Taking notes from Dolly Parton, the California-born singer has made a whole album that insists that women have more complicated stories to tell than country music usually allows.
Catherine Keener recently won a second Oscar nomination for her performance in Capote and appeared in the popular comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Now, she stars in Friends with Money, her third collaboration with writer-director Nicole Holofcener.
In Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's new film, Caesar Must Die, a group of prisoners put on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. It's barely an hour and a quarter, and it's physically small-scale, but it's so compressed it wears you out -- in a good way.
Blanton makes folk-based music that prizes wordplay and has an antic sense of humor. Rock critic Ken Tucker says the personal is always political on her new album.
Casting director and actress Joanna Merlin has written a new guide for actors, Auditioning: An Actor-Friendly Guide (Vintage Books). Merlin was casting director for Harold Prince and his productions of Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Evita, and more. She casted films, as well as acted in films and on television.
After decades on air, Poirot's 13th and final season begins Aug. 25. David Suchet still stars as detective Hercule Poirot, but you won't find the show on PBS. So where is it?
Taylor has cast over fifty films to date. Early in her career, she formed a professional relationship with Woody Allen, and has worked on sixteen of his movies.
The documentary Catfish may not be on the up-and-up. But does it matter? David Edelstein says no. Catfish, he says, provides a "true sense of adventure" and conveys emotions that "run the gamut from anxiety to contempt to curiosity to compassion."
Rock historian Ed Ward continues this week's five part series on the influence of several key record companies on the music world. Today, Ward looks at Casablanca, a big producer of disco hits, and its founder Nick Bogart.
Director John Waters, known for making art from sleaze, has a new CD for the season, A John Waters Christmas. It includes such songs as "Here Comes Fatty Claus," "Little Mary Christmas," and "Santa Claus is a Black Man." Waters was once crowned the "Pope of Trash" by William Burroughs.
Journalist Tina Cassidy was inspired to write about cultural birth practices after hearing many accounts of birth experiences. Cassidy is a former reporter for the Boston Globe and writes for other publications including The New York Times Magazine.
Critic-at-large John Powers reviews Mikey & Nicky, a film first released in 1976 written and directed by Elaine May starring John Cassavetes and Peter Falk. It's now out on DVD.
Her father was Louis Armstrong's music director and a noted bandleader in his own right; her mother was a member of the iconic International Sweethearts of Rhythm. Critic Nat Hentoff says that pedigree — and her own unmistakable chops — make Cat Russell "the real thing" in a crowd of jazz wannabes "who couldn't lasted through a chorus in a contest with Ella Fitzgerald or Betty Carter."
Law Professor Catherine MacKinnon. She's well known for her feminist take on legal issues, and she's just written a new book called "Only Words." (Harvard University Press) She argues that as long as sexual harassment, pornography and hate speech are protected by the First Amendment, equality will only be a word, not a reality. MacKinnon pioneered the legal claim for sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination. She now teaches at the University of Michigan Law School.
For some, the summer is a time to indulge in frothy beach reading: the latest chick lit or globetrotting, highly unbelievable thriller. But book critic Maureen Corrigan has taken a different tack this year: She's catching up on more substantial reading that she hasn't had time for yet.
