Film

He's best known for his scene-stealing performance in High Fidelity as a sarcastic record store clerk. He is also the lead singer of the rock-folk comedy group Tenacious D. The group appeared on HBO, went on tour and recorded an album. Black's other roles include the films Shallow Hal, Orange County and Saving Silverman. He's currently starring in the film The School of Rock.

We remember influential theater and film director Elia Kazan. He died yesterday at his home in Manhattan. He was 94. Kazan directed Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront and James Dean in East of Eden. He was a member of the Group Theater and co-founded the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg.

Film critic David Edelstein discusses Under the Tuscan Sun, based on the book of the same name.

His latest film Bubba Ho-Tep is based on the short story by cult author Joe R. Lansdale. In it, Elvis Presley is an elderly resident in an East Texas rest home who switched identities with an Elvis impersonator years before his death and then missed the chance to switch back. He teams up with another resident who thinks he is President John F. Kennedy. The two codgers battle an evil Egyptian entity. It stars Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. Coscarelli also wrote and directed the films Phantasm, and The Beastmaster.

His films include Welcome to Sarajevo, 24 Hour Party People and Wonderland. His new film, In This World, follows the arduous 4,000-mile journey of two Afghan refugees from Pakistan to Britain. The film was shot in Pakistan, Iran and Turkey. The two actors were "discovered" in Peshawar, Pakistan. Fifteen-year-old actor Jamal Udin Torabi has since applied for asylum in Britain. The interview continues into the second half of the show.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Woody Allen’s new comedy “Anything Else” starring Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci.

He won an Oscar this year for his role in Roman Polanski's The Pianist. Brody played Wladyslaw Szpilman, the Polish pianist and Holocaust survivor. Brody's other films include Summer of Sam, The Thin Red Line, Restaurant, and The Affair of the Necklace. He's now starring in Dummy.

She got her start acting in 50s and 60s Westerns, appearing in Gunsmoke and Marlon Brando's One-Eyed Jacks. Though she is from Puerto Rico, she was often cast as a Mexican. Her films include Scarface and All the Pretty Horses. She's now starring in The Blue Diner, which will appear on PBS.

Filmmakers Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey's new feature is Party Monster, starring Seth Green and Macaulay Culkin. It's about a murder that took place in the drug-saturated New York City club scene in the early 1990s. Michael Alig, a party promoter, was convicted of killing a young drug dealer known as Angel. This is Culkin's first film in nine years. He plays Michael Alig. Green plays author/celebutante James St. James. Barbato and Bailey also collaborated on a 1999 documentary of the same name and on the same topic.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews the new Sofia Coppola film, Lost in Translation. The film stars Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Once Upon A Time In the Midlands, starring Robert Carlyle.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Thirteen, starring Holly Hunter and Evan Rachel Wood.

Helen Stickler's new documentary, Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator, tells the story of former skateboarding star Mark "Gator" Rogowski. Rogowski is now serving 31 years in prison for the rape and murder of a former girlfriend. Ken Park, a former skateboarder and friend of Rogowski, is interviewed in the film. Park is now the president and CEO of John Galt Media. Stickler is an Emmy-nominated writer, producer and director of documentary films and commercials.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews the new film American Splendor.

His new feature film, The Magdalene Sisters, is based on the real-life laundries run by the Sisters of the Magdalene Order in Ireland near the end of the 19th century. Girls considered wayward or unruly were sent there as punishment for their sins and forced to do labor under sweat-shop conditions. The last of the laundries was shut down in 1996. Mullan's film follows the lives of four young women and takes place from 1964 to 1969. Before writing and directing, Mullan was best known for his acting and starred in The Big Man, Riff-Raff, Shallow Grave and Trainspotting.

Her new film is Whale Rider, a re-telling of Maori legend in which a young girl challenges 1,000 years of tradition to fulfill her destiny — and win her grandfather's respect. The Maoris are the native people of New Zealand. Whale Rider won the Audience awards at the Sundance, Toronto and Rotterdam Film Festivals. Caro's previous film was Memory and Desire.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews The Secret Lives of Dentists.

Most recently Hope Davis played the daughter of Jack Nicholson in the movie About Schmidt. Her other roles include Mumford, Next Stop Wonderland, Flatliners and Daytrippers. Davis is starring in the new film American Splendor, which took the 2003 Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize. She is also starring in The Secret Lives of Dentists.

Eitan Gorlin's latest film, The Holy Land, won the Grand Jury Best Feature Film prize at the 2002 Slamdance Film Festival. It's a love story, loosely based on his novella Mike's Place, A Jerusalem Diary, and his experiences as a bartender at Mike's Place, a popular bar on the Tel Aviv waterfront where Jews, Muslims, internationals, atheists and devouts congregate. Since the making of the film, Mike's Place was the site of a suicide bombing.

Filmmakers Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini are the team behind American Splendor, which is a hybrid of fiction and documentary. Their previous documentaries are Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's and The Young and the Dead.