archive

March 29, 2013 A new documentary looks at obsessive fans of Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror film The Shining, starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. These fanatics look for hidden meanings in the movie, and while some of their theories sound outrageous, it's too simple to call such thinking deranged.

Transcript

ListenPlaylist

March 29, 2013 In the movie Robot & Frank, the actor plays an aging ex-burglar who learns to take advantage of his robot caretaker. Langella, 74, tells Fresh Air why he was drawn to the role, and discusses the ups and downs of his long career.

Transcript

ListenPlaylist

March 28, 2013 Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell have been friends and collaborators since they first met in 1974. While they always wanted to make an album together, they never got around to it until now. Old Yellow Moon includes songs by Crowell, Patti Scialfa, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson among others.

Transcript

ListenPlaylist

March 27, 2013 The rich and good-looking get a taste of life among the 99 percent in Jonathan Dee's novels. In A Thousand Pardons, his protagonist, Helen Armstead, finds a secret talent for getting powerful men to apologize after her marriage falls apart and she is forced to enter the working world.

Transcript

ListenPlaylist

March 27, 2013 After hosting his Sunday morning show on MSNBC for the past year and a half, Hayes is making the move to a weeknight news show that premieres April 1. At 34, Hayes will be the youngest prime-time anchor on any of the major cable news channels.

Transcript

ListenPlaylist

March 26, 2013 World War II is often thought of as a good and just war — a war the U.S. had to fight. But it wasn't that simple. Public debate was heated between interventionism, which President Roosevelt supported, and isolationism, which aviator Charles Lindbergh became an unofficial spokesman for.

Transcript

ListenPlaylist

March 25, 2013 In a new book about movie stardom and fame, Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr looks at the evolving history of the relationship between movie stars and the people who love them, and at how changing technology influences the kinds of stars the public wants.

Transcript

ListenPlaylist

March 23, 2013 In The Still Point of the Turning World Rapp writes about caring for a terminally ill child. Phil Spector is based on the music producer, but it's fiction. Philip Roth is the subject of a PBS documentary. Tom Waits, Patti Smith and others appear on a new compilation of sea songs from Hal Willner.

Summary

ListenPlaylist

March 22, 2013 In What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, Nathan Englander writes about his own faith — and what it means to be Jewish — in stories that explore religious tension, Israeli-American relations and the Holocaust.

Transcript

ListenPlaylist

March 22, 2013 Justin Timberlake rocketed to stardom as a teen heartthrob in the band 'N Sync. He has gone on to be a successful solo artist — and expanded his career into both comedic and dramatic roles on-screen. He discusses his long career in showbiz, his SNL digital shorts and his transition to film.

Transcript

ListenPlaylist

March 22, 2013 This macho action film starring Gerard Butler and Morgan Freeman is a vigilante fantasy about terrorists and turncoats invading the United States. It's a popular genre, but critic David Edelstein says he's tired of the American addiction to these tropes.

Transcript

ListenPlaylist

March 21, 2013 In a series for The New York Times, environmental reporter Justin Gillis has been exploring whether harsh weather events are connected to global warming or if they are simply the random violence nature visits upon us.

Transcript

ListenPlaylist