also behind anxieties about intrusions on our privacy, whether from the government's anti-terrorist data sweeps or the ads that track us on the Web.

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December 20, 2012 Senior analyst for the Violence Policy Center Tom Diaz says one of the weapons found at the site of the Newtown, Conn., shooting was a variant of a type of gun developed for troops in Vietnam.

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December 19, 2012 Critic Milo Miles says that in this new collection of music from between the world wars, "the currents of long-ago lives come through: the drudgery of the work that demanded the release of the party, which then required the penance of prayer."

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December 19, 2012 In his new film, Sopranos creator David Chase tells a coming-of-age story about Jersey boys in the 1960s who dream of riding the wave of the British invasion all the way to stardom. Chase teams up with Steven Van Zandt — of the E Street Band and The Sopranos — to make the movie's music rock.

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December 18, 2012 Austrian actor Christoph Waltz won an Oscar for his portrayal of Nazi Jew hunter Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds. Teamed up with Tarantino again in Django Unchained, he says Tarantino's writing and the rhythm of the language speaks to him as a performer.

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December 18, 2012 From the inescapable "Call Me Maybe" to Fiona Apple's intricate word puzzles to the strikingly gorgeous return of Iris DeMent, the Fresh Air critic counts down his favorite albums and musical moments of the year.

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December 17, 2012 In her new movie, singer, actor, writer, director and producer Barbra Streisand plays a well-meaning if overbearing Jewish mom. The star says her own mother both encouraged her talents and was jealous of them.

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December 15, 2012 In Who Could That Be at This Hour?, a prequel to A Series of Unfortunate Events, Daniel Handler satirizes pulp mysteries. Author and oenophile Paul Lukacs traces the 8,000-year history of wine. Also, David Edelstein reviews Zero Dark Thirty.

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December 14, 2012 A new documentary on PBS about the making of the Beatles' 1967 film Magical Mystery Tour features outtakes from the original and new interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. TV critic David Bianculli calls the film "wonderfully thorough."

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December 14, 2012 Kathryn Bigelow's film tells the story of the U.S. hunt for the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks. Critic David Edelstein says the film presents itself as a work of journalism, but that that there's no doubting its perspective: It's the story of America's "brilliant, righteous revenge."

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December 13, 2012 2012 was a very jittery year — what with the presidential election, extreme weather events and the looming "fiscal cliff." Fresh Air critic Maureen Corrigan found that her favorite fiction and nonfiction this year directly confronted the atmospheric uncertainty of the age.

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December 13, 2012 In his new book, the guitarist, singer and songwriter shares stories from life growing up in a musical household and talks about collaborating and sharing the stage with the likes of Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra and Paul McCartney.

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