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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The 1985 novel has been described as "unfilmable." Baumbach wasn't deterred — and though the movie brims with terrific moments, his White Noise doesn't hold together as well as Don DeLillo's. -
Bill Nighy plays a bottled-up bureaucrat on a quest for meaning in Kazuo Ishiguro's adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's 1952 film Ikiru. The first film felt inventive and urgent — Living doesn't live up. -
Every year, John Powers looks back on the great features he never got around to talking about. This year's list includes White Lotus, The Menu, Nanny and Dark Winds — plus one vodka commercial.
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Butler's 1979 book, Kindred, is now a series for FX on Hulu. In 1993, the pioneering author, who died in 2006, told Fresh Air she made up her own stories so that she could see herself in them.
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Jerzy Skolimowski's thrillingly imaginative new film, EO, follows a former circus donkey on a journey across modern Europe. It's a strange, haunting epic that couldn't feel more of our moment. -
Argentina, 1985 is a true-life portrait of a country struggling to reckon with its past. Decision to Leave is a thrillingly well-made murder story that crackles with originality.
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A writer dies under suspicious circumstances, leaving the last chapter of his new mystery novel incomplete. PBS' new MASTERPIECE Mystery! series is based on the bestselling novel by Anthony Horowitz. -
The epic action-picture bromance makes the case for returning to theaters — it reminds us that movies are always more thrilling when they're part of a collective experience. -
Ramy Youssef's comic-drama about Muslim life in America aims higher than almost anything else on TV. In its new season, Ramy grows increasingly unlikable and his family appears to be falling apart. -
There's nothing mythic about this series, which acts as a sequel to Paul Schrader's hit 1980 movie. This American Gigolo relies too much on people caring about a film that was made four decades ago.
