Fresh Air

Sipress endured years of rejection before finally landing a gig with The New Yorker in '98. "I wasn't about to let all that rejection get in the way," he says. His new memoir is What's So Funny?

Wall Street Journal reporter Erich Schwartzel says that Hollywood film studios increasingly rely upon Chinese audiences to break even — which can result in self-censorship. His new book is Red Carpet.

Film critic Justin Chang reviews The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson.

Also, we'll hear from Meghan O'Rourke who has been reporting on long COVID. She'll talk about how research into long COVID offers insights into other mysterious chronic illnesses.

Benedict Cumberbatch stars in Jane Campion's Western The Power of the Dog as Phil Burbank, a hyper-masculine cattle rancher living on the plains of Montana in the 1920s. We talk about how body odor helped him channel the character, toxic masculinity, and filming on location in breathtaking landscapes of New Zealand. He's nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor...

Historian and former State Department official Michael Kimmage says the war in Ukraine is going "surprisingly badly" for the Kremlin: "It didn't get the politics of Ukraine right. It didn't expect the Ukrainians to fight." We talk about possible scenarios of how this conflict could end, and what that means for Ukraine, Europe and the U.S.

In the HBO Max series Raised By Wolves, humanity is near extinction after a global religious war. Two androids are sent to another planet to raise human children and keep the species alive. We talk with series creator Aaron Guzikowski about how parenthood and faith inspired the show.

Also, John Powers reviews the British thriller series The Tourist (on HBO Max),and film critic Justin Chang reviews The Batman.

Journalist Anne Applebaum has been covering the war in Ukraine for The Atlantic. "I don't think that we will ever again smugly assume that borders in Europe can't be changed by force," she says. We talk about why Putin takes Ukrainian democracy as a personal and political threat — and how Stalin created a famine to destroy the Ukrainian national movement in the 1930s.

Meghan O'Rourke says long COVID and other chronic illnesses put an unwieldy burden on patients, who have to testify to the reality of their own illness. Her new book, The Invisible Kingdom, chronicles her personal struggle to find diagnoses for her own nerve pain, brain fog, extreme fatigue and other symptoms."When you're at the edge of medical knowledge, the lack of evidence is treated as evidence that the problem is you and your mind," O'Rourke says...

Quinta Brunson stars as a rookie second grade teacher in an under-resourced public elementary school in the mockumentary sitcom Abbott Elementary. Brunson says she conceived of the show with her mother — a teacher — in mind.

Kevin Whitehead reviews a new stash of home and live recordings by jazz pianist Lennie Tristano...

Historian David Blight's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography traced Frederick Douglass' path from slavery to abolitionist and inspired HBO's documentary, Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches. "Seeing and hearing Douglass became, through the course of the 19th century, a kind of American wonder of the world," Blight says.

Also, we remember anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer, who died Feb. 21...

Environmental writer Oliver Milman says habitat loss, pesticides and climate change are killing off insects worldwide, which, in turn, threatens humans. We talk about the critical role insects play in pollinating plants we eat, breaking down waste, and forming the base of a food chain for other animals — and what would happen if they disappeared. Milman's book is The Insect Crisis.

Ken Tucker reviews Mitski's new album Laurel Hell.