Segments by Date

Screenwriters RASHIDA JONES and WILL MCCORMACK. They're the writing team behind the new film The Invite, directed by Olivia Wilde and starring Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton. They've been creative partners for more than two decades, first as co-writers of Celeste and Jesse Forever. JONES is an actor, writer, producer, and director. She won a Grammy for co-directing the documentary Quincy, about her father, Quincy Jones, and recently earned an Emmy nomination for her performance in Black Mirror. MCCORMACK is an Academy Award-winning writer, director, and actor.

TV critic DAVID BIANCULLI reviews the new Netflix remake of “Little House on the Prairie,” based on the popular series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

(1.) ROBERT KIMBALL, the musical historian who rediscovered and rescued music and manuscripts by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and others – and who co-wrote important books about George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Eubie Blake – died last week, at the age of 86. He was the artistic advisor to the Cole Porter and Ira Gershwin estates.

Critic-at-Large JOHN POWERS reviews “Sugar,” starring Colin Farrell, now in its second season on Apple TV.

(1.) LENNY KAYE. He’s Patti Smith's longtime guitarist and his first solo album, called Goin’ Local will be released next week. It features his own songs. He’s written several books related to rock n roll history, including his latest, Lightning Striking, about ten transformative periods in rock history and the cities they originated in. His record anthology Nuggets: Original Artyfacts of the First Psychedelic Era,1965-68, inspired many first generation punk rockers.Early in his career, Kaye was a rock critic. (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES THROUGH TO THE END OF THE SHOW).

(1.) Journalist ARI BERMAN. For more than a decade, he's covered voting rights and election law in America. He'll talk about a series of recent changes to how elections are run: a Supreme Court decision upholding states' power to count mail ballots that arrive after Election Day, another striking down limits on coordinated party spending, a ruling that narrowed the Voting Rights Act, and redrawn congressional maps in several Southern states.

(1.) Music producer PETER ASHER. In the 1960s he was part of the duo Peter and Gordon whose hits included A World Without Love, Nobody I Know, I Don’t Want to See You Again and I go to Pieces. After the duo split up, in 1968 Peter became the first A&R man at the Beatles new Apple Record Label. The first person he signed was James Taylor. ASHER soon after moved to LA, produced and managed Taylor and helped turn him into a star. He introduced Taylor to Carole King, and launched King’s performing career. He produced and managed Linda Rontadt.

(1.) Journalist BURKARD BILGER is a staff writer for The New Yorker. In a new article titled The Tick That Hunts Down its Hosts, Including Us, he reports on what we know about how the tick operates, how it has multiplied and vastly extended its territory and how it affects the people it feeds on, and the latest ideas about how to limit the infestation and treat people with alpha gal syndrome which the tick causes. BILGER is also the author of the 2023 book Fatherland, about his German grandfather, who joined the Nazi Party, but worked with the French resistance.

ISAAC BUTLER is the author of The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars. It focuses on the religious right attacks on certain books, art and film of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. His previous books The World Only Spins Forward - about the play Angels in America. And The Method, about the history of the acting technique known as the method. We recorded the interview last Thursday. (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES INTO THE SECOND HALF OF THE SHOW).

Enter Me

(1.) Tennis champions CHRIS EVERT and MARTINA NAVRATILOVA. The new documentary Chris and Martina the Final Set is about their friendship, their tennis rivalry, and having cancer at the same time in the 2020’s. It's on Netflix. They were in remission when the interview was couple of weeks ago. But last week, Evert disclosed she’d just been diagnosed with a recurrence of ovarian cancer. (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES INTO THE SECOND HALF OF THE SHOW).

David Bianculli offers an appreciation, then we listen back to a '06 interview with Burrows, who died June 19. He directed over 1,000 sitcom episodes, co-created Cheers and chose the cast for Friends.

In the new comedy "The Invite," Seth Rogen and Olivia Wilde play a San Francisco couple who spend an evening getting to know their upstairs neighbors, played by Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton. It's Wilde's third directorial effort after her earlier films, "Booksmart," and "Don't Worry Darling." "The Invite" opens in theaters this week. Our film critic Justin Chang has this review.

Smith's new show is about her great-great-grandfather, a free Black man who reburied the Union dead at Gettysburg and prepared the ground for Lincoln's most famous speech.

Each sketch of HBO's seven-part comedy series, Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America, starts with historical fact — then veers wildly, and enjoyably, off the rails.

Masculinism is a belief that feminism emasculates men, and men should be in control while women stay at home raising children. The Atlantic writer Helen Lewis says the movement is becoming mainstream.

Actor Wendell Pierce. Over a career spanning four decades, he's played some of the most memorable characters on television - Detective Bunk Moreland on HBO's "The Wire," the trombone player Antoine Batiste in "Treme." And in 2022, he became the first Black actor to play Willy Loman in "Death Of A Salesman" on Broadway. He's currently starring as Captain Wagner on the CBS series "Elsbeth," is back as a CIA officer, James Greer, in "Jack Ryan: Ghost War" and in the final season of "Raising Kanan" on Starz.

Our guest today is actor and transgender activist Laverne Cox.

Ibrahim, who died June 15, left South Africa in 1962 and lived in exile in the U.S. and Europe for many years. Kevin Whitehead offers an appreciation, and we listen to Terry Gross' 1989 interview.

In Savings and Trust, historian Justene Hill Edwards tells the story of the Freedman's Bank, which was created for formerly enslaved people following the Civil War. Originally broadcast Nov. 7, 2024.