Comedy

Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's latest collaboration follows five friends who reunite for an epic tour of 12 suburban English pubs. Critic David Edelstein calls the sci-fi comedy "the year's most uproarious movie."

Lake Bell's comedy In a World ... tracks a vocal coach's efforts to break into the male-dominated world of voice-overs. She and actor/voice-over artist Fred Melamed tell Terry Gross about what drew them to voice-over work, and the origins of the "sexy baby vocal virus" trend.

Pedro Almodovar's ensemble comedy I'm So Excited is set on an airplane with mechanical problems. Neil Jordan's Byzantium centers on a pair of itinerant English vampires. The two films couldn't be more different, but the two filmmakers are very much in command of their craft.

Sandwiched into Joss Whedon's busy schedule of TV series and big-screen features was an unexpected low-budget adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing -- shot in black and white. Film critic David Edelstein says it's a delight.

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg met as adolescents on the Vancouver bar mitzvah circuit -- and soon after began writing the script for what would become the movie Superbad. Their project This Is the End, is a disaster-movie spoof in which the Rapture hits home in Hollywood.

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.

David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook stars Bradley Cooper as a bipolar high school teacher trying to put his life back together. But critic David Edelstein says it's the performance of co-star Jennifer Lawrence that makes the film a hot ticket.

Leslye Headland makes her directorial debut with this adaptation of her own play about three bridesmaids whose bad habits and emotional issues threaten to undermine their friend's impending wedding. It's tonally uneven but engrossing, says critic David Edelstein.

Ruby Sparks and Killer Joe tell of an author who conjures a woman from his typewriter and a corrupt detective hired to kill an aging mother, respectively. But Fresh Air's David Edelstein says the films share a common trait: both take their stories beyond common reality to more fascinating parts of the psyche.

The movie Brave is Pixar's first feature with a female protagonist — a medieval Scottish princess named Merida (voiced by Kelly MacDonald) who asserts her independence and wreaks havoc. Critic David Edelstein says the film is "pure Pixar in its mischievousness and irreverence."

Actor and writer Sacha Baron Cohen is famous for taking his characters — Ali G., Borat, Bruno — into the real world, interacting with people who have no idea that they're dealing with a fictional character. But his new movie, The Dictator, is a scripted comedy about a tyrant on the loose in New York.

There was Ali G, Borat and Bruno -- and now, in The Dictator, Sacha Baron Cohen has a new character to add to his repertoire: the capricious ruler of an oil-rich country who travels to the U.N. to assert his right to have nuclear warheads.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews the new comedy Casa de mi Padre, starring Will Ferrell. It's a Spanish-language American film created in the style of a telenovela.

The comedian spent seven seasons on Saturday Night Live and went on to star in the raunchy comedy Bridesmaids. Now she's exploring what's funny about parenting in the new movie Friends with Kids and the TV series Up All Night.

In the new comedy Wanderlust, an unemployed Manhattan couple (Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston) stumble into a hippie farming commune. David Edelstein says the movie features a "tribe of marvelously inventive comic actors doing a fair amount of inspired improvisation."

How bad is this teacher? Director Jake Kasdan stuffs ineptness and inappropriateness into the lesson plan in equal measure. But critic David Edelstein says that the film's moral turpitude is also the source of its charm.

Ewan McGregor stars in Mike Mills' film about a young man who learns that his 75-year-old father (Christopher Plummer) is gay. Critic David Edelstein says the movie, based on Mills' own life puts the filmmaker in a category alongside Woody Allen and Charlie Kaufman.

The film critic reports his impressions of this year's Cannes Film Festival. On Powers' list of notable films: Terrance Malick's Tree of Life, about a young boy growing up in 1950s Texas, and an Iranian film by a director who was explicitly told by the Iranian government not to make films.

David Edelstein's friends all say they just won't see a Mel Gibson movie. But Edelstein says the actor's new film The Beaver, directed by Jodie Foster, might be worth a look -- if only for a certain cameo appearance.

James Franco and Danny McBride set off on a quest in David Gordon Green's action comedy Your Highness — a sword-and-sorcery spoof that David Edelstein says is fantastic if you're in the right gross-minded juvenile mood.