Bella Ramsey in Season 2 of The Last of Us. Liane Hentscher/HBO hide caption toggle caption Liane Hentscher/HBO HBO’s hit zombie drama The Last of Us offers what might be TV’s ultimate found family: A rugged, former soldier bonding with an angry, rebellious girl while traveling across a post-apocalyptic wasteland. During the show’s first season,…
Read More “Lies and consequences hang over the zombie drama : NPR” »
DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I’m TV critic David Bianculli. “Hacks,” the very funny TV series about an older Vegas-style stand-up comic and the generational differences between her and her younger comedy writer, returned to HBO Max last night for its fourth season. Today, we feature our interviews with Jean Smart, who stars…
Rashida Jones in “Common People,” a new episode of Black Mirror. Netflix hide caption toggle caption Netflix The very first episode of Black Mirror, which debuted in 2011, is not about complex technology. Called “The National Anthem,” it’s about 24-hour news saturation and the public opinion swings enabled by social media. Almost 15 years later,…
Read More “What to expect from the episodes – and what works : NPR” »
D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai plays a Navy SEAL in Ramadi, Iraq, in Warfare. A24 hide caption toggle caption A24 In his 2024 action-drama, Civil War, the British director Alex Garland imagined a dystopian America torn apart by violence. For all its echoes of the present day, I found the movie politically neutral to the point of vagueness,…
A stock ticker shows trading at a securities firm in Beijing April 9. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images AsiaPac hide caption toggle caption Kevin Frayer/Getty Images AsiaPac President Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs have upended the global economy, sending stock markets into turmoil. “This is, without a doubt, the biggest trade policy shock, I think, in history,”…
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Members of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective in 1970. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images We Want the Funk!, an expansive, emotive, celebratory documentary looking at one of history’s most important musical genres, begins simply. Legendary studio musician Marcus Miller picks up his bass guitar and thumps out a funky, percussive…
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A long-married woman with terminal cancer leaves her husband and embarks on a quest for sexual satisfaction in a miniseries that’s so real and so raw it’s likely to make you both laugh and cry. TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. “Dying For Sex” is a new FX on Hulu production, with all eight…
Read More “Michelle Williams is brilliantly comic — and tragic — in Hulu’s ‘Dying for Sex’ : NPR” »
Monday It’s spring! Morning temps will hover around twenty-four degrees Fahrenheit with a windchill of negative ten. Expect two bursts of monsoon-like rain, the first when you’re walking to the subway and the second when you’re coming home. Around 2 P.M., it should be nice, though—so long as you stick to the sunny side of…
Jean Van Leeuwen wrote 20 Oliver and Amanda Pig books, and many other titles aimed at young audiences. Ann Schweninger/Penguin Random House hide caption toggle caption Ann Schweninger/Penguin Random House Children’s book author Jean Van Leeuwen has died. The award-winning writer was best known for her sprightly tales starring such anthropomorphic characters as sibling pigs…
Read More “‘Oliver and Amanda Pig’ series children’s book author Jean Van Leeuwen dies : NPR” »
AILSA CHANG, HOST: Almost everyone has a favorite movie, right? But the movie you may have loved when you were 12 might not be the same movie you loved when you were 17 and then 49, for example. Films that capture us can change over time, just as we change over time. And I wanted…
