Linda Holmes

When Stephen and I talked about Boyhood, one of our side conversations was about our bafflement that it was rated R, and this week, joined by Code Switch's Kat Chow, we dig a little deeper into that question. Are ratings really information for parents, or are they still ...

It's almost unreal how impeccable Lauren Bacall was in her first couple of scenes in her screen debut, To Have and Have Not. Not just beautiful; impeccable. She is slouched in a doorway, asking for a match, held at a distance from the camera. Humphrey Bogart throws her a pack ...

Stephen Thompson and I took a few minutes today to talk about the comedic work of Robin Williams, who passed away Monday (preliminary reports suggest suicide, though the investigation is ongoing) and whose TV comedies, standup specials and movie roles we have watched and loved for many years.

Williams went ...

For NPR's film and TV critic Linda Holmes, a long-time love of Robin Williams began with his stand-up show A Night at the Met. Despite lauded dramatic turns, Williams always displayed humor and charm.

There's a run on turtle puns and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle references this morning as we settle into a reality where a new adaptation of the old franchise took in $65 million in domestic box office this weekend. Although it's nowhere near Guardians Of The Galaxy's opening a week ago ...

We're settling back into our regular schedule post-lots of travel and post-Comic-Con, and we find ourselves in the studio this week with Chris Klimek to talk about the runaway success of Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy. We talk about the movie's shaggy charms, its savvy development, and why it gives ...

The latest indignity seemingly imposed by commerce upon art is the news that the cable movie channel Epix would air, in addition to the original black-and-white version, a color version of Alexander Payne's Nebraska, which was nominated for Best Picture earlier this year and stars Bruce Dern and ...

Have you ever heard a cheerleading squad do one of those call-and-response bits where they say, "Seniors yell it!", and then the seniors yell, "Fight! Fight", and then they say, "Juniors yell it!", and so forth? Top Chef brand extensions are kind of like that: All-Stars yell it! Dessert chefs ...

Medicare spent more than $30 million in 2012 on questionable HIV medication costs, the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in an investigation published Wednesday.

The possible fraud schemes were all paid for by Medicare's prescription drug program known as Part D. Among the ...

Martha Woodroof, author of the upcoming Small Blessings, continues her series about the experience of publishing a first novel. Past posts can be found here.

Perhaps no part of the First Novel Experience is as confusing and overwhelming as figuring out how to balance the demands of social ...

I had an uncle who studied dendrochronology – tree rings, basically. It wasn't until years after he died that it occurred to me how much his perspective on living, and on dying, seemed to have been shaped by years of handling such palpable evidence of time passing. Not the spectacle ...

This week's show is a very special event for us: it's our visit to Comic-Con.

Because Maggie Thompson (mother to PCHH regular Stephen Thompson) was a special guest at San Diego Comic-Con this year, she invited us to do a panel discussion with her. So Stephen, Glen Weldon and I ...

The worst thing about making a post-Avengers Marvel movie is how far ahead of the game you are when you start. Your film will be marketed with brute force, treated as arguably the biggest opening of the summer, reviewed everywhere, and very likely to land among the most commercially successful ...

Perhaps signaling a widening of its offensive in Gaza, Israel called up 16,000 reservists on Thursday. That means Israel has activated 86,000 reservists since the conflict started.

USA Today reports that at the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to destroy tunnels built by Hamas "with our ...

I personally was responsible for emotionally bullying at least two of my critic friends into attending the poolside screening of Sharknado 2 that took place at the hotel where press tour happened a couple of weeks ago. I make this confession because we must establish the basic understanding that I ...

The first time I took one of the online Myers-Briggs inventories and it spit out that I was an introvert, one of my friends questioned the results. Specifically, he said, "Are you sure you weren't holding the test upside-down?"

I wasn't, though. Crowds challenge me, as do bustling ...

After the fact that it's a blatant and ridiculous fraud (in that it almost never gets anybody married), the first thing you might notice about The Bachelor(ette) franchise is its prim, Victorian attitudes about sex. For a show that encourages 14-person dates and the temporary negotiation of a lifestyle that ...

If the Television Critics Association press tour of 2014, wrapping up Tuesday and Wednesday with presentations from PBS, has had a catchphrase, it's "audience measurement."

Critics heard an extended presentation from Nielsen on the very first day of tour about the company's plans to begin measuring viewership on mobile devices ...

The Television Critics Association is a funny animal. Its challenge, as well as its strength, is that it includes people with massively different jobs: longtime print critics (both nationally and locally oriented) who have been coming to the annual press tour for decades, reporters who cover the television industry, cultural ...

There's a widespread belief that critics hate everything, revel in hating everything, and cannot be pleased. It's widespread and wrong, though.

That fact has never been clearer to me than at this year's summer press tour, where — while I certainly can't speak for everyone — it seems like there's ...