Film

Filmmaker Lixin Fan's Last Train Home documents the journey 130 million migrant workers make back to their rural villages every Chinese New Year. But the movie is not only about families traveling home -- it's about China's modernization. Critic John Powers says the images in the "epic and intimate" movie are absolutely ravishing."

A couple of years back, the two-time Oscar nominee announced he was giving up acting to become a rapper. David Edelstein reviews Casey Affleck's film I'm Still Here, which tracks Phoenix's transformation -- and says there may be a real madness in Phoenix's method performance.

A new HBO documentary details Wright's experiences writing his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Looming Tower. Wright explains what he learned while interviewing sources for his book -- and talks about the challenge maintaining objectivity while researching modern terrorism.

Anton Corbijn's paranoid thriller stars George Clooney as an anonymous international assassin constantly on the run. Critic David Edelstein says the spare movie "cast a spell" over the audience -- as they entered the mind of a man with no past or future.

The French outlaw Jacques Mesrine, who terrorized France and killed 39 people, is the subject of the thrilling Mesrine: Killer Instinct, which stars Vincent Cassell as Mesrine and Gerard Depardieu as a Parisian crime boss. Critic John Powers applauds Cassell's acting, saying it "ranks with the best of DeNiro or Pacino or, more recently, Daniel Day-Lewis."

The British director speaks with Fresh Air's Dave Davies about his new film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, based on the graphic comic series by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Wright also directed the parody romantic zombie film Shaun of the Dead and the British TV sit-com, Spaced.

Edgar Wright's adaptation of a cult-favorite comic centers on a regular schmo who fights like a superhero when his new girlfriend's Seven Evil Exes come calling. Critic David Edelstein says the movie has a vintage look all its own -- "part comic-book panel and part arcade video-game screen."

The Adam McKay comedy stars Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as mismatched cops who are suddenly thrust from inside the police precinct out onto the streets. And critic David Edelstein says some scenes had him doubled over with laughter.

Will Ferrell plays a cop who prefers pushing paper to chasing criminals in the new comedy from his frequent collaborator Adam McKay. Actor and director join Fresh Air to discuss how they prepared for the buddy-cop film.

In 1963, French filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot decided to make a movie that would reinvent the movies. It was called Inferno, and the unfinished film was an enormous failure. But a new documentary about the disastrous project is anything but -- critic John Powers says Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno is "cinematically thrilling."

Todd Solondz latest deadpan comedy, Life During Wartime, stars Shirley Henderson, Ally Sheedy and Allison Janney as three sisters struggling to find meaning in a bleak world filled with David Lynchian grotesques. Critic David Edelstein says it's the "feel-bad movie of the year.

Actor Steve Carell stars as an amateur taxidermist who enjoys creating elaborate dioramas with his stuffed rodents in the new Jay Roach film, Dinner for Schmucks. The two comedy vets talk improv, pathos and more.

The Academy Award-winning actor details some of his most memorable roles, including his portrayal of Tom Hagen in The Godfather and Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore in Apocalypse Now. He also describes his latest role, a hermit planning a "living funeral," in the upcoming film Get Low.

Authors Philip Furia and Laurie Patterson share the stories behind Hollwood's most beloved songs -- from Casablanca's "As Time Goes By" to the melodies from Mary poopins -- in their book The Songs of Hollywood.

Critic John Powers compares the heroines featured in this summer's two cultural juggernauts -- Twilight and the Millennium Trilogy. And despite being almost diametrically opposed, the characters Lisbeth Salander and Bella Swan have more in common than you may think.

Christopher Nolan's new sci-fi flick stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a man trying to extract and plant information in people's heads while they dream. Critic David Edelstein says the movie is "lumbering and humorous and pretentious, with a drag of a hero."

Marilyn Mmiller was one of the most adored and charismatic Broadway musical stars of the 1920s and '30s. She also had a brief movie career -- before her death in 1936, at the age of 37. Critic Lloyd Schwartz review two of her movies, Sally and Sunny, just released on DVD.

Lisa Cholodenko's film about two teenagers trying to track down their moms' anonymous sperm donor is a "stupendous" situational comedy, says critic David Edelstein, who praises the film for shaking up our way of looking at the mainstream family.

The film The Kids Are All Right stars Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a couple whose two teenage children have decided to track down their moms' anonymous sperm donor, played by Mark Ruffalo. Director Lisa Cholodenko explains how her own experiences inspired the film.

Tilda Swinton stars as a wealthy wife and mother who gets involved with a younger man in Luca Guadagnino's acclaimed new film I Am Love. Fresh Air's critic-at-large John Powers says the movie offers grownup audiences something they've been missing.