Showing results by author "Terry Gross" in All Categories

Film critic John Powers talks with host Terry Gross about the holiday movies coming out and about his favorite films from the last year. (Broadcast Date: December 21, 2001)

Filmmaker Alexander Payne and singer and musician Alvin Youngblood Hart on this edition of Fresh Air. Alexander Payne directed and co-wrote the satirical films Citizen Ruth and Election. His newest film, About Schmidt, is also a social satire. It stars Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates who have both been nominated for Academy Awards for their roles. About Schmidt is loosely based on the novel of the same name by Louis Begley.

Novelist Stephen King on this edition of Fresh Air. In 1999, the prolific and popular horror writer experienced something that could have come out of one of his books: he was struck by a car while walking along a rural road in Maine and nearly killed. Six operations and a long recovery followed. Five weeks after the accident, King started writing again and published the novella, The Plant over the Internet. His latest book is On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

Father James Martin on this edition of Fresh Air. Father Martin is associate editor of America the national Catholic magazine. He's written a new memoir, Searching for God at Ground Zero, about the days following the September 11th attacks when he abandoned his editing duties to go and be with the rescue workers at the site of the ruined World Trade Center.

Writer Joyce Johnson and Laurie Pepper on this edition of Fresh Air. Joyce Johnson talks about her relationship to Beat icon Jack Kerouac and her book, Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, which is now out in paperback. In 1957, Johnson started a relationship with the then little-known writer Kerouac. Nine months later, Kerouac's Beat classic On the Road was published. Johnson will talk about her two-year, tumultuous love affair with Kerouac and how the publication of On the Road changed Kerouac.

Former Fire Commissioner of New York City Thomas von Essen, Grateful Dead's publicist Dennis McNally, and writer Joelle Fraser on this edition of Fresh Air. Thomas von Essen led the NYFD through the September 11th attacks and during rescue and early recovery efforts. During the attacks, the department lost 343 men, many of them von Essen's friends and colleagues. He stepped down as Fire Commissioner on December 31, 2001.

Dr. Elaine Abrams and Dr. Stephen Nicholas are pediatricians who work with babies born with HIV. Dr. Abrams is the Director of the Family Care Center at Harlem Hospital Center, and Dr. Nicholas is the Director of Pediatrics there. They treated the first wave of babies infected with HIV at the height of the epidemic in Harlem in the 1980s. While many of the children have died, some have survived into adolescence.

Writer Max Allan Collins and director Sam Mendes on this edition of Fresh Air. Max Allan Collins' graphic novel Road to Perdition is the basis for the film of the same name. Mickey Spillane said of the novel, "I know mysteries, and I know comics - and Road to Perdition is one great ride!" Collins twice won the Private Eye Writers of America's Shamus award for his Nathaniel Heller historical thrillers, True Detective and Stolen Away.

Actor, director, screenwriter Billy Bob Thornton on this archive edition of Fresh Air. The 1996 film Sling Blade which he wrote, directed and starred in put him on the map and earned him an Academy Award for Best Adapted screenplay. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the 1998 film A Simple Plan. Last year he directed the film All the Pretty Horses.

Pianist and singer Michael Feinstein on this edition of Fresh Air. His repertoire is American popular song. Early in his career he was an assistant to Ira Gershwin. He's also a collector of vintage recordings and musical memorabilia especially that of the 1920s thru the 1940s. In the fall, he plans to release a collection of radio duets by Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, on his new record label Feinery. Recently Rhino records released an anthology of Feinstein's recordings.

Former U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter W. Galbraith and professor of psychiatry and psychology Robert Jay Lifton on this edition of Fesh Air. Peter W. Galbraith is now professor of national-security studies at the National War College in Washington D.C. Since the late 1980s he's been tracking Iraqi war crimes. He has also worked closely with the Kurds - who govern a small territory in Iraq. He'll talk with Terry about what a post-Saddam Iraq might look like.

Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid on this edition of Fresh Air. He has just returned from several weeks in Afghanistan. His book, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, is now out in paperback. He's also the author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. Rashid is a correspondent for The Far Eastern Economic Review and The Daily Telegraph, reporting on Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Todd Gitlin, Mara Verheyden Hillard, and Bob Edgar discuss the peace movement on this edition of Fresh Air. Todd Gitlin was a leader of the peace movement in the 1960s. He is a former president of Students for a Democratic Society, and author of a number of books including The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, and Media Unlimited.

Senator Joseph and Hadassah Lieberman on this edition of Fresh Air. Sen. Lieberman (D-CT) was Al Gore's running mate in the 2000 presidential election. He and his wife have just written a memoir of the campaign, titled An Amazing Adventure: Joe and Hadassah's Personal Notes on the 2000 Campaign. On Monday, the third-term senator announced he would be running as a candidate for president in 2004.

Congresswoman and lawyer Eleanor Holmes Norton on this edition of Fresh Air. In her forty years of public service she's championed for civil rights, helped write the guidelines that are now established in the Sexual Harassment Act, worked for reform in South Africa, and has argued before the Supreme Court. Her titles have included Commissioner on Human rights in New York, the first woman appointed to chair the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and law professor.

Journalists Thomas Ricks and Vernon Loeb on this edition of Fresh Air. They cover the military for The Washington Post. They'll discuss military preparedness for the war with Iraq. They collaborated on the special report "Unrivaled Military Feels Strains of Unending War: For U.S. Forces, a Technological Revolution and a Constant Call to Do More." In it they said, "The more capable the U.S. military has become, the more it has been asked to do, and now strains are beginning to show."

It's the 2002 wrap up on this edition of Fresh Air. Film critic John Powers reviews the year-end movies, book critic Maureen Corrigan offers her list of the best books of 2002, writer John Szwed talks about his new biography of Miles Davis, and jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews some holiday box sets.

Sound archivist Jeff Place and jazz trumpeter Steven Bernstein on this edition of Fresh Air. Jeff Place is the head archivist for the Ralph Rinzler folklife archives and collections of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Place is featured on the upcoming History Channel special Save our History: Save Our Sounds.

A talk about the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness Program on this edition of Fresh Air. The Pentagon's Total Information Awareness Program would allow federal agencies to share information about American citizens and aliens (thru the mining of databases from driver's licenses, bank statements, and telephone records, and more), and other post 9/11 security measures.

Journalists Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele are in the first half and director Todd Haynes and designer Mark Friedberg are on the second half of Fresh Air for today, December 16, 2002. Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporters, have written together since the 1970s for several major newspapers and magazines. Their latest piece covers Native American owned casinos and appears in this month's TIME magazine.