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The Stax Museum of American Soul Music opens Friday in Memphis, Tenn., honoring the recording studio that once churned out hundreds of R&B and pop hits. The Stax studio -- built in a movie theater that once stood on the same site as the new museum -- drew music talent from all over the South, including Otis Redding and Isaac Hayes. Stax became known for the trademark rich, gritty soul that defined its sound. NPR's Kathleen Schalch reports.

In Hollywood this year, it's deja vu all over again... and again... and again. So far, a record 25 sequels are set to hit U.S. theaters in 2003 -- everything from the final installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy to Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd. NPR's Liane Hansen and Peter Bart of Variety magazine discuss the sequel trend.

The 22-year-old American topped a competitive field Thursday in Beijing. Figure skaters from Japan came in second and third.

The new Al Pacino movie People I Know offers an acid portrait of Manhattan politics, and Pacino provides the story with a complex, nuanced anti-hero. NPR's Bob Mondello offers a review.

One of the most enduring fairy tale motifs is that of a beautiful princess confined high up in a tower. In The Red Wolf, a new book by Margaret Shannon, that princess is named Roselupin, and she passes the time by knitting and plotting her escape. Daniel Pinkwater, NPR's ambassador to the world of children's literature, joins NPR's Scott Simon to read from the book.

Marooned in Iraq is the latest film from Iranian-based Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi, who won acclaim for his first effort, A Time for Drunken Horses. The story touches on Saddam Hussein's brutal crackdown on the Kurds in the 1980s, but it's really a "road movie musical" with an often comic sensibility. Pat Dowell reports.

Gregor Piatigorsky, the Russian cello virtuoso, used to talk about "tasting the blood" of music -- music as destiny. "You are taken by it," he said. Piatigorsky also was taken by the works of art he collected. Samples of his collection -- along with his prized Stradivarius cello -- are on exhibit in Baltimore. NPR's Susan Stamberg reports.

Thomas Edward Lawrence was the dashing, romanticized British officer credited with leading the Arab revolt against the Turks during World War I -- a feat depicted in the epic film Lawrence of Arabia. But his true story and legacy is still a subject of debate among historians. NPR's Jacki Lyden reports on the man and the myth. View rare portraits of Lawrence and characters from his classic book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph.

The comic book mutants known as the X-Men are back on the big screen. X2: X-Men United, packs in more characters -- good and evil -- than the first X-Men film. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan offers a review.

Twenty years ago, the British literary magazine Granta published a list of what it considered the best young novelists of Britain. Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes, and many more went on to find fame and sometimes fortune. And Granta had found itself a tradition. The March edition features a new group of young authors. NPR's Lynn Neary speaks with Granta editor Ian Jack and two of the writers on the list: Alan Warner and Andrew O'Hagan.