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Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan reviews the new Israeli movie Walk on Water. He says the film takes on too many social topics but still manages to hold the viewer's attention.

Novelist Mary Gordon's new book, Pearl, is about a mother's struggle to understand her daughter's public act of martyrdom. Gordon is the author of seven novels, including Final Payments and The Company of Women), and four nonfiction works.

Cheadle stars in the new film Hotel Rwanda playing a hotel manager who shelters over a 1,000 refugees from genocide. It's based on the true story of Paul Rusesabagina. Cheadle's other films include Devil in a Blue Dress, Boogie Nights, Ocean's Eleven, and Traffic. This interview was originally broadcast on April 6, 2004.

Proud of its reputation and humble beginnings in Dakar's smaller suburbs, Senegal's "Neighborhood Film Festival" has become part of an evolving film industry in Africa. NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton reports.

Clint Eastwood's latest directing effort, Million Dollar Baby, features Eastwood as a boxing trainer and Hillary Swank as a woman trying to break into the fight game. Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan offers a review.

After being introduced at the age of 12 to a set of religious rules, Jennifer Traig developed a hyper-religious form of obsessive-compulsive disorder known as "scrupulosity." She chronicles her disorder in the memoir Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood.

A Series of Unfortunate Events is likely to be a boon for the nation's movie theaters. The dark comedy is based on three of the popular Lemony Snicket books. Jim Carrey plays the villain. NPR's Bob Mondello reviews the film.

With the Oscar nominations looming, film critic Bob Mondello notes that there seem to be dozens of men in the running for best actor, but almost no women on the distaff side of the equation.

NPR's Liane Hansen meets former CIA official Frederick Hitz at Washington, D.C.'s Spy Museum. Hitz's new book, The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage, compares spy novel secret agents with real-life operatives.

Carandiru, the new fiction film by Hector Babenco, who directed Kiss of the Spider Woman, is based on a true story of life in a notorious Brazilian prison. In 1992, conditions there spawned a riot in which over 100 inmates were killed. Minnesota Public Radio's Euen Kerr reports.