Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Get Out' and 'The Americans'
It's a week of high tension as the team welcomes Gene Demby and Kat Chow of NPR's Code Switch team to talk about 'Get Out' and the return of 'The Americans.'
Arts
Paranormal Activity Meets Profound Grief In 'Personal Shopper'
Olivier Assayas' chilling new film features Kristen Stewart as a medium who is trying to contact her dead twin. Critic Justin Chang calls it "moody, baffling and altogether entrancing."
Malcolm Gladwell: Do More Choices Make Us Happier?
We assume that our choices come with prepackaged consequences. But author Malcolm Gladwell explains how we aren't simply passive recipients of our decisions.
Sheena Iyengar: Why Are Some Choices So Paralyzing?
Psycho-economist Sheena Iyengar explains how we can actively use choice as a tool to help us arrive at decisions we can live with.
Ruth Chang: How Can Making Hard Choices Empower Us?
One choice isn't always better than the other. Philosopher Ruth Chang says, once we realize that, it's easier to embrace the hard work of decision-making.
Dan Ariely: When Are Our Decisions Made For Us?
We often think that our decisions are our own. But Behavioral Economist Dan Ariely explains how our environment — even something as simple as how a question is framed — can affect what we choose.
Anthology TV Series Undergo Renaissance With 'American Crime,' 'Feud'
The third season of American Crime debuts this week on ABC. It's one of a number of interesting anthology series on TV now. NPR takes a look at the pros and cons of anthology series.
In The Forgettable 'Kong: Skull Island,' A Great Cast, Cast Aside
Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly, John Goodman and Samuel L. Jackson help ensure that this mediocre creature feature is "no chore to sit through," says critic Chris Klimek.
An Unexamined Life, Examined And Re-Examined: 'The Sense Of An Ending'
An unsparing, unsentimental Julian Barnes novel gets a straightforward treatment — and a tacked-on, falsely redemptive ending — in Ritesh Batra's film.
A Revisionist Western With A Vision That's Oppressively Brutal: 'Brimstone'
Dutch writer-director Martin Koolhoven's bleak, four-part, 149-minute tale, which features Guy Pearce as a sadistic preacher in the Old West, proves "rigorously unpleasant," says critic Scott Tobias.