Both The Green Hornet and The Dilemma open this weekend. The two big-budget male buddy pictures -- one starring Seth Rogen; the other Kevin James and Vince Vaughn -- illustrate that the juvenile "bromance" genre is just getting old.
Singer Margaret Whiting, who collaborated with lyricist Johnny Mercer and performed classic standards like "Moonlight in Vermont," died Monday. Fresh Air remembers Whiting with highlights from a 1988 interview, where she explained how Mercer taught her to read a lyric.
Computerized algorithms now do much of the work on Wall Street. Financial journalist Felix Salmon says they've become ingrained in the financial system -- but are also increasingly complex and difficult to regulate.
Joel and Ethan Coen's latest film is an adaptation of the Charles Portis western novel True Grit. The filmmakers and writers discuss the making of the film and the difficulties of working with both child actors and horses.
Amy Chua, a professor of law at Yale, has written her first memoir about raising children the "Chinese way" — with strict rules and expectations. Maureen Corrigan predicts the book will be "a book club and parenting blog phenomenon."
Writer Mira Bartok's memoir, The Memory Palace, is in part about the car accident that left her with traumatic brain injury and about her relationship with her schizophrenic mother. She explains how her brain injury helped her understand — and reconnect with — her mother.
The new FX series Lights Out centers on a retired heavyweight boxer contemplating a comeback. TV critic David Bianculli says the intense boxing drama may end up being the best new dramatic series of 2011.
What happens to your online presence when you die? Evan Carroll and John Romano edit The Digital Beyond, a website that helps users plan what happens to their online content after death. They suggest you start planning now for the inevitable.
William Trevor has been writing for more than 50 years and has won more literary awards than we have time to list. A volume of selected stories has recently been published, and Fresh Air's book critic Maureen Corrigan has an appreciation.
Arizona's gun laws, among the most lenient in the country, allowed Jared Lee Loughner to conceal and carry his firearm without a permit, explains Washington Post reporter James Grimaldi, who wrote a piece Sunday about Arizona's lax gun laws and Saturday's Tuscon shooting rampage.
Blue Valentine stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as a couple in its final throes -- and also, through flashbacks, in more romantic times. Director Derek Cianfrance has previously made several documentaries. Critic David Edelstein says Cianfrance employs that documentary style in this film.
Three shows, all with ties to Britain, premiere Jan. 9. TV critic David Bianculli says all three -- a period drama on PBS and two comedic adaptations on Showtime -- are clever, well-acted and pleasures to watch.
Mark Wahlberg and David O. Russell talk about creating a movie based on the real-life boxer Micky Ward, who won a welterweight championship in 2000 after several years away from the boxing ring.
Guitarist and composer Marc Ribot's latest album, Silent Movies, pays tribute to film scores. The creation of the album, he says, allowed him to express his more lyrical side.
Since 2006, more than 60,000 of the weapons used in Mexican crimes have been traced back to the United States. Washington Post investigative reporter James Grimaldi explains how a team of reporters uncovered the names of the top 12 U.S. dealers of guns traced to Mexico.
A new book by journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins alleges that the CIA was so obsessed with getting information from nuclear trafficker A.Q. Khan's network, it waited too long to shut it down — and stood by while Khan and his associates spread dangerous nuclear technology around the globe.
Air was a flagship of the 1970s avant-garde, but saxophonist Henry Threadgill, bassist Fred Hopkins and drummer Steve McCall first came together to play Scott Joplin's piano music. That and more are documented on a massive eight-CD box set of Threadgill's music.
Virtually unknown in America until his Oscar-nominated role in the 1993 film In The Name of the Father, the British actor died Jan. 2 after a long battle with cancer. Fresh Air remembers him with highlights from a 1997 interview.
Composer Allen Shawn's twin sister, Mary, was diagnosed with autism and sent to an institution when they were 8 years old. He writes about his relationship with Mary — and his feelings of survivor's guilt — in a new memoir, Twin.
The constant stream of information we get through mobile and hand-held devices is changing the way we think. Matt Richtel, a technology writer for The New York Times, explains how the use of digital technology is altering our brains -- and how retreating into nature may reverse the effects.
