The new NBC drama stars Jason Isaacs as a man who survives a terrible car accident with either his wife or child. He's living one existence, and dreaming the other -- but which is real? It's a lot of work for the viewer, but critic David Bianculli has faith in the show's creators.
Our brains are filled with billions of neurons. Neuroscientist Sebastian Seung explains how mapping out the connections between those neurons might be the key to understanding the basis of things like personality, memory, perception, ideas and mental illness.
Writer Nick Flynn was working in a homeless shelter in his 20s when his father — an alcoholic and self-proclaimed writer who left when Flynn was a baby — showed up as a client. His story is now a movie called Being Flynn, starring Paul Dano and Robert De Niro.
A small group of engineers, soldiers and firemen risked their own lives to help prevent a complete meltdown after the quake and tsunami hit. Investigative reporter Dan Edge chronicles the aftermath of the disaster in a new Frontline documentary.
A new book follows an American basketball veteran as he coaches a struggling Chinese pro basketball team. Pulitzer Prize winner Jim Yardley has a courtside seat from which to observe China's frantic capitalist expansion and its ambivalent fascination with all things American.
Journalist Craig Timberg, the former Johannesburg bureau chief for The Washington Post, says international AIDS organizations working in Africa went off in the wrong direction in fighting the spread of HIV across the continent.
In the new comedy Wanderlust, an unemployed Manhattan couple (Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston) stumble into a hippie farming commune. David Edelstein says the movie features a "tribe of marvelously inventive comic actors doing a fair amount of inspired improvisation."
The British musical private-eye drama, which first aired in 1986, starred Michael Gambon as a novelist hospitalized with a horrible skin condition who tries to write a Hollywood screenplay in his mind. David Bianculli explains why the miniseries is "TV's most polished, audacious masterpiece."
The book publisher who championed the works of beat poets and Samuel Beckett, and who defied censors with the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover and Tropic of Cancer, died Tuesday at age 89. Fresh Air remembers Rosset with excerpts from a 1991 interview.
This interview was originally broadcast on Apr. 9, 1991.
James Bopp is the lawyer who first represented Citizens United in the case that ended up in the Supreme Court, which ruled that corporations and unions could give money to political committees active in election campaigns. That decision and subsequent lower court decisions have led to SuperPACs, which allow corporations, unions and individuals to make unlimited contributions, pool them together, and use the money for political campaigns.
Republican and Democratic SuperPACs, empowered by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, can collect unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and unions. Potter became a celebrity when he signed on as Stephen Colbert's lawyer and advised the satirical TV host on how to create his own SuperPAC.
An absorbing new documentary by Danish director Lise Birk Pedersen charts four years in the life of Masha Drokova, who became famous as the girl who publicly kissed Vladimir Putin. Critic John Powers says it "offers a fresh glimpse into how Putin's Russia actually works."
Advertisers collect information with every digital move people make. They then target ads based on that information. Communications scholar Joseph Turow worries that advertisers will use such data to discriminate against people and put them into "reputation silos."
The standards singer's new solo album, Strictly Romancin', explores the ups and downs of love. Russell sings several tracks from the record during this interview and performance.
McKenzie, half of the New Zealand musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, wrote five songs in the recent Muppets movie. "Man or Muppet" is nominated for Best Original Song at this year's Academy Awards. [extended cut]
A shorter version of this interview was broadcast on Feb. 13, 2012.
Through his many New Yorker covers, Barry Blitt has become one of the pre-eminent satirical cartoonists of America's recent presidents. Now Blitt has trained his eye and pen upon our first president in a new children's book, George Washington's Birthday.
In Liza Johnson's drama, Return, Linda Cardellini plays a vet who returns from her time overseas with no way to make sense of where she was and what it meant. Critic David Edelstein says the film's lack of a traditional story arc makes it seem even more real.
New York Times war correspondent Anthony Shadid, a frequent guest on Fresh Air, died Thursday after apparently suffering a fatal asthma attack in Syria, where he was reporting on the political uprising. Fresh Air remembers Shadid with excerpts from his December 2011 appearance on the show.
What's the difference between primaries and caucuses, and why do states have different systems for choosing delegates? Political scientist Josh Putnam explains how delegates are picked, and how the process changed after the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Helen Simpson once said that when it comes to short stories, "Something's got to happen, but not too much." Her latest short story collection, In-Flight Entertainment, may seem bleak and mundane — with subjects like mortality, infidelity and climate change — but it's also bursting with British wit.
