Arts & Life

Chris Pine and Keira Knightley anchor Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, opposite Kevin Costner as a CIA veteran and Kenneth Branagh as the story's big bad.

Arts

Jack Ryan Gets A Makeover, And A Quick Trip To Moscow

3:05pm January 17, 2014

by David Edelstein

Tom Clancy's wonkish spy returns in a new thriller from Kenneth Branagh, with Star Trek's Chris Pine in the title role and the director playing a menacing Russian bad guy out to bring the U.S. to its knees.

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Arts

Snubs And Surprises Abound In Oscar Nominations

1:49pm January 17, 2014

by NPR Staff

Oscar nominations were announced on Thursday morning, and some notable names went missing. But, as NPR film critic Bob Mondello observes, in such a strong year for movies and performances, there were bound to be a few deserving ones that got snubbed.

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The Bucking Horse subdivision in Fort Collins, Colo., will include a working CSA farm, complete with historic barn, farm house and chicken coop.

Forget Golf Courses: Subdivisions Draw Residents With Farms

10:00am January 17, 2014

by Luke Runyon

Across the country, a new model of housing development is springing up that embraces the local food movement. Farms — complete with livestock, vegetables and fruit trees — are now serving as the latest suburban amenity.

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A group gathers in a Ballston, Va., home for a supper club organized through the site Feastly. A new food trend gaining popularity in New York and other cities lets diners enjoy a meal prepared by a stranger in that person's home.

Sometimes A Perfect Stranger Is The Best Dinner Host

3:07pm January 16, 2014

by Arun Venugopal

A new food trend gaining popularity in New York and other cities allows diners to enjoy fine meals inside someone else's home. But the food is often just an excuse for what can essentially be a really great party with a bunch of people you've never met.

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Arts

Oscar Nods Go To 'American Hustle,' 'Gravity,' '12 Years A Slave'

3:07pm January 16, 2014

Nominations for the 86th annual Academy Awards were announced Thursday. American Hustle and Gravity got 10 nominations each, including nods for best picture, best director and best actress.

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Chiwetel Ejiofor (left) plays Solomon Northup, a New York freeman kidnapped into slavery in 1841 and eventually resold to plantation owner Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender).

Arts

For A Free Spirit, A Grim '12 Years' In Chains

12:39pm January 16, 2014

by Bob Mondello

A brutal corrective to gauzy portrayals of the antebellum South, this true story of a man kidnapped into slavery took home the top audience prize at the Toronto Film Festival. NPR's Bob Mondello says it emphatically deserved the honor. (Recommended)

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Arts

These Guitars Are For The Birds — Literally

7:44pm January 15, 2014

A new exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., features a flock of 70 finches and an array of tuned and amplified guitars. As the flock fills the open room, the birds are free to land on the guitars, making music of their own as they move and jump off the instruments.

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Books
Arts

Chang-rae Lee Stretches For Dystopic Drama, But Doesn't Quite Reach

2:04pm January 14, 2014

by Maureen Corrigan

Lee is acclaimed for his realistic and historical fiction, but he's made a foray into the futuristic sci-fi genre with a new novel called On Such a Full Sea. Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan says sometimes it's better for writers to stick closer to familiar shores.

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Watch an interactive of the Supreme Court justice narrating her personal family photos. (Above: Sotomayor, 1959)

Books
Arts

As A Latina, Sonia Sotomayor Says, 'You Have To Work Harder'

12:46pm January 14, 2014

The Supreme Court justice tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross, "In every position that I've been in, there have been naysayers who don't believe I'm qualified or who don't believe I can do the work." She has committed herself to proving those people wrong.

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Before protesting in The Square, Khalid Abdalla (left) acted in such films as The Kite Runner, Green Zone and United 93.

Arts

Three Protesters, One 'Square': Film Goes Inside Egypt's Revolution

12:46pm January 14, 2014

by John Powers

As we approach the third anniversary of the demonstrations in Egypt, Fresh Air critic John Powers reviews a documentary that captures the story of Cairo's Tahrir Square. He says the film "is less a final reckoning than an exciting bulletin from the front lines of an unfinished revolution."

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