Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews the film adaptation of the Broadway hit, about different spirits inhabiting the bodies of newlyweds. It stars Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan.
Jacob Weisberg, deputy editor at The New Republic, talks about the Democratic Leadership Council. Both Bill Clinton and his running-mate Senator Al Gore are members of this group, which was founded seven years ago in an effort to bring the party closer to center. The DLC opposes what it sees "as an interest-group beholden party leadership," writes Weisberg.
Warrington and Reginald Hudlin produced and directed the new Eddie Murphy film "Boomerang," said, at $40 million, to be the largest big budget film made by African-Americans. Their previous film, "House Party," was made for $2.6 million and was one of the most profitable movies ever made by African-Americans. Despite their success, the brothers say that Hollywood still hasn't made enough progress with regard to black actors and directors.
At the age of 72, Farrell has had a long career: she began in radio in the 1940s with her own show on CBS. In the fifties, she started singing opera, and has performed with every major opera company and symphony orchestra in the U.S., including five seasons with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Starting in the sixties, she began putting out albums of jazz standards, and has just released her twelfth, called "It's Over."
In the first ten years of the AIDS epidemic, the Food and Drug Administration approved only two drugs to treat the disease. Yet a third drug, approved last month, took only eight months. Health economist Peter Arno's new book, "Against The Odds" tells how AIDS activists have sparked sweeping reforms of the drug approval process, and sped up access to drug development for all illnesses.
Drakulic's recent book is called "How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed." Now we'll talk to her about living in Zagreb, the capitol of Croatia. Refugees from nearby Sarajevo are flowing into the city from their civil war-torn country.
Book critic John Leonard reviews "Chinese Roundabout: Essays in History and Culture," by Jonathan D. Spence. Leonard says it's an improvisatory and obsessive take on the China and the way Westerners look at it.
The Village Voice says classically trained Niemack is like "Barbra Streisand without the hysterics....She combines the best of both worlds; a cabaret singer's respect for melody as written and a jazz singer's eagerness to have a go at it." Her new album is called "Heart's Desire."
Wills has analyzed the legendary speech in a new book called "Lincoln At Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America." He says that, speaking for only three minutes that day, Lincoln changed the history of American political thought.
Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews new rap albums by Me Phi Me, Basehead and Arrested Development, all of which bring a cool, bohemian intensity to the genre.
Astor Piazzolla died Sunday at the age of 71. He was an Argentinian composer whose updated tangos were a hybrid of classical music, jazz and rock. He was also a gifted player of the bandoneon, a kind of accordion that gives tango its distinctive sound. Piazzola had suffered a stroke nearly two years ago, from which he never recovered. We present a rebroadcast of our 1988 interview with him.
Phelps is the Supreme Court reporter who broke the Anita Hill story (along with NPR's Nina Totenberg) in New York Newsday. He's co-written an account of the Clarence Thomas hearings, called "Capitol Games," which looks at how the press failed to see the whole story of now-Justice Thomas, including just how conservative he really is.
Critic Maureen Corrigan compares the speeches of Abraham Lincoln and George Bush by way of two new books: "Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America," by Garry Wills, and "Bushisms: President G.H.W. Bush in his own Words," compiled by the editors of the "New Republic."
Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews the new CD by Cleveland saxophonist Ernie Krivda. Whitehead says Krivda may have been more famous had he moved to New York.
Straley just published his crime novel "The Woman Who Married a Bear," about a hard-drinking private eye in Sitka, Alaska who writes haiku, has a failed career, and a wife who has left him. Straley is himself a criminal investigator for the state of Alaska.
Journalist Richard Ben Cramer won a Pulitzer Prize for The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1979. His new book, "What it Takes: the way to the White House," explores the lives of the candidates who ran for president in 1988, and tries to discover what made them think they could lead the United States.
Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews the new movie about a women's baseball league started during World War II, starring Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, and Madonna.
