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NPR's Linda Wertheimer speaks with New York Times critic Elvis Mitchell about the Coen brothers' remake of the comic 1955 film The Ladykillers. The original version starred Alec Guiness and Peter Sellers. The new film stars Tom Hanks.

NPR's Liane Hansen talks with Karen Armstrong, author of The Spiral Staircase about leaving the convent, her diagnosis with epilepsy, and her self-described "climb out of darkness."

The Smithsonian's newest museum is dedicated to one of the hemisphere's oldest subjects, the history and culture of Native Americans. NPR's Juan Williams tours the National Museum of the American Indian, which opens in Washington, D.C., in September.

Spartan, the latest film from acclaimed writer-director David Mamet, is an espionage thriller involving a president's missing daughter, white slavery and political chicanery. The movie opens in U.S. theaters Friday. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan has a review.

NPR's Scott Simon speaks with playwright, director and Oscar-winning actor Tim Robbins about his new play Embedded, currently on stage in New York. It's a parody that skewers the media coverage of the war in Iraq.

One hundred years ago, F. Schuyler Mathews published a field guide of wild birds. He transcribed their songs into musical notation and tried to capture their essence in prose. A new book celebrates Mathews' work and the birds that inspired him. Hear NPR's Melissa Block.

Writer Samina Ali's first novel, Madras on Rainy Days, is about a woman modeled after Ali herself. The book is about a young Muslim woman from India, who lives for a while in America and returns to her homeland for an arranged marriage. NPR's Liane Hansen talks with Ali.

The animated movie Home on the Range, opening in U.S. theaters Friday, is the last hand-drawn feature Disney will make at its studios in Southern California. As computer-generated animation becomes the film industry standard, many now-unemployed artists who animate by hand say theirs is a disappearing art form. Hear NPR's Kim Master.

Southern Culture on the Skids brings the trailer park into your living room -- that is, unless your living room is already in a trailer park. NPR's John Ydstie speaks with members of the rock group about a new CD, Mojo Box.

With the Whitney Biennial just opened, some of the works have already been bought by the Whitney museum itself. Contemporary art is hot: Bloomberg LLP is funding the outdoor sculpture exhibit at the Biennial, and thousands of visitors packed The Armory Show over the weekend to look at and invest in contemporary art.