John Powers
John Powers is the pop culture and critic-at-large on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. He previously served for six years as the film critic.
Powers spent the last 25 years as a critic and columnist, first for LA Weekly, then Vogue. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Harper's BAZAAR, The Nation, Gourmet, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.
A former professor at Georgetown University, Powers is the author of Sore Winners, a study of American culture during President George W. Bush's administration. His latest book, WKW: The Cinema of Wong Kar Wai (co-written with Wong Kar Wai), is an April 2016 release by Rizzoli.
He lives in Pasadena, California, with his wife, filmmaker Sandi Tan.
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An Edinburgh police detective and a team of misfits search for a woman who vanished several years earlier. Critic John Powers says the byplay of characters makes Dept. Q worth watching. -
Laura Piani's amiable new romance is weighed down by all its allusions and borrowings — and ultimately fails to deliver on Austen's wit. -
The two hour, 49 minute conclusion to the seven-sequel franchise is self-congratulatory and inanely plotted. But, as always, it's fun to watch Tom Cruise, now 62, execute eye-popping stunts. -
Matthew Specktor grew up the son of a famous Hollywood agent. In The Golden Hour he serves up family saga, cultural criticism, fictionalized biography, history and lament for a vanishing world. -
Wealth comes lined with rage and melancholy in a new Apple TV+ series about a hedge-fund hotshot who loses his job and begins to steal from his suburban friends. -
Set in a Philadelphia neighborhood that's been ravaged by opioids, Amanda Seyfried stars in this heartfelt Peacock series that centers wounded communities and families. -
When the flood waters rise, a band of animals takes shelter on a boat, where they have to work together to survive. Flow is a radiant fantasy, where solidarity, not selfishness, can save the day. -
Live Fast won France's top literary prize in 2022. Brigitte Giraud's haunting book revisits the death of her husband in a motorcycle crash 20-odd years earlier. -
Though less effervescent than past, The White Lotus Season 3 serves up plenty of financial secrets, dark family histories and kinky hijinks as it shoves its characters out of their comfort zone. -
A Brazilian family is rocked when the father disappears following a military coup. I'm Still Here tells the heroic true story of a wife and mother who steers her family through the rapids of tyranny. -
Nicole Kidman plays a high-flying, married businesswoman who begins an affair with an intern half her age. It's a lead performance more daring than the film itself. -
John Powers celebrates the books, shows and performances that stayed with him, including Miranda July's novel All Fours, Interior Chinatown on Netflix and an iconic Olympic moment with Simone Biles.
