Film

Mary Lillian Ellison, better known as The Fabulous Moolah, died Friday at age 84. She was a wrestler, promoter and trainer on the so-called "lady wrestling" circuit for more than 50 years.

The latest from French filmmaker Barbet Schroeder (Single White Female, Reversal of Fortune) is titled L'Avocat de la Terreur — which is being released in the U.S. as Terror's Advocate.

The expansive new mob drama American Gangster stars Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Fresh Air's film critic says it's a whopping overdose of perverse '70s nostalgia, a panoramic portrait of a nation disintegrating from moral rot.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the new soundtrack album for the Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There. The movie does not open until November 21, but the 2-disc soundtrack is already available. It features 34 Dylan songs covered by artists including My Morning Jacket and Sonic Youth.

Gone Baby Gone, a new film based on the Dennis Lehane novel, stars actor Casey Affleck as a blue-collar private investigator drawn into a child-abduction case. The film is directed by Affleck's movie-star brother, Ben Affleck.

Casey Affleck has also appeared in the American Pie films, Ocean's 11 and its sequels, and Good Will Hunting.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, a robbery thriller directed by Sidney Lumet, is perfectly weighted and expertly crafted.

It's a crime-and-punishment story starring Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman as brothers who are desperately in debt; when Hoffman's character talks Hawke's into a scheme to alleviate the cash crunch, events go from very bad to even worse — to as grotesquely awful as possible.

Under Lumet's sympathetic direction, the brothers' anguish gets into the viewer's bloodstream, and the movie transcends melodrama.

The latest CD from New Orleans trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard is A Tale of God's Will, whose subtitle is "A Requiem for Katrina."

Parts of the recording were heard in Spike Lee's HBO documentary When the Levees Broke. Blanchard, who's scored many films, including Eve's Bayou and Malcolm X, got his start with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

He is artistic director for the Thelonious Monk Institute at the University of Southern California.

By the end of The 40 Year Old Virgin, the title character had lost his virginity — and actor Steve Carell had become a star.

The actor, who was a correspondent on Comedy Central's The Daily Show for several years, has gone on to films including Little Miss Sunshine and Evan Almighty, and next summer he'll star as hapless secret agent Maxwell Smart in a Hollywood adaptation of the vintage TV series Get Smart. And of course he's got a central role on NBC's The Office.

Fresh Air film critic David Edelstein reviews the clunky but stirring melodrama Rendition.

The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, Omar Metwally and Meryl Streep. It's about an Egypt-born U.S. resident who gets detained by the CIA and shipped off to be tortured in an unnamed North African country.

Fresh Air's classical music critic reviews several vintage Hollywood musicals that have recently been released on DVD.

Titles include The Pirate, Words and Music, Royal Wedding and The Gang's All Here.

We Own the Night is a crime drama starring Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg. They play two brothers — one a cop, the other a nightclub owner — who find themselves on opposite sides of the law. James Gray directed this thriller.

In Reservation Road Mark Ruffalo plays a divorced lawyer who accidentally kills a child and then speeds away. Based on a novel by the same name, the film is directed by Terry George (Hotel Rwanda). Ruffalo has appeared in Zodiac, 13 Going on 30 and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Michael Clayton, the new corporate thriller starring George Clooney. Despite a routine outline, the film is sensationally well done, Edelstein says, and Clooney is as good as he's ever been.

Writer and director Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums) and actor Jason Schwartzman (I Heart Huckabees) discuss their latest film, The Darjeeling Limited. The adventure comedy, also starring Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody, follows three estranged brothers on a spiritual quest to India.

David Edelstein reviews the film "The Darjeeling Limited."

Fresh Air's critic-at-large ponders the 40th-anniversary edition DVD of the The Graduate.

Released in 1967, The Graduate starred Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft and won an Oscar for director Mike Nichols. It was also nominated for six other Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress.

Fresh Air's film critic reviews the new Sean Penn film, adapted from the best-selling nonfiction narrative by Jon Krakauer.

Critic Milo Miles reviews the new four-DVD set, Popeye the Sailor 1933-1938. The animated series features the classic Popeye cartoons by the Fleischer Brothers studios. Miles calls the set a first-rate reissue.

Fresh Air's film critic reviews Paul Haggis' In the Valley of Elah, which stars Tommy Lee Jones as a former military MP — and the father of a young soldier who's gone AWOL after returning from active duty in Iraq.