Places & Travel

Ang Lee's film focuses not on the 1969 music festival itself, but on one of the people whose lives were changed by it: Elliot Teichberg, a closeted gay man who offered up his parents' decrepit motel as a home base for the festival's producers. David Edelstein reviews.

Set in German-occupied France, Quentin Tarantino's World War II revenge fantasia Inglourious Basterds is an ungainly pastiche — that also manages to feel organic. David Edelstein has a review.

Thomas Pynchon's latest novel, Inherent Vice, is a detective romp set at the end of the 1960s psychedelic era. Critic-at-large John Powers has a review.

In 1993, a freighter with 300 terrified, half-starved Chinese immigrants went aground off the shore of Queens, New York. Author Patrick Radden Keefe chronicles the incident in his new book The Snakehead.

Louie Psihoyos' new film graphically — and movingly — documents the sale and slaughter of dolphins captured by Japanese fishermen. David Edelstein says the movie could be a game-changer for the industry.

Director Louie Psihoyos talks about his new documentary film The Cove, an expose of dolphin abuse in Japan. Former Flipper trainer Ric O'Barry joins the conversation.

The Mad Ones is the tale of real-life gangsters Larry, Albert "Kid Blast" and "Crazy" Joe Gallo — a Mafia clan that inspired Bob Dylan's "Joey" and were a major inspiration for The Godfather.

New York Times journalist Roger Cohen gives an eyewitness account of the attacks against demonstrators in the wake of the June election. Cohen stayed in Tehran, even after the Iranian government revoked all foreign press passes.

Iranian-American author and human rights activist Roya Hakakian talks about growing up Jewish in post-revolutionary Iran.

Recently issued in paperback, Joseph O'Neill's novel Netherland emerged to immediate acclaim in 2008, and many critics — including Fresh Air's Maureen Corrigan — placed it on a footing with The Great Gatsby.

Journalist Michael Carey — former editorial page editor and current columnist for the Anchorage Daily News — discusses Alaska's reaction to Sarah Palin's announcement that she will step down as governor of the state.

Colette Burson and Dmitry Lipkin are the writers behind HBO's series Hung, about a hapless schoolteacher — with one substantial asset — who finds an unorthodox way to make ends meet.

When it came out in 1961, Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad perplexed and excited audiences with its surrealistic storytelling. John Powers has a review of the film's Criterion Collection re-release.

Author and activist Roya Hakakian offers her take on political upheaval in her native Iran. Hakakian emigrated from Iran to the United States in 1985, seeking political asylum.

Journalist Christopher Dickey provides a European perspective on the continuing crackdown on protesters in Iran following the recent election.

Bloody protests in the streets of Iran following that nation's June 12 presidential election have captivated the world's attention, but what does it all mean? Political analyst Karim Sadjadpour weighs in on the unprecedented events — and who holds the power.

Allison Silverman, the executive producer and head writer of The Colbert Report, discusses the show's recent broadcasts from the combat zone in Iraq.

Ta-Nehisi Coates' pays tribute to his father in his Memoir.

Wall Street Journal columnist Scott McCartney says summer travel will be cheaper this year. McCartney pens the Journal's weekly column "The Middle Seat."

He's not referred to as a Terminator anymore, but back in 1984, a sci-fi thriller made a star out of a cyborg assassin from the future. Film critic David Edelstein reviews the franchise's fourth film.