Culture Schwartzman Lives 'The Darjeeling Limited' September 29, 2007 • The Darjeeling Limited, director Wes Anderson's newest film, opened the New York Film Festival this weekend. Jason Schwartzman, who co-wrote the screenplay and plays Jack Whitman, talks about the role India plays in the movie.
Opinion Coming Soon, to a Theater Near You: Naked People September 28, 2007 • Maybe it's the fitness craze, and people showering together in gyms, but you just don't attract crowds to movie theaters these days with mere nakedness. Filmmakers are pushing boundaries — though most are still cautious about mixing nudity and sexuality.
Review Culture 'Lust, Caution' September 28, 2007 • A troupe of thespians goes undercover in Hong Kong and Shanghai during the Japanese occupation, hoping their ingenue (Tang Wei) can get close enough to a collaborator (Tony Leung) to let them attempt an assassination.
Review Culture 'Feast of Love' September 28, 2007 • A would-be-wistful dramedy, with Morgan Freeman as a kind of village elder perched at an Oregon coffee shop, advising clueless locals on life and love. Director Robert Benton made Kramer Vs. Kramer, and ought to know better.
Culture Summary Judgment: 'Kingdom,' 'Game' and 'Lust' September 28, 2007 • Planning to watch a movie this weekend? Mark Jordan Legan with the online magazine Slate tells us what the critics are saying about The Kingdom, The Game Plan and Lust, Caution.
Review Culture 'The Darjeeling Limited': Self-Discovery, by Rail Fresh Air September 28, 2007 • Three brothers, privileged but bereft, go looking for themselves on a trek through rural India. Fresh Air's film critic says Anderson manages to sustain a sense of lyric melancholy — though he could use more perspective on his characters' over-entitlement.
Culture Apatow and Rogen: From 'Virgin' to 'Knocked Up' Fresh Air September 28, 2007 • Judd Apatow has been a writer for Larry Sanders and Ben Stiller, and he worked on the cult-favorite TV comedy Freaks and Geeks. But you'll know him as the writer-director of the hit film The 40-Year-Old Virgin — and the auteur behind this summer's Knocked Up, starring Seth Rogen.
Review 'The Kingdom' Mirrors the Headlines September 28, 2007 • Set in Saudi Arabia, The Kingdom is a film about American good guys going toe to toe with followers of terrorist Abu Hamsa. The film opens with sounds of bombs going off in an American housing compound, killing and wounding hundreds watching a softball game.
Review Culture 'The Darjeeling Limited' September 27, 2007 • Three battling brothers — who haven't spoken in the year since their father's funeral — flail and rail and bond on a trek across India in the latest comic oddity from Wes Anderson (Rushmore, Royal Tennenbaums).
Media Will Paramount and DreamWorks Really Split? September 27, 2007 • The Spielberg-Geffen project DreamWorks studio was bought by Paramount Pictures two years ago. It has been responsible for much of Paramount's recent success. How solid are the rumors that the two may go their separate ways?
Actor's 'Skull' Session with Paper Enrages Spielberg September 27, 2007 • Tyler Nelson, a 23-year-old cast as a Russian dancer, gives away juicy details about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to his hometown paper. Steven Spielberg is not amused.
DVD Reviews 'The Graduate' Returns for 40-Year Reunion Fresh Air September 26, 2007 • Fresh Air's critic-at-large ponders the 40th-anniversary edition DVD of the The Graduate.
Culture Filming 'The Jane Austen Book Club' September 22, 2007 • Robin Swicord is the writer and director of the new film The Jane Austen Book Club. She talks about being one of a relatively few female directors in Hollywood — and what it's like to make the transition from screenwriter to director.
Review Culture 'The Jane Austen Book Club' September 21, 2007 • Graceful, smart and unselfconsciously literate, Robin Swicord's screen adaptation of Karen Joy Fowler's chick-lit novel traffics in satisfying parallels and comforting symmetries.
Review Culture In the Wild West, Death Becomes an Outlaw Icon September 21, 2007 • Exquisitely filmed Assassination of Jesse James lends the heft of Greek tragedy to an oft-told saga. Brad Pitt won an acting prize, but it's Casey Affleck's needy, creepy Robert Ford you can't take your eyes off.