Javier Bardem Reflects On A ‘Biutiful’ Acting Career

This interview was originally broadcast on February 3, 2011. Biutiful is now available on DVD. Spanish actor Javier Bardem burst into the American moviegoing consciousness in 2007, when he played a very bad man with a very bad haircut in the Coen brothers’ film No Country for Old Men. He won an Oscar for his [...]

Class Is Dismissed: ‘Bad Teacher’ Is Crude, But Fun

Bad Teacher is a raunchy comedy about a conniving alcoholic druggie middle-school teacher played by Cameron Diaz who’ll do anything to get the money to buy herself some bigger breasts so she can marry rich and not have to do the job at which she’s, yes, bad. How bad is she? I won’t give away [...]

Robert Wittman’s ‘Priceless’ Pursuit Of Stolen Art

This interview was originally broadcast on July 12, 2010. Robert Wittman’s book, Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures is now out in paperback. In late December 2000, three people armed with machine guns went into the Swedish National Museum in Stockholm and ordered everyone to get down on the floor. [...]

House Rejects Measure To Continue U.S. Role In Libya

The House voted down a measure Friday giving Barack Obama the authority to continue the U.S. military action against Libya. The 295-123 defeat was expected, but still represents a rebuke to the commander-in-chief. Obama, who did not seek congressional permission before the Libyan mission began, had said he had welcomed a resolution authorizing the participation. [...]

Pop Culture Happy Hour: In Our Host’s Absence, We Invite ‘Company’

It took 45 episodes of Pop Culture Happy Hour for our intrepid host, Linda Holmes, to miss a week — and, naturally, it was a documentary film festival that did her in. So, freed from the shackles of Linda’s efforts to keep our conversations from flying off the rails, we used her absence as an [...]

‘Cars 2′: Unfortunately, It’s Just About Cars

Good news first: The best thing about Cars 2 is that Pixar is still Pixar. This is still a beautiful film (even in 3D, the format in which I unfortunately screened it), imaginatively and lovingly animated, and I certainly think the kids I saw it with enjoyed it well enough. Contrary to what I’m guessing [...]

‘Buck’: A Great Teacher Of Horses And People

I thought it might be fun to take a moment out of Silverdocs 2011 to talk about a movie that you may actually be able to see! At a local theater! Soon! Maybe even now! I’m exaggerating, of course: There will certainly be others with theatrical releases (I saw Page One here — that’s the [...]

Geography, Economy Put Turkey Near Syrian Crisis

Washington is calling on Syria to remove its troops from the border with Turkey. Aid officials say hundreds of Syrians fled makeshift camps into southeastern Turkey as the military approached. Ankara doesn’t want to lose its economic engagement with Syria, but nonetheless is shifting its rhetoric in support of the people demanding more freedoms. Turkey [...]

Will Journalist Face Deportation? Signs Point To ‘No’

Now that a high-profile journalist has admitted to being an illegal immigrant, can he expect a visit from the authorities? Based on recent immigration policy directives, the answer likely is “no.” As he explains in a New York Times Magazine article and an ABC News interview, journalist Jose Antonio Vargas broke numerous laws to conceal [...]

Rise Of Indigenous Actress Marks Change In Peru

In 2009, when the Peruvian film The Milk of Sorrow won top honors at the Berlin Film Festival, lead actress Magaly Solier did something surprising — she chose to accept the award by singing a song in Quechua, a common indigenous language of Peru. Indigenous people make up more than half of Peru’s population and [...]