Richard Tanne's new film is a dramatization of Barack and Michelle Obama's first date in 1989. Critic David Edelstein says the movie's mix of politics and romance has a "naive kind of charm."
As one of the very first bebop tenor saxophonists, Teddy Edwards mixed awesome technique with irresistibly slinky phrases. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews two reissues, Inimitable and Feelin's.
Seth Freed Wessler reported on substandard medical care in privately-run prisons in the federal corrections system for The Nation, which may have led the Justice Department to phase out their use.
E. T. Mensah, who died 20 years ago, played highlife, an offshoot of jazz that for years was the most popular style of music in southern Africa. Milo Miles reviews a new anthology of Mensah's music.
Actor John Krasinski talks about directing and starring in the new film The Hollar, and what he learned about acting thru nine years on NBC's The Office.
Journalists Michael Kranish and his Washington Post colleague Marc Fisher are the authors of Trump Revealed, a biography about Trump's life and career that is based on the work of more than 20 of the Post's reporters, editors and fact-checkers.
The singer-songwriter began performing at age 14 in a band with her sisters and her father. Critic Ken Tucker says the songs on Loveless' latest solo album, Real, have a "tough edge."
Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen explores questions of time, memory, nature and human isolation. His recent collaboration with soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan has garnered worldwide attention.
In her new book, The Grid, Gretchen Bakke argues that the under-funded power grid is incapable of taking the U.S. into a new energy future. She explains the challenges to Fresh Air's Dave Davies.
Decades after Parker's death, a new album compiles previously unknown performances by the alto sax legend. Critic Kevin Whitehead says the record will please both jazz experts and casual listeners.
Todd Phillips' new comedy, which is loosely based on a true story, follows two 20-somethings from Miami who become international arms dealers. Critic John Powers calls War Dogs "jauntily enjoyable."
The Brazilian trio, which won a Grammy in 2002, is known for mixing new and classic bossa nova tunes with electronica. Critic Milo Miles says The Best of Bossacucanova has a "captivating flow."
Author Frederick Clarkson wrote the book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy And Democracy, on the growing religious movement to influence government. Clarkson has written articles on the religious right's plans to take over the Republican Party, and how elements of the right encouraged citizen militias.
Political analysts have been dividing the country into red states and blue states for several elections now, but it's only in the last year or two that the distinction has really caught on with the media and the public. As our linguist Geoff Nunberg points out, the odd thing is that the new usage seems to reverse the traditional political meanings of red and blue.
The stated purpose of D. James Kennedy's religious network is to reclaim America for Christ, closing the gap between church and state that is written into the Constitution. The evangelist minister, who preaches from the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Coral Ridge, Fla., has radio and TV shows that are heard around the world.
Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes, says someday we might be able to improve our health by taking probiotics, but "we are still in the very early stages of working out how to do this."
In Difficult People, Klausner and her co-star Billy Eichner play unsuccessful New York comics who constantly make snarky comments about celebrities, movies, TV shows and theater. Klausner says that though the tone of the show is often one of anger or annoyance, the energy behind it isn't all negative.
Biologist Bill Streever sailed from Texas to Guatemala while doing research for his new book, And Soon I Heard a Roaring Wind. He says the wind was working against him "most of the time."
A memoir by a pioneering woman who lived in the Mississippi Delta, helping her husband run logging camps. . . feeding as many as one hundred men a day, sewing clothes, skinning deer, fighting off snakes and panthers; and surviving epic floods and fires.
