Arts & Life

Independent Theater Owner In D.C. Gets Ready To Screen 'The Interview'

5:09pm December 24, 2014

West End Cinema's Josh Levin, preparing to show The Interview, speaks with Audie Cornish about what sparked a decision to host the controversial film (Sony Pictures had canceled the release).

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Allison Tolman plays Deputy Sheriff Molly Solverson in the FX TV series Fargo. It's a breakout role for the actress who had done only theater and commercials.

Arts

Bianculli's Top 10: 2014 Was A 'Good Year For Programming'

2:47pm December 24, 2014

by David Bianculli

TV critic David Bianculli says that he's encouraged by how far TV has come. He picks The Good Wife as the best show of 2014, having "the deepest roster of really strong regulars and guest stars."

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Ellar Coltrane, who plays Mason in Boyhood, was 6 years old when director Richard Linklater picked him for the role. Made over the course of 12 years, the film is David Edelstein's favorite of the year.

Arts

In A 'Depressing' Year For Films, Edelstein Finds Some Greats

2:06pm December 24, 2014

by David Edelstein

Film critic David Edelstein says in 2014 none of the great material came from Hollywood studios. But, he says, it was a "wonderful year" for indie films. He names Boyhood as the best of the year.

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In an independent, Australian film, a single mother (Essie Davis) and her troubled young son (Noah Wiseman) are terrorized by a mysterious character from a children's book called Mister Babadook.

Arts

Beware The 'Babadook,' The Monster Of Your Own Making

1:10pm December 24, 2014

by Neda Ulaby

The monsters of repression are what terrorize a mother and her son in this independent, Australian, horror movie. "I wanted it to look more low-fi and more handmade," says director Jennifer Kent.

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Curator Timothy Verdon says "Mary is unexpectedly fashionable" in Fra Filippo Lippi's Madonna and Child, painted in the 1460s.

Mother, Empress, Virgin, Faith: 'Picturing Mary' And Her Many Meanings

10:56am December 24, 2014

by Susan Stamberg

This Christmas, images of Mary created over five centuries glow on the walls of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Curator Kathryn Wat says that, to her, Mary represents bravery and strength.

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Pepperpot, a traditional Guyanese Christmas dish, is basically a stew of aromatics and tough meat parts like shanks, trotters and tails that benefit from a long cooking.

Guyanese Christmas Gives A Whole New Meaning To Slow Food

10:00am December 24, 2014

by Deena Prichep

Two classic Christmas dishes beloved by the people of Guyana are pepperpot and garlic pork. To get the flavors just right, you have to cook them and let them sit out for weeks.

Stowell (right) says Sendak (left) needed some convincing before he signed on to design a new Nutcracker. Their version of the ballet debuted in 1983.

Books
Arts

In Seattle, Maurice Sendak's 'Wild' 'Nutcracker' Reaches Its Final Act

7:32pm December 23, 2014

by Florangela D'Avila

For more than 30 years, the Pacific Northwest Ballet's Nutcracker has used sets and costumes designed by the author of Where the Wild Things Are. This year, the ballet is retiring the production.

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Arts

Satirizing Dictators Is Nothing New — Just Ask Charlie Chaplin

7:31pm December 23, 2014

by Mandalit del Barco

The Interview is hardly the first time a dictator has been portrayed on the big screen — Bugs Bunny, Mel Brooks and South Park have all taken aim at fearsome world leaders.

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The Serial podcast is Sarah Koenig's reinvestigation of the murder of Hae Min Lee, a Maryland high school student who was strangled in 1999. Lee was found in Baltimore's Leakin Park. Her schoolmate and ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed was convicted of the murder a

Arts

Serial Host Sarah Koenig Says She Set Out To Report, Not Exonerate

6:32pm December 23, 2014

The podcast is a reinvestigation of the 1999 murder of Maryland high school student Hae Min Lee. Her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed is serving a life sentence but has always maintained his innocence.

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Michel Martin with five Latino influencers from the Charlotte business community. Alina Bartlett, Jorge De La Jara, Carlos Salum, Deborah Aguiar-Vélez, and Milagritos Aguilar.

'Going There' In 2014

1:57pm December 23, 2014

by Michel Martin

Michel Martin has spent much of the last few months on the road, and she has been moved by the people she's met and the stories they've shared with her. She remembers her Top 5 moments of 2014.