John Powers

Film critic John Powers reviews Lust, Caution, the new film by Taiwanese director Ang Lee. Set in 1942, during the Japanese occupation of China, the film tells the story of a resistance fighter who has an affair with a Chinese collaborator.

The DVD set Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2 consists of five pre-Hays Code movies: The Divorcee, A Free Soul, Night Nurse, Three on a Match, and Female.

Critic John Powers reviews Where to and Back, a newly released DVD trilogy from the late Austrian director Axel Corti. Written by Georg Stefan Troller, the films are loosely based on Toller's life as a Viennese Jew who took refuge in the United States as a teenager and then returned to Europe as an American soldier during World War II.

Critic-at-large John Powers talks about watching the 40th anniversary edition DVD of classic filmThe Graduate. (Original airdate: 9/26/07)

Fresh Air's critic at large tells us why he loves the high-fashion challenge Project Runway, a reality-TV staple now in its fourth season on cable's Bravo channel. Among other things, it's one reality show that's about something more interesting than forcing its contestants to eat bugs.

The latest from French filmmaker Barbet Schroeder (Single White Female, Reversal of Fortune) is titled L'Avocat de la Terreur — which is being released in the U.S. as Terror's Advocate.

Fresh Air's critic-at-large ponders the 40th-anniversary edition DVD of the The Graduate.

Released in 1967, The Graduate starred Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft and won an Oscar for director Mike Nichols. It was also nominated for six other Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress.

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.

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.

Critic-at-large John Powers reflects on what he thinks is the single greatest movie ever made about the city of Los Angeles — Killer of Sheep, an independent film made in the late '70s by Charles Burnett. It's on the Library of Congress' National Film Registry; it will be showing in selected theaters in the next few months, and it comes out on DVD this September.