Chances are you've seen Australian actress Toni Collette in more roles that you realize. Collette has starred in Muriel's Wedding, The Sixth Sense and Little Miss Sunshine and currently plays several roles on Showtime's United States of Tara.
Wilson Pickett helped define 1960s soul, along with Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding and James Brown. Critic Ed Ward reviews Funky Midnight Mover, a new six-disc compilation of Pickett's recordings, released by Rhino Handmade.
How do Hollywood studios make money? Journalist Edward Jay Epstein goes looking for answers in The Hollywood Economist, explaining the complicated relationship between distributors and studios — and revealing why the humble cup holder may be the greatest technological advancement in the history of Hollywood.
Writer Judith Shulevitz started observing Shabbat because of her own ambivalence about the traditional weekly day of rest. Her own experiences with the ritual -- as well as its larger historical context -- are examined in her new book, The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time.
In addition to newsreels, cartoon and coming attractions, movie studios used to show musical shorts before feature films. Warner Brothers has just released a six-DVD set of these shorts called Big Bands, Jazz and Swing. Classical musical critic Lloyd Schwartz says the new set is wroth checking out.
The Iranian-American journalist was imprisoned in Iran, interrogated, tried and eventually released. But the controversy continues. Saver says she confessed to her crimes in order to get out of jail but asserts she did nothing wrong. Her new book Between Two Worlds is an account of her time in captivity.
Linguist Geoff Nunberg says what makes the pledge important isn't the meaning of the words -- it's the way we've managed to keep the words from meaning much of anything at all.
Hall doesn't often hog the spotlight on his debut album, Into the Light. He doesn't need to; he plays more stuff behind other musicians than some drummers do in a solo. Hall stays busy back there, exhorting and swinging the band, playing contrary rhythms, shifting his patterns and punctuating everybody else's solos.
In 2008, historian Tony Judt was diagnosed with ALS, a progressive motor-neuron disease. For the past several months, Judt has been writing a series of essays for The New York Review of Books, charting life in what he calls a "progressive imprisonment without parole."
Noah Baumbach's movie stars Ben Stiller as a 40-ish unemployed carpenter searching for meaning in his life. After seeing the film, critic David Edelstein wonders if there's a limit "to how self-centered, how small you can make a character before you're punishing the audience."
Directed by Nicholas Ray, the 1956 film Bigger Than Life, stars James Mason as a schoolteacher who experiences wild mod swings and psychotic episodes after becoming addicted to his arthritis medication. Critic John Powers applauds the film, which he says "has a juiciness missing from a period show like Mad Men."
The number of hate groups in the United States continues to rise, says Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Potok discusses how the rhetoric of hate groups has increasingly entered the mainstream in the wake of the nation's changing demographics and the election of President Obama.
The bawdy, crudely animated sitcom South Park is about to celebrate its 200th episode. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone go behind the scenes of some of their favorite episodes and explain how they come up with the weekly parodies.
On her new three-disc album, the singer-songwriter accompanies herself on harp and piano, with occasionally elaborate arrangements incorporating strings and horns. Rock critic Ken Tucker calls Have One on Me an anti-concept album, an extended piece that rewards the work of the listener.
In 1975, Michael Abrasion decided to photograph the blues clubs of Chicago. The pictures Abramson took in Pepper's Hideout, among other venues, have been released in a set called Light on the South Side. Jazz critic Ed Ward takes a listen to Pepper's Jukebox, the CD released along with the photographs.
Superbug, a new book by journalist Maryn McKenna, tracks the spread of MRSA, the drug-resistant staph infection that seems to outwit every antibiotic thrown at it. McKenna explains how the bacteria has changed over the past 30 years -- and how a vaccine may be the only way to stop it.
The star of Noah Baumbach's new film, Greenberg, initially wanted to be a serious actor -- and he's still got a thing for Vietnam War movies. Stiller talks to Terry Gross about how he got from that initial ambition to films like Meet the Parents and Zoolander.
Jane's Fame, Claire Harman's book about the author of Emma and Sense and Sensibility, reveals the gap between her legacy -- modest, indifferent to fame and devoted to her characters -- and her ambition.
A fiery feminist, former political reporter and founder of the National Women's Political Caucus, Carpenter was the person who wrote the 58-word text that newly sworn-in President Lyndon B. Johnson read when he returned to Washington after President Kennedy's assassination. LBJ's onetime executive assistant was also press secretary to Lady Bird Johnson; Fresh Air remembers her with excerpts from a 1987 interview.
Chilton, who died Wednesday from a heart attack, was the lead singer of the '60s teenage band the Box Tops and the '70s power pop group Big Star. He joined Fresh Air for two interview, first in 1991 and again in 2000. Today, we remember the cult musician.
