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Robert Redford has benefited from Hollywood's big-budget blockbuster formula system. But the star actor and director says art plays a crucial role in filmmaking and must not be left out. In an interview with NPR's Bob Edwards, Redford also discusses America's celebrity society, the benefits of public funding for the arts and the California governorship recall election. Hear the extended interview.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this week issued new guidelines to try to limit the kind of campaigning that often goes on as members lobby for Academy Awards. NPR's Bob Edwards reports.

Barry Levinson is the director of such award-winning movies as Good Morning Vietnam and The Natural. His first novel, 66, is the story of a group of friends struggling to retain their youths while taking on adult challenges. NPR's Susan Stamberg reports.

Illusionist David Blaine has suspended himself from a crane over London's Thames River, planning to endure starvation in a glass box for 44 days. But many Londoners express boredom with Blaine's latest stunt, deeming it unoriginal. Hear Sally Pook of London's Daily Telegraph.

British rock singer Robert Palmer dies of a heart attack while vacationing in Paris. He was 54. Palmer is perhaps best known for his 1980s hits "Addicted to Love" and "Simply Irresistible." NPR's Bob Edwards reports.

The Scottish band Belle and Sebastian had been keeping to the shadows -- but that's about to change with release of the group's sixth album, Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Band founder and singer Stuart Murdoch explains to NPR's Steve Inskeep that the group was young and more than a little freaked out by the attention they first earned. Now that they've got an international following, Murdoch says the band is ready to take center stage.

Inflation is higher than people under 40 have seen. But their parents lived through sharper price hikes in the 1970s and '80s. These experiences are helping shape the way both view today's economy.

Journalist Mark Jacobson and his wife Nancy of Brooklyn, New York, thought a three-month trek around the world might remedy a serious case of teenage alienation and addiction to pop culture. Jacobson relates their travels to Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, Jordan, Israel, France, and England in the book, 12,000 Miles in the Nick of Time. Jon Kalish reports. (Publisher: Canongate Books, ISBN: 0871138522)

Sena Jeter Naslund's latest novel, Four Spirits, melds real people and fictional characters to tell the story of the civil rights struggle in Birmingham, Ala. during the early 1960s. The title refers to the four schoolgirls killed Sept. 15, 1963, in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. Hear an extended interview with the author.

The director of Russia's Bolshoi theater defends a decision to fire a popular ballerina. Her employer says Anastasia Volochkova was [too tall -- and at 109 pounds, too heavy -- to perform.] NPR's Lawrence Sheets reports.