Arts & Life

A Wall Street trader (Dane DeHaan) finds himself in sinister ... crutches ... in A Cure For Wellness.

Arts

'A Cure For Wellness' Needs A Dose Of Originality

5:00pm February 16, 2017

by Andrew Lapin

Director Gore Verbinski leans on tried-and-true horror visuals to provide this film, set in a sinister Alpine spa, with its scares. But at 2 1/2 hours, patient fatigue sets in early.

Someone's About to Get Schooled: Charlie Day and Ice Cube in Fist Fight.

Arts

2 High School Teachers Throw Punches And Crude Jokes In 'Fist Fight'

5:00pm February 16, 2017

by Scott Tobias

Charlie Day and Ice Cube lead a great cast, but this comedy, filled with cruel pranks and retrograde notions of masculinity, "leaves a sour aftertaste," says critic Scott Tobias.

Books
Arts

Book Review: '300 Arguments,' Sarah Manguso

4:35pm February 16, 2017

Poetry reviewer Tess Taylor declares Sarah Manguso's new book, 300 Arguments, is poetry, not essays — or is it?

Could this dapper gentleman be Marcel Proust? If it is, as a Canadian professor believes, it would mark the first time the great French author was found in film footage.

Books
Arts

WATCH: Is This Proust? Scholars Say They've Finally Found Author On Film

3:16pm February 16, 2017

by Colin Dwyer

The French novelist Marcel Proust is regularly listed among the greatest writers of the 20th century. But how did the man move? A professor says the answer is on a wedding film over 110 years old.

Mahershala Ali has been nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in Moonlight.

Arts

In 'Moonlight,' Actor Mahershala Ali Found Characters He Recognized

2:45pm February 16, 2017

Ali has earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as Juan, a drug dealer who becomes an unlikely father figure to a boy who is being bullied at school and neglected at home.

Queue Listen Now

Ghachar Ghochar embodies the "fear of falling into economic and moral ruin."

Books
Arts

'Ghachar Ghochar' Presents A Fretful Vision Of Indian Class Anxiety

2:07pm February 16, 2017

by Maureen Corrigan

The narrator of Vivek Shanbhag's new novel once lived a lower-class subsistence in Bangalore. Critic Maureen Corrigan says Ghachar Ghochar embodies the "fear of falling into economic and moral ruin."

Freda DeKnight was Ebony's first food editor and author of a best-selling African-American cookbook in the 1940s. Her recipes presented a vision of black America that was often invisible in mainstream media.

Meet Freda DeKnight, A 'Hidden Figure' And Titan Of African-American Food

12:55pm February 16, 2017

by Donna Battle Pierce

DeKnight was Ebony's first food editor and author of a best-selling African-American cookbook in the '40s. Her recipes presented a vision of black America that was often invisible in mainstream media.

Hasbro has announced that the thimble will no longer be a part of Monopoly. The thimble is very sad, according to an interview we imagined.

Arts

Do Not Pass Go: Interview With The Monopoly Thimble

11:46am February 16, 2017

by Linda Holmes

Monopoly is dumping one of its traditional game pieces: the thimble. We reached the thimble for a completely imaginary conversation about obsolescence.

Books
Arts

Peter S. Beagle Finds Magic In 'Calabria'

7:00am February 16, 2017

by Tasha Robinson

Beagle has spent his career writing about unicorns — and he returns to that enclosed garden with In Calabria, the tale of a grouchy farmer who finds a pregnant unicorn investigating his fields.

Galifianakis' character, Chip Baskets, has moved back home to Bakersfield, Calif., after dropping out of clown school.

Arts

Zach Galifianakis Says 'Baskets' Isn't For Everyone, 'And That Was The Point'

5:22am February 16, 2017

by NPR Staff

The comic plays a clown school dropout who finds work with a rodeo. He describes the show as "a weird mix" of drama and comedy. "It's an acquired taste," he says.