David Bianculli

Our film critic, Justin Chang, has this review of Begonia.

Justin Chang is a film critic at The New Yorker.

On Monday's show, Richard Linklater, who made the films Slacker, Dazed and Confused, The Before Trilogy, and Boyhood, talks about his two new films.

Blue Moon is about lyricist Lorenz Hart, Nouvelle Vogue is an homage to director Jean-Luc Godard, and the making of his 1960 revolutionary French new wave film, Breathless.

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For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.

Wow.

The Diplomat is one of those rare TV series that manages to get even better every season.

Season one, introducing and establishing Kerry Russell as diplomat Kate Wyler, was really strong and impressively intelligent.

It had to be, if it was to work.

Any one of the characters who populate the diplomat, the politicians, the support staff and advisors, even the spouses and significant others, would, in most environments, be the smartest person in the room.

Except, as with the classic NBC series The West Wing, they're all in the same room.

This means the arguments had to be equally strong on both sides, and the jokes and snide comments had to crackle and pop.

Check and double-check.

Kate's push-and-pull relationship with her husband Hal, played by Rufus Sewell, was the highlight of season one.

Season two upped the ante by reaching deeper into the West Wing bag of tricks and hiring Allison Janney, who played C.J.