Film

German filmmaker Werner Herzog discusses his new film Rescue Dawn, a Hollywood adaptation of his 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly. Both the movie and the documentary are based on the true story of Dieter Dengler, the only U.S. pilot to successfully escape from a North Vietnamese-controlled prison.

There's something about the journey of John Waters' Hairspray to its current incarnation as a candy-colored, big-budget movie musical that I can't quite believe.

John Waters' movie Hairspray, about a full-figured teen who bops her way to popularity (and fights for racial integration) on a TV dance show in '60s Baltimore, was a cult camp classic that became a hit Broadway musical. Now that stage musical has been re-adapted into a film — starring John Travolta, no less, in the role created by Waters' drag-queen muse Divine.

We talk with director and choreographer Adam Shankman, who directed The Wedding Planner and choreographed Boogie Nights — not to mention the legendary musical episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.

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.

Kasi Lemmons' film Talk to Me, which opens this weekend, centers on the radio DJ, television personality and activist Ralph Waldo "Petey" Greene Jr. (played by Don Cheadle). Greene was a driving force in the black community of Washington D.C.; we talk with Lemmons and with Dewey Hughes, who first hired Greene at the D.C. radio station WOL-AM.

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

Jonathan Oberlander, a political scientist with an expertise in health-care politics and policy, discusses problems with the U.S. health-care system and considers how other countries handle health care. He'll also give us a critique of Michael Moore's documentary Sicko. Oberlander is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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.

Comedian and actor Patton Oswalt stars in Ratatouille, the new animated feature from Pixar. He's also a writer and stand-up comic, who starred in his own comedy specials and appeared in the TV shows The King of Queens and Reno 911! He'll release a new comedy album, called Werewolves and Lollipops, on July 10.

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.