Film critic David Edelstein reviews the new comedy Casa de mi Padre, starring Will Ferrell. It's a Spanish-language American film created in the style of a telenovela.
Increasingly catchy terminology is used to package government missions and policies. Consider "war on terror" and "no child left behind," for instance. Linguist Geoff Nunberg offers his thoughts on the subject.
This week, we're listening back to some favorite Fresh Air interviews from the past decade. Russell sang tracks from her solo album, Strictly Romancin', during this 2012 interview and performance.
Author Charles Ardai is founder of Hard Case Crime, a publishing group that reprints classic crime fiction and publishes new pulp fiction in paperback editions. Ardai, who writes under the pen name Richard Aleas, has won the Edgar Award for mystery writing.
Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews Sydney Pollack's new movie, a love story that's supposed to be steamy, but, according to Schiff, lacks both passion and political sophistication.
Guardian journalist Shaun Walker talks about Yevgeny Prigozhin, the tough-talking convict-turned-businessman who recruits soldiers from Russian prisons to fight in Ukraine. "It's just so out of the realms of fantasy that this former convict is going to fly around prisons in his helicopter and offer people salvation for fighting for him at the front, and then lead these battalions of prisoners to their almost certain death," He says. "It's so dystopian that it's really hard to believe. But yet it has happened."
Music Critic Milo Miles talks about Los Del Rio's hit "Macarena." It even comes with its own dance. Miles says, given the songs substance, its popularity will likely be just a fad.
Rock historian Ed Ward profiles The Velvet Underground. Sponsored by Andy Warhol, the band was a favorite of the jet-set crowd but reviled by the hippie culture that couldn't comprehend their music. The band featured Lou Reed and violist John Cale. Their best known songs include "Waiting for the Man," "Heroin" and "Sister Ray."
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews original cast albums of Broadway musicals that have just been reissued. They include “Finian’s Rainbow,” “The Pajama Game,” “Bye Bye Birdie,” and “Kismit” (all on Sony) and “Guys and Dolls” (on Decca).
In her new book, By Hands Now Known, Margaret Burnham reports on little-known cases of racial violence in the Jim Crow era, including crimes that went unreported and murderers who were never punished.
Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University Mary Jo Weaver. Her previous book is "Springs of Water in a Dry Land: Spiritual Survival for Catholic Women Today," (Beacon) about women who are Catholic and feminist. Her book, "New Catholic Women: A Contemporary Challenge to Traditional Religious Authority," (Indiana University Press) has a new 10th anniversary edition. Weaver's latest book (edited with R. Scott Appleby) "Being Right: Conservative Catholics in America" is a collection of essays (Indiana University Press).
John Lasseter, chief creative executive of Pixar, Inc, talks about the animation company's new feature film, Cars. Lasseter is a founding member of Pixar and served as director and animator of the feature films Toy Story, its sequel and A Bug's Life.
Critic Ken Tucker reviews the home video release of The Great Ziegfeld, a biopic about the famed impresario. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture, an honor Tucker says was undeserved. Yet the film is fun, despite some slow moments, and paints a clear picture of a bygone era of of Hollywood.
The next installment of the Harry Potter series comes out tomorrow. Book Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the Harry Potter books and the hype around them.
