Arts & Life

Nathaniel Martello-White, Freida Pinto and Babou Ceesay star in John Ridley's new series Guerilla. The show explores the way humiliation and marginalization can lead to violence.

Arts

Set 40 Years In The Past, 'Guerrilla' Speaks Strongly To Today

6:08am April 14, 2017

by Steve Inskeep

Oscar-winning screenwriter John Ridley's new series is set in the U.K. during the 1970s, when immigrants of color from former colonies were coming there for work, but finding little opportunity.

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"The parasol is the umbrella's daughter...": Emily Dickinson (Cythnia Nixon) and sister Vinnie (Jennifer Ehle) in A Quiet Passion.

Arts

'A Quiet Passion' Dazzles Gradually

5:00pm April 13, 2017

by Ella Taylor

Filmmaker Terence Davies has found his ideal subject with this Emily Dickinson biopic, and a fiery performance by Cynthia Nixon challenges notions of the poet as a dour recluse.

Depths Perception: Dash (voiced by Jason Schwartzman) knows what's coming in My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea.

Arts

In 'My Entire High School Sinking Into The Sea,' The Strife's Aquatic

5:00pm April 13, 2017

by andrew lapin

Comics creator Dash Shaw's animated, deadpan-absurdist take on the high-school movie genre is boldly experimental and darkly funny.

Post-Edwardian Homesick Blues: Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam), Costin (Robert Pattinson) and Manley (Edward Ashley) in The Lost City of Z.

Arts

An Adventurer Seeks 'The Lost City Of Z' — And Finds Himself

5:00pm April 13, 2017

by Scott Tobias

In director James Gray's rapturously realized historical drama, an explorer's obsession with finding a remote Amazonian civilization causes him to question his place in the world.

The aptly named villain Cipher (Charlize Theron) recruits Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) in The Fate of the Furious.

Arts

'The Fate Of The Furious' Runs On Diesel Fumes

5:00pm April 13, 2017

by Chris Klimek

This "bloated and listless" installment of the Furious franchise stays true to the series' "chop-shop aesthetic, in the sense that its flashiest parts are all stolen," says critic Chris Klimek.

Cynthia Nixon plays Emily Dickinson in Terence Davies' new film A Quiet Passion. "I think she was afraid of life," Davies says. "Like a lot of geniuses, she had — skin missing. And that makes you very, very vulnerable."

New Film Celebrates Emily Dickinson's Poetry And 'Quiet Passion'

4:57pm April 13, 2017

by Lynn Neary

Many people find fascination in Dickinson's mysterious, reclusive life. But British film director Terence Davies says it was her poetry, more than her personal life, that drew him in.

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Books
Arts

Fitzgerald Didn't Satisfy This Author, So She Wrote Her Own 'Gatsby'-Inspired Novel

4:57pm April 13, 2017

by Ari Shapiro

Stephanie Powell Watts' No One Is Coming to Save Us isn't quite a retelling of The Great Gatsby; instead, it uses similar themes to tell a story about black characters in a declining furniture town.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Receives James Baldwin Letters

4:33pm April 13, 2017

NPR's Audie Cornish talks with Kevin Young, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, about receiving hundreds of James Baldwin's previously unreleased letters from his estate.

Comedian Charlie Murphy Of 'Chappelle's Show' Dies At 57

4:33pm April 13, 2017

Comedian and actor Charlie Murphy made a name for himself as a writer on Chappelle's Show, with his witty sketches of his encounters with famous people like Prince and Rick James. Murphy died Wednesday after a long battle with leukemia. He was 57.

Arts

To Get To 'SNL,' Comic Sasheer Zamata 'Followed The Fun'

1:35pm April 13, 2017

by Ann Marie Baldonado

Zamata says her path from beginner to working comic happened in the best possible way: "I just followed the things I was really interested in, and it turned out to be what I needed to do."

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