Ziwe has always loved asking people questions. Maybe a little too much.

"That was something I was penalized for in school — like, I was annoying," says the comedian in a video chat. "But now it serves a purpose."

The 29-year-old New Yorker is known for her frank, funny conversations about sensitive issues, especially race. It all began with ...Read more

For more than a year, I've kept a folder on my desk that was stuffed full of scribbled notes for the story I was working on when the pandemic hit. Every journalist, it seems, has a version of this folder — ideas rendered moot by the arrival of our global calamity.

The story, about the architecture of libraries, was also a story about how ...Read more

When sun-baked rock star Jimmy Buffett announced his first live performances in more than a year would take place next week on Delray Beach’s Old School Square, the Jimmy-sphere went coconuts.

The full allotment of 3,552 seats for his four outdoor concerts on May 13-14, 17-18, sold in four-person pods that started at $450 each, were gone in ...Read more

One could be tempted to think that "Black Feminist Video Game" is taking some liberties with the interactive medium, especially once the game within the livestream play begins and the lead character of this Center Theatre Group presentation engages in a real-time conversation. The screen shifts from a computerized image to that of a real-life ...Read more

LOS ANGELES – In late 2017, ICM Partners CEO Chris Silbermann announced an audacious pledge: achieve gender parity in leadership positions and on the board by 2020.

It was part of a larger industry-wide effort called "50/50 by 2020," championed by prominent ICM client Shonda Rhimes and others in the wake of Hollywood's reckoning over sexual ...Read more

Written by Scott Z. Burns and directed by Steven Soderbergh, 2011′s “Contagion” hit No. 10 on the iTunes movie rental chart a year ago in January. In those early moths of the pandemic, audiences were suddenly seeking out a nearly decade-old thriller depicting a fictional pandemic bearing a resemblance the COVID-19 outbreak of the past year...Read more

It may be the most famous broadside launched by a government official in American history:

Sixty years ago this Sunday, Newton N. Minow invited the television executives gathered in Washington for his first official speech as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission to spend a day watching their own broadcasts.

"Keep your eyes glued ...Read more

Sure, being a sex worker on 42nd St. during the 1970s was tough — but so is life as a modern-day actress.

Emily Meade, who starred as doomed prostitute Lori Madison on HBO’s “The Deuce,” says she hasn’t been able to land a gig since the drama series ended two years ago.

The 32-year-old actress posted a photo of herself on Instagram ...Read more

Guy Ritchie’s “Wrath of Man” has a proper opening credits sequence, with classical illustrations of angels, lions and other dramatic Biblical scenes juxtaposed over slow-motion images of anguished men, bass strings groaning relentlessly. It’s time for some heavy-duty masculine myth-making melodrama, a fable of men, guns, tragedy and ...Read more

The catchy, syrupy-sweet tunes from the female pop stars of the late '90s and early '00s were once described by some as a major step toward female empowerment: Britney Spears showing the world how a young woman could own her sexuality, or the Spice Girls championing the power of female friendship.

But in retrospect, these acts' shiny surfaces ...Read more

Middle age hasn't been kind to the members of the girl band Girls5Eva. Wickie, the diva of the one-hit-wonder group, is paying the bills by shooting geese at an airport. Summer misses her celebrity husband so much that she purchases a Cameo greeting from him. Gloria's current claim to fame is that she's one-half of New York's first gay divorce. ...Read more

You have questions. I have some answers.

Q: What happened to the young actress who played Lightning on the TV show “Black Lightning”? She was replaced with someone who doesn’t even resemble her.

A: The superhero series has indeed changed actresses playing Jennifer Pierce aka Lightning, from original cast member China Anne McClain to ...Read more

My husband and I went to the movies last weekend. I can’t remember the last time we did that.

Pre-pandemic, this was something people would often say either as an expression of delight over a proposed plan — “Yes, let’s; I can’t remember the last time we went to the movies” — or, sometimes for couples, as an accusation: “What ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS – While their hero Van Morrison decried "pseudo-science" and released anti-lockdown songs during the pandemic, his Twin Cities devotees the Belfast Cowboys followed safety guidelines and still raised around $100,000 off livestream gigs for needy neighbors.

That contrast is underlined by the fact that both the Cowboys and Van the ...Read more

Early in “The Disciple,” a brilliantly composed, rigorously intelligent new movie from the Indian writer-director Chaitanya Tamhane, a young man named Sharad (Aditya Modak) sits at a table offering rare musical treasures for sale. No one takes much interest or notice. Sifting idly through the CDs on display, a potential customer says he’s ...Read more

CHICAGO – Eileen Favorite has heard the word “problematic” more than any person should have to hear any word repeated, again and again. She has heard it applied to the obvious and to the unexpected. She has heard people say “problematic” so often that when she says it herself, the word doesn’t come as casually as it does for her ...Read more

Time ran out on “MacGyver” last week. We’ll bid farewell to “Mom” next week, and “NCIS: New Orleans” soon after that. “Shameless” is done and “Superstore” has closed.

Yes, it’s that bittersweet time of year when we’re forced to part ways with some of our favorite TV shows. In the coming weeks, many series will air ...Read more

What's the best kind of movie mom?

Good or evil, I like one we sense exists outside the margins of the movie. That's true of any character. They're most interesting when they're so complicated that the movie can't capture all of their dimensions, and we get only tantalizing glimpses. I'm thinking of Margaret Marmee March in "Little Women," who ...Read more