John Powers

Fresh Air's critic-at-large John Powers was raised to dislike Elizabeth Taylor. But he soon fell for her charms. He remembers the legendary actress who was a siren on-screen -- and a committed supporter of HIV/AIDS research.

The classic 1957 film about the gossip industry has been remastered and rereleased on DVD and Blu-Ray. Critic John Powers says the movie's Manhattan is a "seamy, deglamorized world in which small men destroy lives to make themselves big."

Aaron Katz's mumblecore flick Cold Weather is set in Portland, Ore.; Lee Chang-dong's Poetry is from South Korea. Critic John Powers says both films are wonderful, in part because the stories they tell are so unpredictable.