Movies

Arts

Crackling Heist Thriller 'Widows' Takes On Issues Of Race, Class And Gender

1:28pm November 15, 2018

by Justin Chang

Steve McQueen's new film centers on four women who come together to pull off a $5 million robbery. Critic Justin Chang says as gripping as it is, Widows never feels like mere escapism.

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Arts

Netflix Documentary Revisits Decades-Old Mystery Between Filmmaker And Mentor

8:08am November 15, 2018

by Terry Gross

Sandi Tan was 19 when she wrote and starred in a film directed by her 40-year-old mentor. Then her mentor disappeared with the film footage. Twenty years later, Tan chronicles the mystery in Shirkers.

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Patricia Arquette plays Tilly, a woman who helped two inmates break out of prison, in the based-on-a-true-story drama Escape at Dannemora. Benicio del Toro plays escapee Richard Matt.

The True-Story, Love-Triangle, Prison-Break Drama 'Escape At Dannemora'

5:05am November 15, 2018

by Rachel Martin

Pulled from the headlines, a new Showtime series features sexual liaisons between two inmates and a prison worker (Patricia Arquette) and a comedic actor (Ben Stiller) in the serious director's chair.

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Viola Davis stars as Veronica, a woman who loses her husband and gains a heist gang in Widows.

Arts

A Heist, And A Whole Lot More, As Viola Davis Delivers In 'Widows'

5:00am November 15, 2018

by Linda Holmes

The exciting, engaging, entertaining Widows is the rare fun heist film that also functions as a solid drama, thanks largely to the lead performance from Viola Davis.

Arts

Steven Yeun Won't Say Whether Or Not His 'Burning' Character Is A Psychopath

2:19pm November 14, 2018

by Sam Briger

The Walking Dead actor plays a South Korean playboy who may or may not be murdering his girlfriends in Burning. "To this day, I'm the only one who knows who Ben really is," Yeun says of the character.

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Aretha Franklin, pictured during a television appearance in January 1972, the same month in which the project Amazing Grace was recorded.

Music & Culture

Aretha Franklin Touches The Infinite In The Long-Delayed Film 'Amazing Grace'

6:00am November 14, 2018

by Anastasia Tsioulcas

It's been worth the long, long wait: Amazing Grace, made in January 1972, is an extraordinary document that depicts an artist at her technical, creative and spiritual heights.

A new book examines billionaire filmmaker Howard Hughes and the sexual relationships he had with Hollywood actresses. He's shown above in 1947.

Books
Arts

'Sex, Lies And Stardom': Exploitation In Howard Hughes' Hollywood

7:47pm November 13, 2018

by Terry Gross

Karina Longworth's new book, Seduction, tells the story of 10 women who had sexual relationships with Hughes. "These things have always happened and they were never talked about publicly," she says.

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Marisol (Malena Villa) and Carlos (Lorenzo Ferro) get triggered in El Angel.

Arts

Death Wears A Pleasing Face In The Swoony, Stylized 'El Angel'

5:28pm November 13, 2018

by Bob Mondello

Writer/director Luis Ortega invests the tale of a brutal but beautiful young serial killer who terrorized Argentina in the 1970s with an intoxicating sense of glamour.

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Content moderators are responsible for determining what we see and what we don't on social media.

'The Cleaners' Looks At Who Cleans Up The Internet's Toxic Content

12:05am November 13, 2018

by Ari Shapiro

Filmmakers Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck discuss how their documentary tells the sobering story of the trauma and challenges faced by those who sift through social content.

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Stan Lee, American comic book writer, editor, publisher and former President of Marvel Comics, attends the premiere of Doctor Strange in 2016. Lee died Monday at the age of 95.

Books
Arts

A True Believer Remembers Stan Lee

6:25pm November 12, 2018

by Glen Weldon

Stan Lee — born Stanley Martin Lieber — co-created many beloved Marvel Comics characters, but he became the company's tireless, beloved figurehead. NPR's Glen Weldon offers a remembrance.