John Michael McDonagh's 2011 debut, "The Guard," provided the wonderful Brendan Gleeson with a vehicle for some of his best screen work, playing an Irish West Country cop unencumbered by...

"Wayfaring Stranger" (Simon & Schuster), by James Lee Burke   Author James Lee Burke is a descendant of tough Texas lawmen. In fact, his maternal great-grandfather once tangled...

Jason Mraz, "YES!" (Atlantic Records)   On his fifth studio album, singer-songwriter Jason Mraz returns to familiar lyrical territory, exploring the highs and lows of love in his...

A year after playing Jackie Robinson in "42," Chadwick Boseman was back in biopic spring training.   To become James Brown for the film "Get on Up," Boseman...

"The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan" (Simon & Schuster), by Rick Perlstein   Even Republicans piled on President Richard Nixon as the Watergate...

So let's start with the enticing premise of Luc Besson's "Lucy," starring Scarlett Johansson: Human beings only use 10 percent of their brain capacity. Imagine what it would be like...

Helen Mirren lowers her voice to a whisper and her eyes take on a devious twinkle as she makes a confession: When she has a really good time making a movie, as she did on "The Hundred-Foot...

The "Colbert Bump" is becoming contagious.   Edan Lepucki, whose novel "California" became a best-seller thanks to a plug from Stephen Colbert, has in turn helped...

The occasion which brought about the present volume was the commemoration, in 2012, of the 125th anniversary of the renaming of Gozo’s Rabat to Victoria.   Maybe, as the book amply...

Attention pop stars: If "Weird Al" Yankovic shows up at your concert or has tracked down your personal email address, you're likely his next parody conquest.   Such was the...