“You and I can get started and Jay will join us,” Mark Duplass told The Observer, so we began the interview. “You’ll realize we share the same brain anyway.”
The Louisiana-born Messrs. Duplass, who now live in Los Angeles, direct films together; they are perhaps the most prominent Americans who fit that description since Joel Read More
Reading for My Life: Writings, 1958-2008 by John Leonard (March 15, Viking Adult)
John Leonard was the critic’s critic, and anyone who has ever penned a book review has in some way, whether conscious or unconscious, felt his influence. This book collects Mr. Leonard’s prolific career. In his 40 years as a critic, he contributed Read More
The day after the prerelease book party for A Sense of Direction (May 10, Riverhead Hardcover), the writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus’s memoir about pilgrimage, writing and relationships—particularly the one with his gay rabbi father—a sizable sample of young people who work in media and publishing were lying in bed, trying not to throw up. Most emails exchanged that morning began with “Ugh.” One said, “I feel like death.” Read More
The Hunger Games (Gary Ross) March 23
Your children have been refreshing Fandango daily to see if tickets are available yet for the movie based on Suzanne Collins’ kiddie novels—think of them as Twilight, except with actual murder instead of benign vampirism. Games promises a chaste love triangle and lots of angst for the tween Read More
National Council Grand Finals Concert (Metropolitan Opera, March 18)
The National Council Auditions are classical music’s best reality show—not least because the judges have real power, the contestants have real talent, and the winners get a real prize. And not just some cash and a Pepsi commercial—we’re talking about getting discovered and fostered by the Read More
Newsies (Nederlander Theatre, March 29)
The next crop of child actors on par with the Billy Elliott kiddos or whoever’s riding the War Horse may be the early-edition-toting stars manqué of the season’s first movie adaptation. (They’ll be helped along by a Harvey Fierstein book and the direction of Jeff Calhoun, fresh off Bonnie and Read More
