Arts & Life

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani appeared on the Fox Business Network earlier this year. He has been a frequent cable news commentator about the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases.

Four Lessons From The Media's Conflicted Coverage of Race

1:52pm December 06, 2014

by Eric Deggans

After grand jury decisions not to indict police officers in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, NPR TV critic Eric Deggans notes media missteps in discussing race.

Drummer Max Weinberg performs with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in East Rutherford, N.J., in August 2002.

Arts

Not My Job: E Street Drummer Max Weinberg Gets Quizzed On New Jersey

12:56pm December 06, 2014

Peter Sagal has taken more than a few potshots at his home state over the years, so we'll quiz Weinberg — a proud son of Newark — about some of New Jersey's highlights.

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Before becoming a monk, Nicky Vreeland apprenticed with the great photographers Richard Avedon and Irving Penn.

Arts

From Chic Manhattanite To 'Monk With A Camera'

11:51am December 06, 2014

by NPR Staff

A new film tells the story of how Nicky Vreeland — a trained photographer and grandson of a fashion icon — used his camera to help rebuild the Tibetan Buddhist monastery he now leads.

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A Spanish 'Rent' Marks Return Of Broadway Musicals To Havana

11:51am December 06, 2014

by Jasmine Garsd

A half-century after such shows were banned by the Castro government, rehearsals are underway for a Spanish-language production of the rock musical Rent.

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Books
Arts

First-Generation 'Boston Girl' Becomes Career Woman In Diamant's Latest

11:51am December 06, 2014

by NPR Staff

Anita Diamant — who also authored The Red Tent — tells the story of Addie Baum in her latest novel. Baum is a Jewish girl, born in 1900 to immigrant parents in Boston's North End.

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Books
Arts

Playful And Serious? 'How To Be' Is Both

6:45am December 06, 2014

by Heller McAlpin

Ali Smith's new How To Be Both combines inventive structural trickery and warm, sardonic writing in in parallel tales of a bereaved modern teenager and an Italian renaissance fresco painter.

After The California Downpour, 'The Drought' Offers Some Dry Reading

6:03pm December 05, 2014

by Jason Heller

It rained in California this week. That might not sound like news, but the state is experiencing a record-setting drought. Jason Heller turns to science fiction to reflect on the strange weather.

Nicolas Cage stars as rogue CIA agent Evan Lake in the spy thriller Dying of the Light.

Arts

'Dying Of The Light': A Disputed Production, A Disappointing Product

2:06pm December 05, 2014

by Tomas Hachard

The film, disavowed by its director and writer Paul Schrader after clashes with the studio, stars Nicolas Cage as a CIA officer who believes the agency has lost its moral direction.

Arts

Prayers And Holy Water Can't Exorcise The Terrifying 'Babadook'

1:42pm December 05, 2014

by David Edelstein

In the Australian chiller, a bogeyman announces himself in a rhyming, pop-up book on a 7-year-old's shelf. But the real horror is that the boy's mom, a grieving widow, is battling psychic demons.

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Aksel Hennie and Wes Bentley star as offshore divers in Pioneer.

Arts

A Claustrophobic 'Pioneer' From A Land Suddenly Grown Rich

1:36pm December 05, 2014

by Ella Taylor

The Norwegian thriller follows divers deep beneath the sea, where powerful forces above drive those trapped together to question nearly every aspect of their experience.