Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx are the songwriting team behind the 2004 Tony award-winning Broadway musical Avenue Q (which won Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Book of a Musical). Their subversive show features people and puppets and is about a group of aimless 30-somethings with low expectations and active libidos. It includes such songs as It Sucks to be Me, Everyone's a Little Bit Racist, If You Were Gay, and I Wish I could Go Back to College.
Film critic David Edelstein reviews The Manchurian Candidate, starring Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep and Liev Schreiber. Jonathan Demme directed the remake of the 1962 classic thriller.
Jackson is the director of Annenberg Political Fact Check, a project that aims to reduce deception and confusion in U.S. politics. Jackson will talk about present-day political ads. Jackson reported on Washington and national politics for The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal and CNN. He is the author of Honest Graft: Big Money and the American Political Process.
The new online exhibition at The American Museum of the Moving Image is called "The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2004". Schwartz is the chief curator of film at the museum. He'll talk about the history of political commercials from their inception in 1952 to the present.
The Fresh Air critic has written a new book, Sore Winners (And The Rest of Us) in George Bush's America. Powers is critic-at-large for Fresh Air, and deputy editor for L.A. Weekly, where he writes a media/culture column called On. He's also an international correspondent for Gourmet magazine.
His new book is Picture This: Debby Harry and Blondie. Rock photographed many musicians before they were famous. The British-born photographer took pictures of Lou Reed, Brian Eno and Ziggy Stardust (aka David Bowie) when he was just a cult figure in London. His book Blood and Glitter is about the Glam Rock era.
Time magazine calls Gehry the world's most famous architect. Gehry just designed an outdoor music pavilion for Chicago's new Millennium Park, a former rail yard that's been transformed into a destination for the arts. He designed the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.
The Democratic senator from West Virginia has served in Congress for 51 years, 45 of them as a senator. Byrd is ranking minority member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and has twice been president pro tempore of the Senate. He is also a former majority leader. Byrd is author of a new book called Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency. Byrd is a vocal opponent of the Iraq war and has criticized the most of the Bush Administration's post-Sept. 11 policies. He is also author of a four-volume history of the Senate.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews recently released DVDs of Judy Garland musicals. Meet Me in St. Louis, Ziegfeld Girl and In The Good Old Summertime are among the titles.
Listeners may know him as the neighbor on CBS's The King of Queens. He is also a regular on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Oswalt has had the distinction of being booed off the stage by both liberal and conservative audiences. His debut comedy CD is Feelin' Kinda Patton.
He died July 21 at the age of 75. Since the 1950s he had composed scores for film and TV. He won an Academy Award in 1976 for his music for The Omen. His film scores include: Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Sand Pebbles, Chinatown, and A Patch of Blue. His TV credits include The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Dr. Kildare, The Waltons, and Barnaby Jones. The CD collection of his music is The Film Music of Jerry Goldsmith (Rebroadcast from Jan. 7, 2002.)
The jazz tenor sax player died July 22 at the age of 81 in Queens, N.Y. A seminal figure in R&B, Jacquet played with some of the great big bands, including ones led by Lionel Hampton, Cab Calloway, and Count Basie. (Rebroadcast From Oct. 13, 1988).
Film critic David Edelstein reviews the new Matt Damon movie The Bourne Supremacy. It's a sequel to the 2002 hit The Bourne Identity, shot in a fast-paced style that heightens the tension of the storyline.
Critic at large John Powers considers the latest programming from the cable network. HBO has become a perennial Emmy winner for shows such as The Sopranos. New offerings this season include Entourage, about a rising Hollywood actor and his childhood friends.
The son of the late President Ronald Reagan has been invited to speak at the Democratic convention next week. He and his mother have become outspoken proponents of stem cell research. Reagan has edited the book, If You Had Five Minutes with the President.
His new book, I, Fatty tells the story of vaudeville and early film actor Fatty Arbuckle. In the early 1900s, he was more popular than Charlie Chaplin and became the first screen actor to make $1 million a year. But in 1921, Arbuckle was accused of the rape and murder of a young actress. Many have called the crime, Arbuckle's presumed guilt, the subsequent trial, and his eventual acquittal Hollywood's first celebrity scandal. Stahl is also the author of the best selling memoir Permanent Midnight, which was adapted into a film by the same name.
His new book is America the Vulnerable: How our Government is Failing to Protect us From Terrorism. Flynn is a senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, and served in the White House Military Office during the senior Bush administration. He also was director for global issues on the National Security Council staff during the Clinton administration.
Los Angeles Times journalist Greg Miller and military interrogation supervisor Chris Mackey talk about The Interrogators. The book provides an inside look at methods used to extract information from prisoners in Afghanistan.
