This Hollywood memoir is an expertly mixed cocktail of history and family drama
Matthew Specktor grew up the son of a famous Hollywood agent. In The Golden Hour he serves up family saga, cultural criticism, fictionalized biography, history and lament for a vanishing world.
Fresh Air Remembers Country Music Legend Merle Haggard
"I was, to say the least, probably the most incorrigible child you can think of," Haggard told Fresh Air in 1995. The country icon died Wednesday morning in California. It was his 79th birthday.
A Family Drama Unfolds Through Shifting Viewpoints In 'Louder Than Bombs'
Point-of-view is passed like a baton among the tortured main characters in Joachim Trier's new film. Critic David Edelstein says Louder than Bombs is intimate, touching and "insistently alive."
Robbie Fulks Sings His Way Home In 'Upland Stories'
The raucous singer turns thoughtful on his new album. Critic Ken Tucker calls Upland Stories a "marvelous mongrel mixture" of bluegrass banjo-picking, honky-tonk pedal steel and stark folk phrasings.
From Fracking Bans To Paid Sick Leave: How States Are Overruling Local Laws
PR Watch's Lisa Graves says that states can overrule local laws, and that legislatures are increasingly using preemption to stop things like minimum wage increases and protections for LGBT people.
Laid-Off Tech Journalist Joins A Start-Up, Finds It's Part Frat, Part Cult
Dan Lyons was in his 50s when he lost his job reporting on the tech industry. He took a job at a start-up, where he was the old guy. His new book is Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble.
'Miles Ahead' Shows A Dissipated Davis Who Still Burns Hot
The new Miles Davis biopic begins in the 1970s, at the end of Davis' five-year hiatus from the music scene. Critic David Edelstein calls Don Cheadle's portrayal of the musician "electrifying."
Fresh Air Remembers Actress Patty Duke
Duke won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Helen Keller in 1962's The Miracle Worker. She died Tuesday at the age of 69. Originally broadcast in 1988.