Matt Stone is co-executive producer and co-creator (along with Trey Parker) of the popular satirical animated series South Park. Stone and Parker recently collaborated on Team America, an action film satire featuring a cast of puppets in which a rising Broadway star infiltrates a terrorist network.
The star of 30 Rock has two films out this summer. He plays a club owner in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Rock of Ages. And he travels to Italy with an ensemble cast for Woody Allen's To Rome with Love.
Einbinder co-stars with Jean Smart in the HBO Max series Hacks. Her new Max special is Everything Must Go. Einbinder grew up in a comedic household — her mom, Laraine Newman, is an original SNL cast member. Being funny was "the main currency in our home," she says. "It was a love language for sure."
William Murray is the son of atheist crusader Madalyn Murray O'Hair, whom the family considered "the most hated woman in America." At the age of 14, Murray was the plaintiff in a Supreme Court case his mother filed to remove prayer from the Baltimore Public Schools. Murray experienced a difficult relationship with Murray O'Hair, who terrorized him as child. As an adult, Murray converted to Christianity and hasn't spoken to his mother since 1977. His new book is "My Life Without God."
The comedian co-wrote a film with Ira Glass, of public radio's This American Life, about his life and sleepwalking disorder. But making Sleepwalk With Me, based on Birbiglia's one-man show and comedic memoir, caused Birbiglia anxiety — which exacerbated his disorder.
Music critic Milo Miles reviews two new releases of Cuban music. The first is a four-cd set called I Am Time. (Blue Jackel) This is a retrospective of cuban music broken down in four categories. Cuban folk music, Singers, Dance, and Jazz. The second cd is called Buena Vista Social Club (World Circuit/Nonesuch) by a band of the same name. This CD was produced by Ry Cooder.
The new album by the veteran musician and his band Ngoni Ba conveys the restless march of time and the transience of all human conditions. Milo Miles calls it "the most satisfying sort of catchy."
His new memoir is Courting Justice: From New York Yankees v. Major League Baseball to Bush v. Gore.. The New York Times once called him "the lawyer everybody wants." Some of his high profile cases include Bush v. Gore and the anti-trust case against Microsoft.
McKenna has just written "Manhattan North Homicide: The True Story of One of New York's Best Homicide Cops." In his 30 years with the NYPD, he's worked on some of the cities most infamous cases and he describes them in the book: The Central Park Jogger Case, The Preppie Murder Case, The Brooklyn Bridge Shootings, and The Baby Maldonado Case. McKenna worked his way up as a uniformed patrolman to detective first grade to Manhattan North homicide--an elite force within the NYPD.
The news that Bob Dylan was making a Christmas album came as a surprise. Now that Christmas In The Heart has been released, with the announcement that all profits will go to charity, it's caused even more consternation, with commentators divided as to whether it's an earnest effort or one big put-down. Rock critic Ken Tucker offers his opinion.
Journalist Isadore Barmash joins Fresh Air to explain the process of leveraged buyouts and hostile takeovers of corporations, and how these affect employees, customers, and shareholders. His new book, Macy's for Sale, offers a case study.
Critic-at-large John Powers comments on the history of roles for offbeat women in Hollywood. Powers recently saw the hit film The 40-Year-Old Virgin and got to thinking about the actress Catherine Keener, who co-stars.
Bill Murray and his deadpan delivery star in a Jim Jarmusch film about an aging Don Juan who learns a 19-year-old son he has never met is looking for him. A strong cast offers support.
The 1946 Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer musical St. Louis Woman is being revived at the Prince Music Theatre in Philadelphia. (thru June 25th) The musical – which was written for and features an African-American cast –features the songs “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “I Had Myself a True Love,” and “Anywhere I Hang My Hat is Home.” We talk with two individuals, first: Larry Maslon who rewrote the libretto for the show. Maslon is professor of theatre at New York University.
Three podcasts with a keen interest in inner lives captured the attention of critic Nick Quah this year. His picks for the best of 2021? S***hole Country, Storytime with Seth Rogen and Aack Cast.
It's been almost 20 years since Barbara Ehrenreich published Fear of Falling, her brilliant book on the anxious "inner life" of the American middle class. The book's title, "fear of falling," has become a catchphrase to refer to the cosmic jitters that afflict anyone whose lifestyle and sense of identity can be wiped out by the loss of a job or a plunge in the stock market.
Detective Josiah Thompson. Thompson was a tenured professor of philosophy at Haverford College when he applied for a job at a San Francisco detective agency. He has since left academia and works full-time as a private eye. He's written an account of his work titled Gumshoe: Reflections in a Private Eye. Thompson's cases run the gamut from recovering money from an attic in a drug case to saving an innocent man from the gas chamber.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz is also a horror movie fan. He reviews a new DVD collection of the horror films of producer Val Lewton. The films include The Leopard Man, Curse of the Cat People, and I Walked with a Zombie, along with six other films.
Majors was nominated for an Emmy for his role in the HBO series Lovecraft Country. Now he stars as an outlaw seeking revenge in The Harder They Fall, a western featuring an all-Black cast.
Yohance Lacour tells the story of Lenard Clark, a 13-year-old Black boy who was beaten into a coma after riding his bike into a predominantly white neighborhood — and the importance of the case today.
