Film

Fresh Air's critic-at-large reviews a new DVD set featuring two masterpieces by French filmmaker Chris Marker: 1962's La Jetee and 1984's Sans Soleil.

The first is a science-fiction story set in a post-apocalyptic Paris; except for two seconds of motion, the entire story is told in still photographs.

The brilliantly perceptive Sans Soleil's narrator tells viewers about the letters she's received from a globetrotting friend; her monologue is accompanied by footage from around the world.

David Edelstein reviews "Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix."

Rescue Dawn, the first Hollywood feature from German New Wave director Werner Herzog, is the true story of Dieter Dengler, the only U.S. pilot to sucessfully escape from a North Vietnamese-controlled prison. This dramatized version, starring Christian Bale as Dengler, marks the second time Herzog has told the story.

Two momentous films open nationwide on the same day. Sicko radically challenges our perspective on health care. Ratatouille radically challenges our perspective on rats in kitchens. Cynics will say there's a better chance of a rodent becoming a chef than of universal health care for Americans. That underestimates the big fighting rat at the center of Sicko.

A Mighty Heart tells the story of the hunt in Pakistan for kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl through the eyes of his very pregnant wife, Mariane. The film is gripping: Apart from flashbacks that dramatize Mariane's idyllic memories of Daniel, it's clipped, blunt, and grimly realistic. It's almost a police procedural, with a focus on the nuts and bolts of the investigation. Our suspense is lessened, though, by our knowledge that it will end badly.

The Sergio Leone Anthology includes A Fistful of Dollars; For a Few Dollars More; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Duck, You Sucker.

The zombie comedy Fido offers satire along with splatter; Fresh Air's film critic says it's "the blood wedding of George Romero and SCTV, and it's a treat for those who don't mind gnawed-off limbs with their hijinks." It's set in a '50s-flavored, Fiestaware-colored retro society, which can be a bit tiresome, because the decade's father-knows-best archetypes have been picked clean. Still, Edelstein says, "director and co-writer Andrew Currie treats his characters with so much affection that even the stereotypes have a fresh life."

George Clooney and the gang return to Vegas and to the casino caper for this third installment in Steven Soderbergh's hit franchise.

While Ocean's Twelve was all over the place, this one's as elegant and streamlined as hero Danny Ocean. As the plotting gets knottier, Soderbergh's technique gets more fluid — the editing jazzier, the colors more luscious, the whip-pans more whiz-bang.

The premise of Knocked Up is as blunt — as basic — as its title: An attractive and newly successful TV correspondent becomes pregnant after a drunken one-night stand with Ben, who's not just unsuitable but an unholy monument to self-indulgence. Judd Apatow's film is conventional, even conservative, but somehow it plays like one of the hippest movies ever made.

Bug, the new psychological thriller from director William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection), got its start as a paranoia-driven stage play by actor-writer Tracy Letts (Killer Joe).

The film won the international critics' prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006, but it's only now getting a U.S. release. It features Ashley Judd, Harry Connick Jr. and Lynn Collins, as well as Michael Shannon, who starred in the Off-Broadway production.