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NPR Topics: Arts & Life
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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.
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'666': A Tale Of The Tribulation So Bad, It's Good
When Rhoda Janzen was 9, her mother busted her for reading the thriller 666 during an incredibly dull sermon at their Mennonite church. To this day, Janzen revels in the terribly written prose about the Antichrist, cannibalism, global famine and apocalyptic doom.
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Puns In Country Music Songs Done Right
Puns have long been a part of country music songs -- think of song titles such as George Jones' "She Took My Keys Away, and Now She Won't Drive Me to Drink" or Lee Ann Womack's "Am I the Only Thing That You Done Wrong?" Linguist Geoff Nunberg says that the genre's willingness to play with lyrics and song titles uncovers new layers of meaning.
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'The American': A Domestic Bond, Drawn In Miniature
George Clooney's latest outing showcases a more internal performance -- as an assassin whose personal life threatens to further complicate an already hard-to-manage career. Kenneth Turan says Anton Corbijn's drama is impeccably composed and beautifully shot -- if a little lacking on the emotional urgency front.
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'Noodle Shop': A Coen Brothers Tale Goes East
Director Zhang Yimou takes on the Coen brothers, remaking Blood Simple and setting it in the 17th-century "Chinese outback." Adultery, bloody mishaps and Chinese superstition are just the appetizers in this colorful film.
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'Machete': Out Of The 'Grindhouse,' Trailer First
Robert Rodriguez directs Machete, featuring a character first introduced in a fake trailer that played during his 2007 exploitation flick Grindhouse. (Recommended)
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'Public Enemy' Wraps Up A Criminally Good Saga
Neither director Jean-Francois Richet's style nor star Vincent Cassel's swagger falters in Public Enemy Number One, the exhilarating follow-up to Mesrine: Killer Instinct. With its shootouts, prison breaks and wild flights of ego, the saga's second half was sure to be watchable. It's also smart, funny and incisive -- about the criminal and his era. (Recommended)
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A Family Torn Asunder Takes The 'Last Train Home'
Frequently moving and quietly enlightening, the documentary Last Train Home is about love and exploitation, sacrifice and endurance. Director Lixin Fan follows a single Chinese family from 2006 through the financial downturn of 2008. The parents work at garment factories in Guangzhou city; their teenage children live in an impoverished village and see their parents only once a year. (Recommended)
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Where's The Beef? One Man's Search For 'Steak'
Mark Schatzker, a lifelong steak lover, was disappointed in the steaks he was eating. So Schatzker set off on a quest to find the very best piece of beef in the world -- a quest that took him from feedlots in Texas, to French cave paintings of prehistoric cattle, to the Argentine pampas.
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'White Wedding' Celebrates Love, South African-Style
Last year, the South African sci-fi film District Nine opened in the states to blockbuster grosses. Now another film from South Africa, the road-trip comedy White Wedding, is attracting international notice. The movie follows an engaged couple who weather a series of zany obstacles over the course of their wedding day. (Recommended)
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Rapper T.I. And Wife Arrested On Drug Charges
The rapper and his wife, singer Tameka Cottle, were arrested in Los Angeles Wednesday night after police smelled what appeared to be marijuana coming from their car on Sunset Boulevard.
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Overloaded From Your Garden? Just Can It
Canning -- the source of jams, pickles and relishes that seems tied to the last century -- is on the upswing. There is a debate whether the trend stems from the tight economy or the local food movement, but its fans say the results are delicious.
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'The American': An Abstract, Angst-Filled Art Thriller
Anton Corbijn's paranoid thriller stars George Clooney as an anonymous international assassin constantly on the run. Critic David Edelstein says the spare movie "cast a spell" over the audience -- as they entered the mind of a man with no past or future.
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Three Books For The Self-Help Skeptic
Plenty of folks are wary when it comes to self-help, but if you're not going to help yourself, then who will? Writer Lisa Unger says: Silence your inner snark and read these three books -- they will clear your mind and change your life.
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Learning Who You Are Through What You Eat
The long Labor Day weekend marks the end of summer for many in the U.S., but it's also a time when ethnic churches hold massive food festivals to celebrate their origins. For food writer Michele Kayal and her young daughter, Syrian festivals -- and the preparations for them -- are an enduring link to the past.
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Dog, Mad Englishman Grow Old In A Setting Sun
My Dog Tulip is an animated film, but it's no Disney-style heartwarmer about a boy and his canine pal. Instead it's a film for adults -- based on a memoir by a grumpy British writer who lived with an unruly German shepherd for 16 years -- that manages to be touching without getting overly sentimental. (Recommended)
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