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John Powers

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04:55

Changing The 'Game,' But Not For The Better

Back when Theodore White did his groundbreaking book The Making of the President 1960, it was easy to write about elections. Most Americans didn't know very much about how campaigns actually worked. These days, we're all experts on push-polling, NASCAR dads, and those oddball Iowa caucuses. For an election book to register now, it must offer something new, something hot. It has to dish.

Review
05:22

'Burn Notice': A Refreshingly Retro Spy Caper

You often hear the '50s called the Golden Age of Television. If so, we're deep into the Platinum Age. There have never been more sophisticated shows, from ambitious dramas such as Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Big Love to delirious conceptual series such as 24, Lost and Flash-Forward.

Review
05:43

Giving DVDs That Take You To A New World.

Critic John Powers has a theory: The best movies to give are seldom the recent hits. Instead, a good gift DVD should transport you into a different world that you can immerse yourself in over and over. Check out his favorites for this holiday season.

Review
06:06

Judy Davis, Inspiring 'Brilliant Career's 30 Years Later.

The Oscar-nominated 1979 film My Brilliant Career stars Judy Davis, as a young woman growing up in rural Australia at the end of the 19th century. Film critic John Powers gives Davis credit for creating the template for the Australian screen actress: bravery, incandescence, and occasional cussedness.

Review
05:56

Sam Fuller, Embodying The Best Of Pulp Fiction

Martin Scorcese said of Sam Fuller's work, "If you don't like the films of Sam Fuller, then you just don't like cinema." The maverick screenwriter and director died in 1997, but a new 7-disc selection of his work embodies what's most enjoyable and enduring about pulp fiction.

Review
06:18

Capitalism's Paradoxes, Writ Personal On Film

Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story made a splash, but critic John Powers says its critique of capitalism is "the kind of scattershot tirade I used to hear in my college dorm." Better object lessons: New documentaries, Schmatta and American Casino, that do far more to explain how grand economic forces shape our daily lives.

Review
05:26

A Brave New (Non-Private) World

Critic-at-large John Powers discusses two new works — one a documentary, another a novel, that blur the lines between public and private lives.

Review
05:57

On Hollywood's Strong, Self-Hating Women

Two summer movies — The Proposal and The Ugly Truth — perpetuate misogynist stereotypes of rabid career women in need of a man. What does it mean that they were created by women?

Review

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