Film

Twitchy undertaker, cubicle fiend, sassy convenience-store clerk — Rainn Wilson has long gravitated toward eccentric characters. But is The Office actor attempting the leap to sex symbol through his titular role in The Rocker? Given the hair-metal coif and the still-goofy humor, probably not.

With a tightly woven narrative, James Marsh's superb documentary studies Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between the Twin Towers. Critic David Edelstein says the film is often awe-inducing.

The team behind the car-racing comedy Talladega Nights is taking another lap. Director Adam McKay and actors Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly talk about their new film, Step Brothers, and the laughs they had making it.

The Dark Knight is the most successful film of the summer. Director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale can take much of the credit: They've revived a flagging franchise, offering a fresher, darker look at a legend.

The documentary Gonzo remembers the strange and wild life of writer Hunter S. Thompson. Critic John Powers reviews the film.

Batman should be dark, reviewer David Edelstein says, but Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight is a sadistic film with "no wit, visual or otherwise."

Fresh Air's film critic reviews Jonathan Levine's film — a comedy, starring Ben Kingsley and Josh Peck, about a drug dealer, his shrink and the difficulty they both have growing up.

The man behind Nemo and Wall-E has warmed hearts with his unlikely heroes — a clownfish? A sentient trash compactor? He tells Terry Gross about finding inspiration in unlikely places, and in everyday objects.

Artist Don Bachardy was a teenager when he met then middle-aged novelist Christopher Isherwood on a California beach. But the two had a romance that lasted until Isherwood's death in 1986. Their relationship is the subject of the documentary Chris and Don: A Love Story.

It's taken actor Jason Bateman a while to achieve real big-screen presence, but now the former child actor seems to be inescapable. In the past year, Bateman has appeared in Juno, The Kingdom, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Now, he's co-starring alongside Will Smith in the movie Hancock, which opens tomorrow. In Hancock, Bateman plays a PR executive who is rescued by a cocky superhero who leaves destruction in his wake.

Pixar has always focused on loss, decay, and the dark side of materialism. Here that theme extends to the ruination of the planet — and Wall-E ranks among the most sublime feature-length works of animation ever made in this country.

With the end of the writer's strike, live programming returned to network television this weekend in a big way. TV critic David Bianculli reviews last night's 80th Annual Academy Awards telecast, as well as the weekend's new episode of Saturday Night Live, starring Tina Fey.

The '60s sitcom was often a one-joke affair; the film's starry-eyed geek has room for nuance. You can make a case for both Maxes, but critic David Edelstein misses the tube's lovable boob. Anne Hathaway's Agent 99, now ... that's another matter.

Taking a break from the family-friendly Shrek series, the comic actor stars in the bawdy summer comedy The Love Guru. It's an irreverent — some say too irreverent — romp about a self-help specialist from the subcontinent.

Actor Liev Schreiber had what he thought was a good idea: He'd reach out to a Baghdad film student, offering him an internship on a shoot. But as Nina Davenport's documentary proves, good intentions don't always end in good outcomes. Critic-at-large John Powers has a review.

Fresh Air's film critic reviews three epically intimate new films — an Antarctica documentary from Werner Herzog, a Guy Maddin meditation on home and self, and the heartfelt biography Chris & Don.

Before Boogie Nights, before Far From Heaven, before Short Cuts, she appeared as identical half-sisters — one of them evil — on the soap opera As the World Turns. She won a Daytime Emmy in 1988; for her film work, she's earned four Oscar nominations.

Acclaimed 2007 film — based on the life of post-punk musician Ian Curtis, who killed himself in 1980 at age 23 — won a trio of prizes at the Cannes Film Festival and took home a range of other international awards. It's out now on DVD.