Film

Film critic John Powers reviews We Were Soldiers,starring Mel Gibson.

Filmmaker Jamsheed Akrami is a scholar of Iranian film. His two documentaries are Dreams Betrayed and Friendly Persuasion: Iranian Cinema After the Revolution. Together, they explore Iranian filmmaking before and after the 1979 revolution. In Iranian films, male and female characters are not allowed to touch, ever, and women must be veiled at all times. Despite these and other limitations, Iranian cinema has garnered international critical acclaim. Akrimi is an associate professor at William Paterson University.

Adults who like to watch cartoons are tuning into the late-night block on the Cartoon Network to watch the Japanese adventure series Cowboy Bebop. Critic Milo Miles says there are lots of reasons to like the show.

Music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews the soundtrack from the film Gosford Park, directed by Robert Altman. The film features original music and songs from the 1920s and 1930s. The CD has just been released.

John Lasseter, Executive Vice President of Creative for Pixar, Inc. Lasseter was one of the founding members of the computer animated filmmaking company. He served as Director and Animator of the feature films Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and A Bugs Life. He was also Executive Producer of Monsters, Inc. Toy Story was the first computer-animated feature film. Lasseter also directed a number of shorts for Pixar, including Tin Toy, Reds Dream and Luxo, Jr. Tin Toy won an Oscar in 1988 for Best Animated Short Film.

John Powers reviews Solaris, starring George Clooney, directed by Steven Soderbergh.

He directed Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. The film has been nominated for 13 Academy Awards, including Best Director, best Picture and Screenplay. His other films include Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners. The New Zealander is also slated to direct the other two upcoming films of the Hobbit trilogy, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Film critic John Powers reviews Storytelling, the new Todd Solondz movie.

Cartoonist Daniel Clowes. Drawn in 1950s pop culture style, his comics are darkly humorous satires of middle class America. His graphic novel Ghost World (first published in 1993) is the basis of the film of the same name. Ghost World has just been nominated for an academy award in the Adapted Screenplay division. Clowes' first comic book series was Lloyd Llewellyn, followed by Eightball

Film critic John Powers reviews Iris, about the life of Iris Murdoch. It stars Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent and Kate Winslet. All three actors have been nominated for Oscars.