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January 29, 2010 The 2008 presidential election was the longest and most expensive in U.S. history. The campaign is now the subject of a book, Game Change, by two political reporters, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. The book has been making headlines with some of its revelations, but critic John Powers wonders whether that's a good thing.

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January 21, 2010 The series Burn Notice returns tonight on cable's USA network, and critic John Powers says it's worth checking out, if you haven't. It's a jaunty, self-consciously retro spying-and-caper series that's content merely to be good, without striving to be Meaningful.

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December 15, 2009 Critic John Powers has a theory: The best movies to give are seldom the recent hits. Instead, a good gift DVD should transport you into a different world that you can immerse yourself in over and over. Check out his favorites for this holiday season.

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December 3, 2009 The Oscar-nominated 1979 film My Brilliant Career stars Judy Davis, as a young woman growing up in rural Australia at the end of the 19th century. Film critic John Powers gives Davis credit for creating the template for the Australian screen actress: bravery, incandescence, and occasional cussedness.

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October 26, 2009 Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story made a splash, but critic John Powers says its critique of capitalism is "the kind of scattershot tirade I used to hear in my college dorm." Better object lessons: New documentaries, Schmatta and American Casino, that do far more to explain how grand economic forces shape our daily lives.

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October 1, 2009 The Emmy-darling AMC TV series devotes an almost fetishistic attention to style. But is there any substance beyond the surfaces? Critic-at-large John Powers goes looking — and comes back with one especially well-rounded answer.

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September 14, 2009 Critic-at-large John Powers discusses two new works — one a documentary, another a novel, that blur the lines between public and private lives.

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July 31, 2009 Two summer movies — The Proposal and The Ugly Truth — perpetuate misogynist stereotypes of rabid career women in need of a man. What does it mean that they were created by women?

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July 16, 2009 John Powers reviews a luminous cinematic memoir by the 81-year-old French director Agnes Varda. Like all Varda's films, The Beaches of Agnes brims with its creator's independence and vivacity. (Recommended)

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May 13, 2009 Critic John Powers reviews the Starz comedy series Party Down, which follows a group of oddball dreamsers who work for a Hollywood catering company.

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April 30, 2009 Hans Fallada's 1947 novel, Every Man Dies Alone, presents a memorable portrait of ordinary resistance to Nazism in wartime Germany.

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April 21, 2009 Critic-at-large John Powers explains why Gordon Ramsay, the profanity-prone star chef of Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares, is "the world's greatest TV chef."

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April 9, 2009 In Let the Right One In, Eli and Oskar are both lonely 12-year-olds — but one of them happens to be a vampire. Critic-at-large John Powers calls the Swedish film "the best vampire movie in the last 75 years."

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