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A new movie is selling out theaters in Iran but angering some of the country's religious leaders. Government censors delayed the release of The Lizard, and some leading clerics want it banned altogether. Hear NPR's Steve Inskeep and journalist Roxana Saberi.

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.

We remember actor, producer, author and comedian Alan King, who died Sunday. He was 76. King died in Manhattan's Sloan-Kettering Medical Center of lung cancer. He was known for his wry observations on suburbia and life at large.

A report published in the Journal of Death Studies finds that poets die younger than novelists, playwrights and other writers. James Kaufman, a researcher at California State University at San Bernardino, suggests poets may die young because they tend to be more tortured and prone to self-destruction. NPR's Bob Edwards reports.

In the latest episode of the series "What Are You Listening To?" California teenager Lexi Sanborn helps us travel to distant lands, picking eclectic music from Japan and Germany.

An ambitious 11-part requiem dedicated to the memory of Mr. Rogers has its premiere in Pittsburgh, where Fred Rogers lived for many years. The 21-year-old composer Luke Mayernik created the piece to honor Rogers, who died one year ago. NPR's Melissa Block talks with Mayernik.

The nominees for Best Song at Sunday's Oscar ceremonies are an eclectic mix. Two songs from Cold Mountain have been nominated, along with a song from The Lord Of the Rings: The Return of the King, Triplets of Belleville and A Mighty Wind. NPR's Scott Simon talks to American Film Institute director Murray Horwitz.

The body of actor and writer Spalding Gray was pulled out of New York's East River Sunday, two months after he was first reported missing. He was 62. Best known for a 1987 movie based on his monologue Swimming to Cambodia, Gray inspired a whole generation of performers with his groundbreaking confessional, humorous and disarming storytelling. NPR's Bob Edwards has a remembrance.

Professor Michael Maar has unearthed an obscure 1916 short story published in German called "Lolita." It tells of a middle-aged man's fixation with a young girl. Scholars are now left to debate what it might mean if Vladimir Nabokov -- author of the later novel Lolita -- knew of the story. NPR's Liane Hansen talks with Maar.

The new documentary Mayor of the Sunset Strip looks at the life of Los Angeles disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer, who helped introduce such artists as David Bowie, the Sex Pistols and Nirvana. Director George Hickenlooper considers his subject the personification of America's obsession with fame. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan has a review.