In a striking documentary, Sarah Polley turns the camera on her own family. The director and actor, known for films such as Away from Her and The Sweet Hereafter, was teased growing up about not looking like her actor father. At 27, she discovered that it wasn't a joke.
The NBA will soon crown another team as the best. And another MVP will be named. But commentator Frank Deford says such titles of greatness are fleeting.
Refining our capacity to notice is an act of reverence that we can bring to everywhere and everywhen. It's an invitation, bringing the world's most basic presence into view, opening our horizons and restoring our spirits.
Special effects date back to the dawn of film, but with today's tools moviemakers can put pretty much anything on-screen — which has NPR film critic Bob Mondello thinking about how movie style affects movie substance.
Writer-comedian Mark McKinney could watch Hayao Miyazaki's anime film My Neighbor Totoro a million times. "It still makes me laugh, it still makes me smile," he says.
Mothers know us better — sometimes better than we know ourselves. As any child will tell you, they really do have eyes in the back of their heads. When times are tough, they also have our back.
A director's film memoir of her theatrical family is transformed by surprising discoveries about her parents' past — and her own heritage. Sarah Polley's film becomes a superb meditation on how we dramatize memory. (Recommended)
When Rebecca Posamentier was pregnant with her first child, she visited StoryCorps with her mother, Carol Kirsch. The soon-to-be mother tried to glean all she could about parenting from her own mother, before it was too late.