‘Stranger Things’ season finale succeeds by leaning into excess
by Eric Deggans One of the toughest things for an established TV show to do is surprise you. →
Five big takeaways from the SAG Awards — and what they might mean for the Oscars
by Linda Holmes The Screen Actors Guild Awards happened on Sunday night — the first of the guilds →
Architect behind Googleplex now says it’s ‘dangerous’ to work at such a posh office
by Bobby Allyn For more than three decades, Clive Wilkinson has been among the most sought-after office designers →
In ‘Hawkeye,’ an also-ran Avenger becomes a mentor — eventually
by Glenn Weldon In the Marvel series Hawkeye, the stakes are low. Comfortably so. Cozily so, even. The planet isn’t in →
Life Luxe Jazz – Back to the Luxe Life 2021
Mark your calendars now for the Life Luxe Jazz Experience 2021 – November 4th through November 8th in the beautiful Los Cabos, Mexico! Visit www.lifeluxejazz.com to book now 😉🇲🇽☀️🌊🎷 →
The Flowers For Olympic Medalists Carry Deep Meaning In Japan
by Merrit Kennedy TOKYO — If you’ve been tuning in to Olympic events, you might have noticed that every medal winner carries a small bouquet of yellow, green and deep-blue flowers tied with a blue bow. But they’re more than just flowers. The elements of the bouquet carry a deeper story, and they are years →
Prime Day Is Here. Watch Out For Fake Reviews
by Savannah Sicurella Amazon’s annual Prime Day sales event has begun with the largest number of discounted items →
Ani DiFranco – 32 Flavors
Check out this week’s video featuring Ani DiFranco performing 32 flavors on McQsJazz.com →
Selena’s Legacy Lives On, In ‘Selena: The Series’ And Beyond
by Stephen Thompson and Maria Garcia Selena Quintanilla was known as the “Queen Of Tejano Music,” a major →
Meet America’s Newest Chess Master, 10-Year-Old Tanitoluwa Adewumi
by Mary Louise Kelly and Karen Zamora Tanitoluwa Adewumi, a 10-year-old in New York, just became the country’s newest national chess master. At the Fairfield County Chess Club Championship tournament in Connecticut on May 1, Adewumi won all four of his matches, bumping his chess rating up to 2223 and making him the 28th youngest →
Fandom Can Be A Lot Like High School — Here’s How To Avoid The Bad Stuff
by Alan Yu The first thing Kristen Lopez remembers being a fan of is Disney, specifically the Pirates of →
‘Jupiter’s Legacy’ Decodes The Superhero Genre Without Subverting It
by Glen Weldon You’d be forgiven for wondering how Netflix’s Jupiter’s Legacy compares to other recent entries in the glut →
A Black Samurai Fighting Giant Mechas? ‘Yasuke’ Asks, Why Not?
by Andrew Limbong At first, it’s not clear who’s fighting whom. All you know is that it’s Kyoto, →
‘The Falcon And The Winter Soldier’ Finale Makes A Poignant Reveal
by Eric Deggans Warning: There are spoilers aplenty here regarding the final episode in the first season of →
C. Tangana: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
by Anamaria Sayre The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music’s Tiny →
The 2021 Oscars Recap
by Linda Holmes, Aisha Harris, Glen Weldon, and Stephen Thompon We are wrapping up this year’s Oscars. It was a big night for Nomadland, which took best picture, best actress for Frances McDormand, and a historic best director win for Chloé Zhao. But there were also huge upsets, most notably in best actor, where Anthony Hopkins →
Cinerama Dome Among ArcLight, Pacific Theaters To Close Due To Pandemic Losses
ArcLight Cinemas and Pacific Theaters said late Monday they are ceasing operations, closing all of their roughly 300 screens mostly found in California. →
Xavier Omär: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
by Bobby Carter Xavier Omär decided to turn his Tiny Desk home concert into a whole Texas affair. Initially, Omär wanted to recreate the look of the Desk: “I wanted to kind of bring the feeling of Tiny Desk back, so I had booked a library,” he said. Ultimately the library didn’t work out, but Rosella →
PHOTOS: Mumbai Falls In Love All Over Again With Its Forgotten Fountains
by Sushmita Pathak In a narrow lane near Mumbai’s docks, commuters on bicycles weave through the crowd as →
Emerald Fennell’s ‘Promising Young Woman’ Doesn’t Let Anyone Off The Hook
by Sam Briger In the dark comedy Promising Young Woman, Cassie (Carey Mulligan) works at a coffee shop by day, →
‘Lovecraft Country’ Creator Aims To Reclaim The Horror Genre For People Of Color
Sam Briger The HBO series Lovecraft Country takes the real horrors of the Black experience in the 1950s and adds to it the supernatural terrors of the horror genre. Series creator Misha Green says she sees the show — and the novel by Matt Ruff upon which it is based — as a chance to reclaim “the →
This Bar Missed Its Patrons. Its Idea To Reach Them Touched Others Around The World
by Kat Lonsdorf Chances are you miss your favorite bar: The chatter, the live music, or the pour →
‘Calls’ Is A Suspenseful Audio Drama With An Effective Visual Boost
by Linda Holmes One way to think about the new Apple TV+ drama series Calls is as a podcast. Specifically, →
For Actor-Activist Sacha Baron Cohen, Being Called A ‘Bouffon’ Is A Good Thing
by Elizabeth Blair British actor and satirist Sacha Baron Cohen is having a very nice year, as his fictional character →
In ‘Night Rooms,’ A Life Is Reviewed Through Memories And Movies
by Gabino Iglesias Gina Nutt’s Night Rooms is a collection of biographical essays in which memories and movies — mostly horror ones — merge to create a narrative that explores identity, body image, fear, revenge, and angst. Jumping between past and present with ease, Nutt slashes to the center of issues like motherhood and depression and ultimately →
‘Soul’ Creators On Passion, Purpose And Realizing You’re ‘Enough’
by Terry Gross The Oscar-nominated movie Soul tackles passion, purpose and the meaning of life — topics that aren’t usually →
Billie Marten – She Dances
Check out this week’s video featuring Billie Marten performing She Dances on McQsJazz.com →
With ‘Fierce Poise,’ Helen Frankenthaler Poured Beauty Onto Canvas
by Susan Stamberg Powerful, no? And gorgeous. Helen Frankenthaler did it in 1973 — 20 years after making a painting that took Jackson Pollock’s abstract expressionism a step further. In 1950 she was wowed by the ropes and squiggles of paint Pollock was wrestling onto unstretched canvas on the floor of his barn. “She realized →
Lara Jean Says Goodbye In ‘To All The Boys: Always And Forever’
by Linda Holmes, Kiana Fitzgerald, and E. Alex Jung In 2018, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before was a →
You Actually Will Be Talking About ‘No One Is Talking About This’
by Heller McAlpin Writing is a calling for Patricia Lockwood, as she made clear in her sacred and →
Video Of The Week – Sza Hit Different x Good Days
Check out this week’s video featuring Sza performing an acoustic version of Hit Different and Good Days. →
The Creation Of The Magnificent Makers
by Madeline K. Sofia and Rebecca Ramirez Theanne Griffith has always loved science and literature. But her career has always focused on the science— specifically, neuroscience. She’s now a researcher at the University of California, Davis. But during her maternity leave, she felt a renewed urgency to embrace that other passion for books and writing. So, →
‘I’m Not A Cover Girl’: Halima Aden On Why She Decided To Leave A Modeling Career
by Ziad Buchh For Halima Aden, the decision to walk away from a career as the world’s first →
Meshell Ndegeocello: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
by Lauren Onkey NPR Music’s Tiny Desk series will celebrate Black History Month by featuring four weeks of Tiny Desk (home) concerts and playlists by Black artists spanning different genres and generations each week. The lineup includes both emerging and established artists who will be performing a Tiny Desk concert for the first time. This →
Trove Of Antique Portraits, Including 1 Of Susan B. Anthony, Found In Attic
by Ryan Benk “Oh my God, I think we found the Goonies treasure.” That’s what David Whitcomb thought →
Director Shaka King’s Journey From ‘Newlyweeds’ To ‘The Black Messiah’
by Andrew Limbong As the current chairman of the Black Panther Party Cubs, Fred Hampton, Jr. was guarded →
Author Digs Into Family’s ‘Smalltime’ Mob Operation, Finds Family Secrets
by Dave Davies Hollywood portrayals of the American Mafia often focus on major cities, but writer Russell Shorto →
Justin Timberlake Hopes ‘Palmer’ Will ‘Open Eyes, And Open Ears, And Open Hearts’
by Scott Simon In the new film Palmer, Justin Timberlake plays Eddie, a former high school football star who comes back to his Louisiana hometown after more than a decade in prison. As he pieces together his new life, Eddie moves in with his grandmother and befriends her young neighbor, a boy named Sam. Sam is funny →
Learning To Love Bird Photography, Thanks To A ‘Competitive Collaboration’
by Gemina Garland-Lewis Photographer and explorer, Gemina Garland-Lewis has always been drawn to nature and wildlife. Garland-Lewis takes →
Polish Thriller ‘Spoor’ Is A Pulpy Murder Story — And A Utopian Fable
by John Powers During the Cold War, the movies we saw from the Eastern bloc were steeped in →
Glimmers Of Hope: A 2021 Poetry Preview, Part 1
by Phillip B. Williams, Ana Bozicevic, Evie Shockley, Ken Chen, and Craig Morgan Teicher It’s been a sobering →
Car Concerts Offer Choirs A Way To Rehearse And Perform
by Nina Kravinsky For members of Luminous Voices, a professional choir ensemble in Alberta, Canada, rehearsing and performing safely during the pandemic has meant getting into their cars, driving to an empty parking lot and singing with each other’s voices broadcast through their car radios. This “car choir” solution is one that college music professor →
Fran Lebowitz’s ‘Pretend It’s A City’ Is The NYC Trip You Can’t Take Right Now
by Terry Gross Iconoclastic humorist Fran Lebowitz used to be known as a writer. Back in the late 1970s and →