Film

Film critic David Edelstein reviews the new documentary Taxi to the Dark Side, which sounds like a horror film — and in some ways, Edelstein says, actually is. It's been nominated for an Academy Award.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, a new film about a young woman's illegal abortion in Ceausescu's Romania, won the top prize at Cannes and has just opened in the U.S. It's a fierce and unsentimental film; Terry Gross talks to Mungiu about growing up in a totalitarian state, and why he wanted to make the movie.

The introduction of sound to movies left audiences hungry for "talkies" and paved the way for the early operettas of German-born Jewish film director Ernst Lubitsch. Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new DVD collection of Lubitsch's early works.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a new film by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, follows two women trying to arrange an illegal abortion in the repressive days of Nicolae Ceausescu's dictatorship.

Fresh Air's film critic reviews Cloverfield, a disaster film featuring a monster that attacks Manhattan; the nightmare is captured by shaky Blair Witch-style camerawork.

Los Zafiros, or The Sapphires, was bigger than The Beatles — in Cuba, anyway. Fresh Air's rock historian reviews a new DVD about the band: Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time.

In Paul Thomas Anderson's new film There Will Be Blood, the young actor Paul Dano plays a rural preacher at odds with the oilman (Daniel Day-Lewis) at the center of the story. Dano previously appeared in Little Miss Sunshine, playing the teen who was an elective mute.

How can anyone keep up with all the movies opening this time of year? I can't — and it's my day job. Between the popcorn flicks and the kiddie stuff and the art films that need to open before December 31 to qualify for the Oscars, it's madness, I tell you, madness. I've already praised The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, The Savages and No Country for Old Men; let's take the rest, from my least to most favorite.

Twenty-five years after its debut, the dystopian-future classic Blade Runner has been released on DVD in a re-edited version called Blade Runner: The Final Cut. Director Ridley Scott talks about that release, as well as about his most recent film, American Gangster.

Fresh Air's arbiter of things filmic offers his annual year-end movies wrap-up.

This time, his Top 10 list has 11 entries, as the number-nine slot features a tie. Edelstein tells Terry Gross why he needed an extra spot — and why some films that drew praise from other quarters didn't make his cut. Here's the list, with links to previously published reviews and features by Edelstein as well as by All Things Considered's Bob Mondello, Morning Edition contributor Kenneth Turan, and other NPR voices:

Richard Zanuck grew up on movies — literally. The son of legendary producer Darryl F. Zanuck, who founded and ran Twentieth Century Fox studios in Hollywood's golden era, he became an Oscar-winning producer himself. His latest project: Sweeney Todd, the big-screen version of the legendary Stephen Sondheim musical. Zanuck's credits include Driving Miss Daisy, Jaws, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Verdict Rules of Engagement, and many more. Besides which, "I can mention a lot of pictures I'm unhappy about," he tells Terry Gross.

Jason Reitman's new teen comedy Juno, like Knocked Up, disguises its family-values stance with a liberal helping of four-letter words. Film critic David Edelstein says it's targeted firmly at the tweener crowd, and the relentless banter of Buffy the Vampire Slayer gets taken to a new level here. But every character's wisecracks, as in bad Neil Simon, come from the same place.

With a new career retrospective of his recordings, a biographical film starring actors impersonating him, and a display of over 120 of his watercolors in a German museum, Bob Dylan is in the public eye a lot at the moment. The latest addition to the Dylan avalanche is a film, The Other Side of the Mirror, chronicling his performances at three consecutive Newport Folk Festivals, from 1963 to 1965. Ed Ward reports that there's more to it than just a concert film.

A couple of years ago, director Jake Kasdan woke up in the middle of the night, knowing suddenly that his next film would be a fake music biopic called Walk Hard. He went on to cast John C. Reilly as Dewey Cox, the putative legend at the heart of the story, who has trouble with women and drugs and who tries on a multitude of musical personalities. Walk Hard, due out Dec. 21, also features Jenna Fischer from NBC's The Office; it was co-written and produced by Judd Apatow. Apatow and Kasdan worked together previously on the critically acclaimed TV show Freaks and Geeks.

In Tamara Jenkins' new film The Savages, two 40-something siblings have to put their lives on hold while they learn how to deal with their elderly father, who's slipping slowly into dementia.

The film — it's a comedy — stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney, plus Broadway veteran Philip Bosco as their ailling dad. (Watch a clip.)

Jenkins' previous film work includes The Slums of Beverly Hills.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews The Mist, which is based on the Stephen King novel.

The film stars Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden and Andre Braugher.