John Powers

The solo album by John Simon, a record producer who worked with many groups from the late 1960s and early '70s, is being reissued. Among one of Simon's most popular projects was his work with The Band and Blood, Sweat and Tears.

In several ways, the age of "infotainment" is foretold in Good Night, and Good Luck, set in the 1950s. The film tells of newsman Edward R. Murrow's fight against Sen. Joe McCarthy -- but it also details "the inherent debasement of mass news in a commercial culture."

Critic at large John Powers considers the films of Alfred Hitchcock as a new DVD survey of his work is coming out: Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection.