3.5.2013

In December, actress Amy Brenneman travelled to two villages in Peru. There was no running water. No electricity. No cars. No glass in the windows. Her surroundings were primitive and a stark contrast...

America Ferrera identifies herself in a number of different cross-sections of humanity: as a woman, a Latina, a Millennial and an American. She lists them carefully, methodically and defiantly....

At first glance, one might mistake Somaly Mam for a model. Her beauty may be arresting, but her resilience is what draws girls and young women to seek safety and solace by her side at AFESIP (Agir...

A Cambodian woman named Goong Mouey had been abused by her husband and then abandoned by him. She was left impoverished with five young children to take care of and when she couldn’t anymore, she was...

When a 14-year-old Pakistani girl named Malala Yousafzai was attacked by a Taliban gunman on her way home from school last October, it proved to be a...

Ben Kweller’s always been riveting in a certain way, with so many of the songs that he’s allowed to slip out of his fingertips and over his teeth through the years. He’s still impossibly baby-faced...

Dinosaur Jr. have released 10 albums to date, all of which sound like Dinosaur Jr. albums except for one glaring outlier: The group’s 1985 debut, Dinosaur. For those who haven’t heard it, it’s a...

These are not songs for daylight. Don’t misunderstand me: the answer to “Should I be listening to Otis Redding right now?” is always yes. But the tracks on Lonely & Blue are not the Redding songs...

The Cave Singers’ members all started in post-punk and hardcore bands like Pretty Girls Make Graves, Hint Hint and Cobra High, which makes their Pacific Northwest brand of rootsy folk-rock worthy of a...

From the end of Uncle Tupelo to the first round of Son Volt to Jay Farrar’s solo career to the new Son Volt, the band has been taking Americana traditions and playing with them and turning them into...

When the materials and inspiration are composed of first love, first love can prove a tricky foundation to build upon. Swedish duo Sally Shapiro (he, Johan Agebjörn, she, anonymous and adopting the...

Belfast, Northern Ireland is supposed to be a rejuvenated city, as the not-so-distant past of sectarian strife gives way to a brighter future of economic growth, affluence, tourism and hope. Album...

Writer-director Cristian Mungiu’s follow-up to his Palme d’Or-winning film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days once again centers on best friends ensnared in a draconian institution. But whereas his 2007...

Bryan Singer gave us Keyser Söze, began the millennial superhero craze with X-Men, and almost ended it singlehandedly with Superman Returns. With Jack the Giant Slayer, he now dips his toes into the...

Halfway through Shameless’ third season, the show continues to ask hard questions that willingly lack easy answers. Frank—as much the fool as he is the Gallagher family’s mad King Lear—is probably the...

If Season 1 was about staying alive and Season 2 was about adjusting to this new world, Season 3 of The Walking Dead has been about keeping sane in the zombie apocalypse. Rick and The Governor have...

Community‘s seasons have always started slow, but by the fourth episode of each one there have always been some glimmers of brilliance as the writers start getting into their groove. Instead, with...

Lara Croft is having a very bad day. I watch Lara Croft swing back and forth. Someone has caught her and hung her up again, for the third time today. At least this time, she hangs by her wrists...

Writing in the years before online dating’s boom, Alain de Botton opened his debut novel On Love thus: “The longing for a destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life. All too often forced to...

Early in MP3: The Meaning Of A Format, the author Jonathan Sterne describes an important—and surprisingly grisly—experiment in the history of audio...

It’s hard to believe Ben Kweller is only 30 years old, since he began playing in his band Radish back in 1993 and just released his fifth studio album, Go Fly a Kite. And how he manages to channel the...