John Powers

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.

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.

If the Dead Rise Not, the latest book in Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther detective series, shifts the saga from prewar Nazi Germany to 1954 Havana. Critic John Powers says the Chandleresque novel kept him glued to his deck chair for days.