Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the Waco Brothers' album Waco Express: Live and Kickin' at Schubas Tavern. It's the seventh album from the Chicago cowpunk outfit, but only its first live disc.
Film critic John Powers reviews Lust, Caution, the new film by Taiwanese director Ang Lee. Set in 1942, during the Japanese occupation of China, the film tells the story of a resistance fighter who has an affair with a Chinese collaborator.
The band R.E.M. has released its first album in four years, Accelerate. Critics have been describing the disc as a "comeback," saying it's the band's best album in ages. Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills join Terry Gross for a conversation.
Two new novels feature highly educated main characters who discover that too much knowledge is a dangerous thing. Maureen Corrigan reviews The Philosopher's Apprentice, by James Morrow, and The Soul Thief, by Charles Baxter.
As chief of high-value targeting for the Pentagon, Marc Garlasco helped plan the targets of laser-guided bombs during the invasion of Iraq. Now a senior analyst with Human Rights Watch, Garlasco visits war zones where he assesses the damage being done to civilians by bombs and lobbies for greater deliberation in the use of air power.
Julie Andrews has spent her life in the public eye, but she's never had much to say about her life before stardom — until now. The Sound of Music star joins Terry Gross to discuss her new memoir.
Academy Award-winning actor Charlton Heston died Saturday at the age of 84. Heston, who starred in epic films such as Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments, later made a name for himself as a conservative activist.
Fresh Air's film critic says the new Rolling Stones concert film doesn't quite penetrate the band's m--teries — but that the director is a master of style, and the band is tighter than ever.
Analysts wondered if Barack Obama's speech on race in Philadelphia last month was the beginning of a "national conversation" on the subject. Meanwhile, Fresh Air's contributing linguist Geoff Nunberg is wondering what, exactly, a "national conversation" is — and when we started talking about them.
Perplexed by the U.S. economy? You're not alone. Law professor Michael Greenberger joins Fresh Air to explain the sub-prime mortgage crisis, credit defaults, the shaky future of other types of loans and what we can expect from the U.S. financial markets.
Jules Dassin, an American filmmaker who worked in Europe for nearly 30 years, died this week in Athens, Greece. He left the U.S. in the early 1950s, blacklisted for his youthful membership in the Communist Party.
In 2005, The New York Times revealed that the National Security Agency had performed wiretaps and other surveillance without court orders. It was a story the Bush administration hoped to keep under wraps, says reporter Eric Lichtblau. Lichtblau's new book is Bush's Law.
Author Steve Coll details the complicated family history of Osama bin Laden, one of 54 children born to Mohamed bin Laden. The elder bin Laden transformed himself from an illiterate bricklayer into an immensely wealthy and powerful businessman.
The Rev. James H. Cone founded black liberation theology, which has roots in 1960s civil-rights activism. In an interview with Terry Gross, he explains the movement — and comments on controversial sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's longtime minister and a black liberation theology proponent.
Theologian Dwight Hopkins provides a historical perspective on black liberation theology. Hopkins is an ordained Baptist minister and a professor of theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth, a new collection of short stories that chronicles the cultural alienation that exists between Indian-born parents and their American-born children.
In the upcoming issue of the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh writes that the United States may be closer to armed conflict with Iran than previously imagined.
Fresh Air film critic David Edelstein reviews Stop Loss, a film about a decorated Army sergeant (Ryan Phillippe) who resists an order to serve another tour of duty in Iraq on the grounds that he has already fulfiled his contract with the military.
Director Arthur Penn changed the face of cinema with his film, Bonnie and Clyde. The graphic realism of the last scenes have influenced television and movies since the film's release in 1967.
Actress Zooey Deschanel has made a move from the big screen to the indie-rock stage, recently co-founding the group She and Him. Deschanel joins Fresh Air to discuss her music and her band's new album, Volume One.
