Film

Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews Cameron Crowe's directorial debut, about a lovestruck high school graduate, the beautiful overachiever he desires, and her doting father. Schiff says the plot is remarkably similar to The Graduate -- only Say Anything is the better movie.

Part I of the Fresh Air interview with Cameron Crowe. His new movie, Say Anything, is about a young man coming to terms with adult love. The film is Crowe's directorial debut.

Ken Tucker reviews the home video release of I Wanna Hold Your Hand, about a group of teenage Beatles fans in New Jersey. The film, directed by Robert Zemeckis, was a commercial fop, but Tucker, who says it's insightful without indulging in cliches, hopes it will find a new audience on tape.

26-year-old Daniel Waters wrote the new black comedy Heathers, about high school cliques and teenage suicide. He joins Fresh Air to discuss the thinking behind his macabre satire.

Film critic Stephen Schiff says that Louis Malle's Murmur of the Heart was overshadowed by the string of exceptional movies also released in 1971. The film is shocking in its sexuality and subtlety.

Film mogul Samuel Goldwyn's son gave permission to A. Scott Berg to write the movie producer's biography. Berg says the elder Goldwyn entered the United States illegally, and later built himself by working at a glove factory before helping develop the studio system.

Critic Ken Tucker reviews the home video release of The Great Ziegfeld, a biopic about the famed impresario. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture, an honor Tucker says was undeserved. Yet the film is fun, despite some slow moments, and paints a clear picture of a bygone era of of Hollywood.

Film critic Stephen Schiff admits he's instantly charmed by movies about unfamiliar worlds. He says the new road movie Powwow Highway, about two American Indians confronting the development of tribal lands, has promise, but is ineptly written and directed. But, somehow, Schiff didn't mind watching it.

Taylor has cast over fifty films to date. Early in her career, she formed a professional relationship with Woody Allen, and has worked on sixteen of his movies.

Film critic Stephen Schiff hoped that the age of the teen comedy was over -- but he was impressed by Heathers, which captures the emotional intensity of high school life.