Theater

It used to be that TV's biggest annual event was the arrival of the fall season, but these days excellent shows premiere year-round. This spring, the return of AMC's stylish drama is the best reason to celebrate the season: The two-hour premiere delivers on the show's highest ambitions.

This week, HBO airs the season premieres of two returning series — Game of Thrones and Veep — and launches a new series called Silicon Valley. Fresh Air's TV critic has seen them all.

In the Chilean film No, which is nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, a young ad man devises a campaign to vote the dictator Augusto Pinochet out of office using rainbows and catchy theme songs.

In Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's new film, Caesar Must Die, a group of prisoners put on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. It's barely an hour and a quarter, and it's physically small-scale, but it's so compressed it wears you out -- in a good way.

The Broadway star has a new album, I Got Love: Songs of Jerome Kern, which features songs by the great Broadway composer. The collection came out of a live show Luker performed at the Manhattan club 54 Below.

The actor, who's currently starring in Glenngarry Glen Ross opposite Al Pacino, has been acting for the stage since he was a teenager in Union City, N.J. "It was the only thing I ever wanted to do, really," he says.

Fresh Air's movie critic does not think any masterpieces were made this year, but he does compare Daniel Day Lewis to Julius Caesar and have some choice thoughts on the movie version of Les Mis.

Fresh Air's television critic says there weren't any new shows this year that wowed him and that the shows he watched and loved this year were ones that have been on for at least a season. His No. 1 favorite remains Breaking Bad.

Kathryn Bigelow's film tells the story of the U.S. hunt for the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks. Critic David Edelstein says the film presents itself as a work of journalism, but that there's no doubting its perspective: It's the story of America's "brilliant, righteous revenge."

When it was released 32 years ago, Michael Cimino's revisionist Western was considered one of the most colossal flops in Hollywood history. Critic John Powers takes a second look at the film and concludes that it's clearly the work of one man --- he wanted you to remember it forever."

It's holiday box-set season, and Fresh Air critic David Bianculli shares some favorites for the TV-lover on your list. "Giving someone a gift of a TV show," he says, "is somehow very personal. You're giving something that your love, and that, in many cases, will occupy many hours ... of their time."

Musician Michael Feinstein chronicles his experience working as an archivist and cataloger for legendary songwriter Ira Gershwin. The book is presented through the stories of 12 of the Gershwin brothers' songs, including "Fascinating Rhythm," "The Man I Love" and "I Got Rhythm."

Showtime's Homeland, which swept this year's Emmy Awards, returns this weekend -- as does another Showtime drama, Dexter. Critic David Bianculli says there's a rich bounty of returning series -- and Homeland is the "most topical and meaningful drama on television."

Rian Johnson's action-thriller can't dodge the frustrating elements of most time-travel tales, but the film's characters, performances and stylization add up to an experience that critic David Edelstein believes is the right amount of happy and tragic.

The Oscar-nominated actress plays the forbidding wife of a cult leader in Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master. She tells Fresh Air it was an opportunity to play a character type she'd never played before.

Writer-director Stephen Chbosky brings his 1999 young adult novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower to the screen. Critic David Edelstein says the result may be better than the book -- a project that communicates the trials of high school in a way that is both painful and elating.

Many comparisons have been made between Paul Thomas Anderson's film The Master and the history of Scientology. But, as David Edelstein explains, the challenge of balancing the search for surrogate family with American individualism dominates the film. (Recommended)

Critic David Bianculli says of all the new programs premiering this fall, there isn't on you have to add to your weekly viewing lists. The best new show, he says, is Emily Owens, M.D., which is just like Ally McBeal if she were a doctor instead of a lawyer -- but it's graded on a curve.

The actor stars in the comedy TV series The New Normal, about a gay couple who want a child so badly that they hire a surrogate. Rannells tells Fresh Air that he didn't want to "dumb down" the series role with "stereotypical over-the-top gay flash and sass."