John Powers
John Powers is the pop culture and critic-at-large on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. He previously served for six years as the film critic.
Powers spent the last 25 years as a critic and columnist, first for LA Weekly, then Vogue. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Harper's BAZAAR, The Nation, Gourmet, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.
A former professor at Georgetown University, Powers is the author of Sore Winners, a study of American culture during President George W. Bush's administration. His latest book, WKW: The Cinema of Wong Kar Wai (co-written with Wong Kar Wai), is an April 2016 release by Rizzoli.
He lives in Pasadena, California, with his wife, filmmaker Sandi Tan.
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Authors Dorthe Nors and Sayaka Murata use bracing good humor to subvert readers' expectations about single women in their new novels, Mirror, Shoulder, Signal and Convenience Store Woman.
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A new series on AT&T's Audience Network updates the 1975 film Three Days of the Condor. Critic John Powers says Condor is an entertaining show that lacks the cultural relevance of its forerunner. -
The six-part series centers around members of the Defoe family — high-end lawyers specializing in marital issues whose own private lives are as furtive and messy as the cases they're handling. -
Rachel Kushner's new novel centers on a young mother serving two consecutive life sentences for murdering a man who'd been stalking her. Critic John Powers calls The Mars Room "searingly intelligent."
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Stanley Kubrick's science-fiction epic — which opened to mixed reviews in 1968 — unknowingly foreshadowed the future of effects-driven blockbusters. -
Hollinghurst's new domestic epic leapfrogs across seven decades to examine how the laws of social propriety shape the destinies of a father and son. Critic John Powers says the novel is fascinating.
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Donald Glover's Emmy-winning FX series returns for its second season on Thursday. Critic John Powers says Atlanta is simultaneously"strange and angry and hysterically funny."
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Critic John Powers says Mick Herron's latest novel sucks you in from the opening page, and a Netflix series imported from Germany is both fun and binge-able.
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The new season of the FX anthology series American Crime Story revisits the 1997 murder of the Italian designer. John Powers says the show presents a moving portrait of homophobia in 1990s America.
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Every year, critic John Powers is haunted by the things he wishes he'd reviewed. The themes his 2017 "Ghost List" range in spirit from cosmic surrealism to ripped-from-the-headlines immediacy.
