Society & Culture

Maureen Corrigan reviews Lorrie Moore's most recent novel.

Ang Lee's film focuses not on the 1969 music festival itself, but on one of the people whose lives were changed by it: Elliot Teichberg, a closeted gay man who offered up his parents' decrepit motel as a home base for the festival's producers. David Edelstein reviews.

Perhaps best known for his work on the Fox TV show Arrested Development, Jason Bateman discusses his upcoming role as the boss at a vanilla extract company in Mike Judge's new the workplace comedy Extract.

Richard Russo turns a satiric eye toward matrimony and middle age in his new novel, That Old Cape Magic. Book critic Maureen Corrigan calls the book a "glistening ... chambered nautilus of a novel."

Straightforward and kid-friendly, Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo isn't the animation master's most complicated film. But in some ways, the film's simplicity offers a clearer look at the director's greatness. Movie critic David Edelstein explains.

Rafael Yglesias' novel is inspired by his wife, Margaret, who died in 2004. A Happy Marriage spans their three-decade relationship, from their courtship to her battle with cancer.

Puppies Behind Bars is a canine training program that enlists prison inmates to train puppies as bomb-sniffing dogs or as service animals. Many of the dogs are then paired with wounded or disabled veterans.

With a national health-care conversation in high gear, linguist Geoff Nunberg notes that "government" (as in "government-run plan") wasn't always such a dirty word. From "G-men" to "government bureaucrats," on this edition of Fresh Air.

Jennifer Weiner's latest novel, Best Friends Forever, is much sharper than its dopey title would suggest. With a nod to Thelma and Louise, Weiner's Addie and Valerie rekindle a friendship that fizzled decades ago.

The actor appears in the new comedy Funny People as well as the drama The Time Traveler's Wife, due out soon. He got his start doing standup and sketch comedy in Australia.

Writer-director Judd Apatow's new film Funny People is a vaguely autobiographical comedy starring Apatow's former roommate Adam Sandler as a comic mentoring a younger colleague (Seth Rogen).

In a 1996 interview, the late memoirist shares richly detailed memories of his Limerick childhood and his adult life in the United States.

Seattle director Lynn Shelton's fabulously squirmy film Humpday centers on two seemingly straight men who decide to have sex with each other as part of an amateur porn video competition.

Sacha Baron Cohen's latest jaunt — as a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashionista — is funnier and riskier than Borat. Sure, he's a cheap-shot artist, but he's one who's often got a righteous point.

When it came out in 1961, Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad perplexed and excited audiences with its surrealistic storytelling. John Powers has a review of the film's Criterion Collection re-release.

Journalist and lawyer Adam Liptak covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times. He gives us a roundup of this year's most important decisions — some of which were left for the final hours before summer recess.

Ta-Nehisi Coates' pays tribute to his father in his Memoir.

Chip Berlet has studied extremism, conspiracy theories and hate groups for more than 25 years. He says that the recent murders of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller and Holocaust Museum guard Stephen T. Johns exemplify the potential for violence that often lurks within extremist groups.

Intended as a productive if imperfect compromise, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has resulted in thousands of discharges — many of them involving service members with critical skills. Historian Nathaniel Frank says it's time the ban was ended.

Seven years after being discharged from the U.S. Army under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," openly gay veteran Alex Nicholson is the executive director of Servicemembers United, an advocacy organization he founded.