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Ridley Scott's chilling 1979 space horror film Alien is being re-released to theaters on Halloween in a new director's cut. Weekend Edition film commentator Kevin Murphy offers a review.

Mark Lombardi's drawings chart the complex relationships behind some of the world's biggest and most complex scandals — Iran-Contra, the Vatican bank collapse, the arming of Iraq during the 1980s.

Singer and songwriter Deanna Varagona is a member of the eclectic orchestra Lambchop. She's also a guitarist who dabbles in free jazz and indie rock. But Varagona, a Tennessee native, formed a country trio to make her second solo album, The Goodbyes Have All Been Taken. Hello. Meredith Ochs has a review.

Carnivale is a fantastical epic set in 1930s Dustbowl America. The episodes are full of literary and Biblical imagery. The show is the latest project from the cable network HBO. NPR's Laura Sydell reports.

People over the age of 35 tell market researchers they'd buy more music if they didn't have to wade through racks of CD geared for 18-year-olds, read magazines tailored to 15-year-olds, or listen to radio aimed at 12-year-olds. NPR's Rick Karr talks with a former corporate turnaround specialist who sees the music industry in need of an intervention, and a publisher and editor who think a new magazine for older listeners is the key.

NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Maggie Balistreri, author of the The Evasion English Dictionary. The book describes the use of language to evade speaking directly. Balistreri defines the many subtly different ways Americans pepper our speech with euphemisms and oblique references.

Polish exile and philosopher Leszek Kolakowski is the first recipient of the John W. Kluge Prize. The $1 million prize is the first international award in the humanities and social sciences -- areas not recognized by the Nobel Prize committees. Hear Librarian of Congress James Billington, who chose Kolakowski from a worldwide list of nominations.

A coalition of scientists, villagers and Guatemalan agents recover a 1,200-year-old Mayan altar. The carved stone altar, weighing over 600 pounds, was looted from an archaeological site in 2000. NPR's Melissa Block talks to anthropology professor Arthur Demarest of Vanderbilt University.

Writer Augusten Burroughs has two best-selling, often funny memoirs to his credit. His first, Running With Scissors, portrayed his early years with his mentally ill mother and her equally mentally ill shrink. His second, Dry, was about getting sober. Now Burroughs has a book of stories, Magical Thinking.

Productions Peter Pan have reflected changing social attitudes toward children over the years. The result is that until recently, Peter, the boy who wouldn't grow up, was played by a woman. NPR's Pat Dowell explores the history of the character.