Movies

Arts

'Room' Transforms A Lurid Crime Story Into A Fairy Tale With A Boy Hero

2:47pm October 16, 2015

by David Edelstein

In Lenny Abrahamson's new film, a 5-year-old boy lives with his mother in a prison fashioned by a psychopath. Critic David Edelstein calls Room an amazing and "heart-stopping" survival story.

Queue Listen Now

Arts

'Dope' Director On Geekdom, The N-Word And Confronting Racism With Comedy

2:47pm October 16, 2015

Rick Famuyiwa's film, Dope, is about a black high-school student who's into 90s hip-hop and Japanese comic books. Originally broadcast July 1, 2015.

Queue Listen Now

Ken Taylor helped a group of Americans avoid capture and eventually escape Iran in 1979. The former Canadian ambassador to Iran died Thursday at 81.

Ken Taylor, Canadian Envoy Who Hid Americans During Iran Hostage Crisis, Dies

12:35pm October 16, 2015

by Laura Wagner

Canada's ambassador to Iran in 1979 sheltered a group of Americans in his home in Tehran for three months before helping them escape to safety. The crisis was portrayed in the Oscar-winning film Argo.

Michael Fassbender plays Apple Founder Steve Jobs in a new film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Aaron Sorkin.

Arts

Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Steve Jobs' And More About Moguls

8:37am October 16, 2015

by Linda Holmes

On this week's show: Steve Jobs, Sorkin dialogue, Seth Rogen, Citizen Kane, Empire, rich business guys in suits, and what's making us happy this week.

Queue Listen Now

Watching 'Room' Is Exhausting And Exhilarating

7:04am October 16, 2015

by Kenneth Turan

The movie is based on Emma Donoghue's best-selling book about a woman who's been kidnapped and had to raise her son in captivity. Room is directed by Irish filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson.

Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) seduces Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) in <em>Crimson Peak</em>.

Arts

Del Toro's 'Crimson Peak': A Gothic Romance Inside Richly Creepy Walls

9:40pm October 15, 2015

by Scott Tobias

Guillermo Del Toro loads this genre piece with so much luscious visual language that its story and performers are almost superfluous.

Michael Fassbender plays Steve Jobs in the film, directed by Danny Boyle. "Steve's obsession is where we're going, not where we've been," Boyle says, "and he is maniacally focused on that, and will eviscerate anything that reminds him of the past."

Arts

In 'Steve Jobs,' A Life Told In 3 Acts — And Countless Complexities

7:27pm October 15, 2015

by NPR Staff

The mercurial Apple co-founder helped shape the world and our daily lives. Still, director Danny Boyle says, while "he's made some of the most beautiful things imaginable, he is himself poorly made."

Queue Listen Now

Arts

Action Movies Love That Typing Sound, But Where Does It Come From?

5:06pm October 15, 2015

What's that sound text makes when it appears on screen in action movies? NPR's Audie Cornish speaks with Forrest Wickman of Slate, who investigated where exactly it came from.

Shu Qi in a scene from<em> The Assassin</em>.

Arts

A Most Unusual And Beautiful 'Assassin'

5:03pm October 15, 2015

by Ella Taylor

The latest work from Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien finds a ninth-century woman trained to be an assassin questioning the path that lies ahead.

Jack (Jacob Tremblay) and his Ma (Brie Larson) have been trapped in a windowless room for all of Jack's young life.

Arts

'Room' Finds A Mother And Son In Isolation

5:03pm October 15, 2015

by Andrew Lapin

Emma Donoghue wrote the screenplay for this adaptation of her novel highlighted by a sensitive performance from Brie Larson.