Margaret Betts' debut film centers on a young woman entering the convent at the beginning of the Vatican II reforms. Critic David Edelstein says Novitiate is a "terrific start" to Betts' career.
The 10-part series, available on DirecTV's Audience network, centers on a killer who uses his car as a murder weapon. TV critic David Bianculli says Mr. Mercedes draws you in and doesn't let go.
Everything's in balance on the tenor saxophonist's new album: Smith's pliable expressive tone is neither too heavy nor too light as he exploits the tension between the composed and the improvised.
The murder scene looked like something out of an Agatha Christie novel. That's the one thing that the multitudinous cast of witnesses, suspects and police detectives might agree on in We Keep the Dead Close, Becky Cooper's just published account of a murder at Harvard that took place in 1969 and remained unsolved until two years ago.
The new period comedy by Joel and Ethan Coen takes place backstage at a 1950s Hollywood studio. Reviewer David Edelstein says that despite flashes of brilliance, the film "feels thin."
The nefarious Empire is building a giant weapon in the latest installment of the Star Wars saga. Critic David Edelstein says though Rogue One is part of a series, it also works as a stand-alone film.
WSJ reporter Jeff Horwitz says Facebook executives often choose to boost engagement at the expense of tackling misinformation and mental health problems, which are rampant on their platforms.
Rock critic Ken Tucker shares some hits he's listening to, including BlocBoy JB and Drake's upbeat "Look Alive" and the moody sound of Post Malone's "Walk It Talk It."
Editorial writer for the New York Times Brent Staples. He wrote a memoir last year: Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black & White (Pantheon). In 1984, Staples' younger brother, a cocaine dealer, was murdered. Staples began a process of reconsideration of the major questions in his life: his distance from his family by graduate study at the University of Chicago; the demise and racial divisions of his industrial hometown in Pennsylvania.
In the winter and spring of 1993, more than 80 people, including four federal agents and at least 20 children, died in two violent confrontations between federal law enforcement and the Branch Davidian Christian sect near Waco, Texas. Extremist groups have since cited the assaults as evidence for anti-government conspiracy theories. JEFF GUINN writes about it in his new book, "Waco: David Koresh, The Branch Davidians and a Legacy of Rage."
In a new memoir, the Major League Baseball catcher opens up about getting drafted in the 62nd round, his feud with Roger Clemens and what it's like to go into retirement. Leaving the game, he says, was "like a small death."
Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, spent six years researching America's nuclear weapons. In Command and Control, he details explosions, false attack alerts and accidentally dropped bombs.
The Very Rev. James Parks Morton, Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine has announced his intentions to resign on Jan. 1, 1997. He will be leaving after 25 years of leadership at the world's largest Gothic cathedral to head a new organization, the Interfaith Center of New York. During his tenure as Dean of the nation's largest church he has created a congregation of 1,000, built 20,000 apartments for the poor, and established a living community of faith having much of the same energy and intellectual stimulation possessed by medieval cathedrals.
