Film

This month Woody Harrelson stars plays Capt. Tony Stone in a new movie about the costs of war. His character notifies the families of fallen soldiers. Harrelson's performance is already generating Oscar chatter.

Director Wes Anderson's first animated film is based on Roald Dahl's cheerfully wicked children's book about a wily fox who wages war on three farmers. Critic David Edelstein says the film -- with its stop-motion animation, big-name voice talent and quirky mannerisms -- achieves a degree of realism that isn't always apparent in the cult director's work.

This month Woody Harrelson stars in a powerful new movie about the costs of war. He plays Capt. Tony Stone, a veteran of the Army's Casualty Notification service, charged with the task of notifying the families of fallen soldiers. The film opens Nov. 13, but Harrelson's performance is already generating Oscar chatter.

Director Lee Daniels' new film, Precious, adapted from the 1996 novel Push, centers on the life of an abused, overweight, pregnant teen.

David Edelstein reviews the quirky new comedy from Jared Hess, who co-wrote and directed Napoleon Dynamite.

What This Is It lacks in tactful timing, it makes up for with perspective on Michael Jackson's backstage life. Although Jackson's star persona stays front and center, critic David Edelstein says director Kenny Ortega makes a real effort to show us the performer's human side — a treat that makes the King of Pop all the more stellar.

Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story made a splash, but critic John Powers says its critique of capitalism is "the kind of scattershot tirade I used to hear in my college dorm." Better object lessons: New documentaries, Schmatta and American Casino, that do far more to explain how grand economic forces shape our daily lives.

Director Mira Nair's Amelia attempts to capture the free-spirited life of famed pilot Amelia Earhart. But with a flat script and shallow story, says critic David Edelstein, the movie is more of a blueprint--it never breathes.

An adaptation from Maurice Sendak's book, Spike Jonze's Where The Wild Things Are has a vision all its own, says critic David Edelstein. And it casts a singular sort of spell: With a crack ensemble cast and an almost hallucinatory blending of reality and make-believe, it's "a fabulous treehouse of a movie."

A new six-hour documentary about Monty Python's Flying Circus commemorates the show's 40th anniversary. Reviewer David Bianculli calls it entertaining and "completely different."

The director of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation discusses his new film, Where the Wild Things Are, adapted from Maurice Sendak's classic children's book of the same name.

Shot on a $15,000 budget, director Oren Peli's Paranormal Activity is a bare-bones thriller about things that go bump in the night.

A Serious Man is the Coen Brothers latest (and most specifically Jewish) take on the question of cosmic injustice. Larry Gopnik, a staid Mid-western physics professor, watches helplessly as his life begins to crumble. Critic David Edelstein says the movie unfolds like a strange, sad joke that makes you wonder whether the punchline "will make you laugh or want to kill yourself."

In remembrance of M*A*S*H creator Larry Gelbart, we listen back to a 1996 interview with the comedy writer. Gelbart died Sept. 11, 2009 at the age of 81.

Set in the 19th century, Jane Campion's Bright Star centers on the unconsummated affair of John Keats and his Hampstead neighbor. Reviewer David Edelstein says the film doesn't have a single less-than-perfect performance.

Fresh Air producer Ann Marie Baldonado has just returned from the Toronto International Film Festival to tell us about the films, the celebrities and the scene on the ground.

After working together on the films Ocean's 11, 12 and 13, actor Matt Damon and director Steven Soderbergh teamed up together again on the new film The Informant!, a dark comedy about a rising corporate executive at Archer Daniels Midland who blows the whistle on price fixing.

Colin Beavan, the protagonist of the documentary No Impact Man, spends a year living "eco-effectively" — eating only locally grown foods and, eventually, forgoing electricity and toilet paper. Critic David Edelstein calls the film a "21st-century climate-change comedy of manners."

Writer and director Cherien Dabis talks about her feature film Amreeka, and the immigrant childhood that inspired it.

Ang Lee's film focuses not on the 1969 music festival itself, but on one of the people whose lives were changed by it: Elliot Teichberg, a closeted gay man who offered up his parents' decrepit motel as a home base for the festival's producers. David Edelstein reviews.