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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Edgardo Mortara was just 6 years old when Italian authorities took him away from his family in 1858. Kidnapped is a true story steeped in Roman Catholic antisemitism. -
Corman, who died May 9, made hundreds of films, including the cult classics House of Usher and A Bucket of Blood. We listen back to a 1990 interview, plus critic John Powers offers an appreciation.
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A London barrister in Henry VIII's England finds himself investigating a murder in a monastery. Hulu's new four-part series, based on C.J. Sansom's 2003 novel, feels strikingly contemporary. -
A new HBO series based on Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel takes a surreal look at the Vietnam war, the costs of colonialism and the disillusionments of revolution and immigration.
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McGregor plays a Russian count put under house arrest after the revolution in a new Paramount+ series based on Amor Towles' 2016 novel. Critic John Powers calls it a light series about dark things.
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A new Romanian film about an underpaid production assistant driving from gig to gig crackles with brains, obscenity, political anger and jokes that will have you laughing out loud. -
Hot sex, drug abuse, revenge killing and a powerful heroine (played by Kristen Stewart) — Love Lies Bleeding is a deliriously enjoyable crime film that does not hold back.
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Philip Gefter's Cocktails with George and Martha traces the evolution of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? — from Broadway sensation, to Oscar-winning film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. -
Shot entirely in Tokyo, this elegant fable is Wim Wenders' best fiction feature in decades. Although it flirts with glibness, Perfect Days asks questions about how to find joy in imperfect situations. -
Fanon, who died in 1961, wrote about the politics and psychology of colonialism. In The Rebel's Clinic, Adam Shatz captures the thorny brilliance of a man whose radicalism is still shaping our world.
