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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.

For a quarter-century, novelist Anne Rice has created a supernatural realm that often features her native New Orleans at its center. Her latest novel is Blood Canticle with another appearance by her most vivid character, the vampire Lestat. NPR's Liane Hansen visits with Rice at the author's Louisiana home.

Sid Caesar talks to Susan Stamberg about his long career in show business — and gets cajoled into performing her mother-in-law's cranberry relish recipe (you must listen to the end of her report to hear it).

In Brazil, a theater director is charged with indecent exposure for his unusual response to an unhappy audience. Responding to a rain of boos and catcalls, director Gilbert Thomas mooned the audience of a production of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. NPR's Martin Kaste reports.

Technically speaking, the Greek film Hard Goodbyes: My Father is a contender for the Oscars and the Golden Globes. But with runs in only two U.S. theaters, the odds are against it. The film is a coming-of-age story about a 10-year-old boy living in Athens, and Liz Yuan liked it enough to try her hand at distributing it. Hear NPR's Michele Norris.

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.

Before there was Saturday Night Live, young comedians including John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner dished up irreverent humor on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.

A new version of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf is now available in the United States. The music comes in a boxed set with a storybook illustrated by Bono. The rendition does away with the orchestra and instead brings the story to life with a mandolin, banjo, accordion, and percussion of all kinds. NPR's Melissa Block talks with musician Gavin Friday. (Publisher: Bloomsbury USA)

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.

Years ago, the tombstones of Richard Hickock and Perry Smith -- the two killers portrayed in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood -- mysteriously disappeared. Now they have resurfaced at a museum that won't put them on display. Harriet Baskas reports on a Kansas museum's dilemma as part of the "Hidden Treasures" series.