Film

In the past few weeks, two films have explored the careers of men who have found a place in the pantheon of popular mythology. Critic John Powers says seeing Carlos and The Social Network side by side made him think about how much social values have changed in recent decades.

The third installment of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy focuses once again on the corruption-fighting duo of journalist Mikael Blomkvist and cyber-avenger Lisbeth Salander. But as critic David Edelstein notes, an epic devotion to detail makes the movie seem like "an interminable footnote." (Note: Spoilers galore.)

The third and final installment of the Toy Story trilogy turned out to have some deep themes: death, abandonment, loss. One inspiration: an incident in which director Lee Unkrich accidentally threw out his wife's toys. Both Unkrich and screenwriter Michael Arndt join Terry Gross to talk about the trilogy, due on DVD Nov. 2.

Clint Eastwood's latest film is a supernatural drama about a factory worker with the ability to communicate with the dead. Critic David Edelstein says the film is too contrived to tell us anything enlightening about how to live in the shadow of death.

David Edelstein reviews two movies, Tamara Drewe and It's Kind of a Funny Story, that are both funny and discomfiting. Tamara a Thomas Hardy-inspired romantic comedy, "has the fullness of an 18th century novel," says Edelstein, who also applauds Zach Galifianakis' performance in Funny Story.

James Franco doesn't just spend his time acting in the movies. The star of Milk, Howl and the forthcoming 127 Hours is also an accomplished writer and graduate student. He explains how he juggles his many roles — and why he continues to take on new challenges.

The legendary filmmaker who directed Alice's Restaurant and Bonnie and Clyde died on Tuesday. He was 88. Fresh Air remembers Penn with highlights from a 1989 interview.

This interview was originally broadcast on September 29, 1989.

Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires painted an unflattering portrait of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg. The film version gets the programmer-nerd details (and Harvard's oak-and-crimson ambiance) right -- but fails to see the upside of a worldwide social network.

Actor Tony Curtis, whose notable roles included parts in The Sweet Smell of Success and Spartacus died on Wednesday night of heart failure. He was 85. Fresh Air remembers the legendary actor with highlights from a 1991 interview.

Actor and comedian Zach Galifianakis is best known for his shaggy red beard and his hilarious role in the bachelor-party comedy The Hangover. He tells Terry Gross how he prepared himself for his latest part -- a dramatic role as a mental patient in the film It's Kind of a Funny Story.

Director Oliver Stone turned down several offers to make a sequel to his 1987 hit Wall Street, for which Michael Douglas won an Oscar as hostile-takeover king Gordon Gekko. Then the market collapsed and it seemed a good time to revisit his old antihero.

The acclaimed music-video director transitioned to the big screen with One Hour Photo, a dark psychological drama starring Robin Williams. Now Romanek has tackled Never Let Me Go, the futuristic thriller based on Kazoo Ishiguro's novel.

The documentary Catfish may not be on the up-and-up. But does it matter? David Edelstein says no. Catfish, he says, provides a "true sense of adventure" and conveys emotions that "run the gamut from anxiety to contempt to curiosity to compassion."

The plot shakeups at the beginning of this season's Mad Men have left Jon Hamm's character Don Draper a broken man. Hamm talks about Draper's evolution, details how he auditioned for the role and talks about his newest movie, Ben Affleck's crime thriller The Town.

Filmmaker Lixin Fan's Last Train Home documents the journey 130 million migrant workers make back to their rural villages every Chinese New Year. But the movie is not only about families traveling home -- it's about China's modernization. Critic John Powers says the images in the "epic and intimate" movie are absolutely ravishing."

A couple of years back, the two-time Oscar nominee announced he was giving up acting to become a rapper. David Edelstein reviews Casey Affleck's film I'm Still Here, which tracks Phoenix's transformation -- and says there may be a real madness in Phoenix's method performance.

A new HBO documentary details Wright's experiences writing his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Looming Tower. Wright explains what he learned while interviewing sources for his book -- and talks about the challenge maintaining objectivity while researching modern terrorism.

Anton Corbijn's paranoid thriller stars George Clooney as an anonymous international assassin constantly on the run. Critic David Edelstein says the spare movie "cast a spell" over the audience -- as they entered the mind of a man with no past or future.

The French outlaw Jacques Mesrine, who terrorized France and killed 39 people, is the subject of the thrilling Mesrine: Killer Instinct, which stars Vincent Cassell as Mesrine and Gerard Depardieu as a Parisian crime boss. Critic John Powers applauds Cassell's acting, saying it "ranks with the best of DeNiro or Pacino or, more recently, Daniel Day-Lewis."

The British director speaks with Fresh Air's Dave Davies about his new film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, based on the graphic comic series by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Wright also directed the parody romantic zombie film Shaun of the Dead and the British TV sit-com, Spaced.