Accessibility links
Culture Art and entertainment commentary plus interviews, book reviews, movie reviews, music reviews, comedy, and visual art. Subscribe to podcasts and follow trends in music, painting, art, architecture, photography, and design.

Culture

Monday

Movies

In Cape Town Theaters, 'District 9' Hits Home

The summer sci-fi hit imagines a world in which millions of refugee extraterrestrials live in a filthy, violence-plagued shantytown outside Johannesburg. South African moviegoers got their first look at the film — and its political and cultural overtones — when it opened there Aug. 28.

In Cape Town Theaters, 'District 9' Hits Home

Listen · 4:22
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/112413987/112416457" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Books

Priceless Advice From 'The Undercover Economist'

Economist and part-time advice guru Tim Harford uses the cutthroat principles of economics and capitalism to help guide you through life's little quandaries.

Priceless Advice From 'The Undercover Economist'

Listen · 7:20
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/112306188/112397773" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Sunday

Photography

Robert Frank's Elevator Girl Sees Herself Years Later

"I stood in front of this particular photograph for probably a full five minutes, not knowing why I was staring at it," she says. "And then it really dawned on me that the girl in the picture was me."

Robert Frank's Elevator Girl Sees Herself Years Later

Listen · 4:51
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/112389032/112390690" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Books

How 'Marx's General' Helped Lead The Revolution

Friedrich Engels wasn't born a revolutionary, but over the course of several beer-soaked days in Paris, he became part of "the greatest friendship in Western political thought."

How 'Marx's General' Helped Lead The Revolution

Listen · 8:04
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/112368968/112390693" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Saturday

Wondrous 'Strange': Spike Lee Makes A Musical

Strange interlude: Daniel Breaker plays Youth, the adolescent version of narrator Stew (in background) in Spike Lee's sizzling film version of Stew's semiautobiographical Broadway musical Passing Strange. David Lee/Sundance hide caption

toggle caption
David Lee/Sundance

Review

Movies

Wondrous 'Strange': Spike Lee Makes A Musical

The alt-rock musical Passing Strange earned seven Tony nominations but lasted a mere six months on Broadway. Critic Bob Mondello says it deserved a longer run — at least on the evidence of Spike Lee's kinetic film remake.

Wondrous 'Strange': Spike Lee Makes A Musical

Listen · 3:25
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/112331221/112390692" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Author Interviews

From Poverty To The Ivy League: A Refugee's Story

Author Tracy Kidder recounts the story of a refugee from the war-torn African country of Burundi in the new book Strength in What Remains. When Deogratias "Deo" Niyizonkiza arrived in New York City in 1993, he had little beyond the clothes on his back.

From Poverty To The Ivy League: A Refugee's Story

Listen · 8:00
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/112334064/112374566" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
'Street Yoga' Helps Homeless Kids Find Balance

Kelli Kessler May instructs the Street Yoga class. Courtesy of Campbell Salgado Studio hide caption

toggle caption
Courtesy of Campbell Salgado Studio

'Street Yoga' Helps Homeless Kids Find Balance

Yoga isn't just for yuppies anymore. The instructors of a Portland-based organization say yoga can benefit homeless children both physically and mentally — from staying warm, to setting goals, to controlling anger.

'Street Yoga' Helps Homeless Kids Find Balance

Listen · 4:31
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/112293295/112384517" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Friday

Television

Danny McBride, Pitching For Laughs In 'Eastbound'

Fresh Air

Comic actor Danny McBride stars in Eastbound and Down, an HBO series about a washed-up baseball star who becomes a substitute gym teacher. The show is out now on DVD. Rebroadcast from Feb. 2009.

Danny McBride, Pitching For Laughs In 'Eastbound'

Listen · 9:59
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/112332195/112334370" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
'Reading Rainbow' Reaches Its Final Chapter

For 26 years, Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton (left) shepherded kids through the exciting world of books. The show, which fostered a love of reading, was the third longest-running program in PBS history, outlasted only by Sesame Street and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. GPN/Nebraska ETV Network; WNED Buffalo hide caption

toggle caption
GPN/Nebraska ETV Network; WNED Buffalo

Television

'Reading Rainbow' Reaches Its Final Chapter

After 26 years, the beloved children's show hosted by LeVar Burton will disappear from the airwaves. Today, educational funding favors programs that teach kids how to read, rather than why to read.

'Reading Rainbow' Reaches Its Final Chapter

Listen · 4:32
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/112312561/112323705" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

At 'Vogue,' A Wintour And Some Discontent

Fashion victim: Vogue doyenne Anna Wintour gets the fisheye from filmmaker R.J. Cutler in The September Issue. Roadside Attractions hide caption

toggle caption
Roadside Attractions

Review

Movies

At 'Vogue,' A Wintour And Some Discontent

The documentary The September Issue follows the making of the heftiest single issue in magazine history. And while its focus is on tastemaker Anna Wintour, the surprise star of the film is the free-spirited redhead who's Wintour's fashion foil — and frequent sparring partner.

'Still Walking' Along Family Fault Lines

Unhappy in their own way: Three generations of a Yokoyama family convene for a rocky reunion in Hirokazu Koreeda's Still Walking. From left, patriarch Kyohei (Yoshio Harada), his step-grandson Atsushi (Shohei Tanaka) and matriarch Toshiko (Kirin Kiki). IFC Films hide caption

toggle caption
IFC Films

Review

Movies

'Still Walking' Along Family Fault Lines

Three generations of a Yokoyama family convene for a reunion of sorts in Hirokazu Koreeda's delicate comedy-drama. Set in the Japanese suburbs, the film is a gentle meditation on how families make peace among themselves, and how their wisdom is conserved and recycled through the generations. (Recommended)

Old Hearts, Young With Desire, On 'Cloud 9'

Romance Rejuvenated: Inge (Ursula Werner) and Karl (Horst Westphal) find that hearts don't always grow wiser with age in Andreas Dresen's Cloud 9. Music Box Films hide caption

toggle caption
Music Box Films

Review

Movies

Old Hearts, Young With Desire, On 'Cloud 9'

Andreas Dresen's protagonists are wrinkled, and each has seen a lifetime's worth of longing. The sex scenes are frank and unforgivingly robust, and the film poignantly tracks the gap between physical decline and the persistence — at full blast — of unfulfilled desire.

R.J. Cutler, Spending 'September' With Anna Wintour

Movie Interviews

R.J. Cutler, Spending 'September' With Anna Wintour

The producer behind the campaign-trail documentary The War Room spent months observing another famous but closely guarded process: the making of Vogue magazine's massive September issue. It's the year's biggest — but the film about it is surprisingly intimate.

R.J. Cutler, Spending 'September' With Anna Wintour

Listen · 8:15
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/112291340/112304954" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Author Interviews

Parenting Tips: Praise Can Be Bad; Lying Is Normal

Po Bronson, co-author of NurtureShock, explores some of the thornier issues of child rearing — including the phenomenon of "overpraising" kids and tactics for confronting children who lie.

Parenting Tips: Praise Can Be Bad; Lying Is Normal

Listen · 7:47
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/112292248/112304962" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript