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Our cultural concierge, Jesse Kornbluth, urges revisiting the 1983 comedy, Local Hero. The soundtrack of this overlooked film – about Scottish villagers who thwart an American oil company's efforts to buy their land — is just as entertaining as the premise.

Novelist Geraldine Brooks, poet Robert Hass, Western essayist William Kittredge: from critic Alan Cheuse, an array of books to keep winter's chill and the ever-earlier dark at bay — at least in the circle of light by the reader's chair.

Miss Navajo is a documentary about a pageant that honors not only beauty, but also knowledge of the language and culture of the Navajo Nation. The film is set to air within the PBS series Independent Lens. Billy Luther, who directed the film, and his mother Sarah Luther, who formerly held the Miss Navajo title, discuss what the pageant means within American Indian cultures.

"Seduced" at the Barbican Gallery attempts to show 2,500 years of sexuality in world art, and to explore how attitudes about what is erotic art and what is pornography have changed through the ages. It's billed as the most sexually explicit fine-art exhibition ever staged.

American Gangster, a film based on the life of Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas, hits movie screens this weekend starring Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington. This week's Next Big Thing looks at pop culture's fascination with black gangsters through the years. Mark Rowland, producer of a new BET series on gangsters of color, is joined by filmmaker Marc Levin to discuss America's fascination.

The curtain will go up Thursday on most of the Broadway shows that have been closed for 19 days by a stagehands strike. Stagehands and theater producers reached a tentative agreement Wednesday night on the fight, which has kept more than two dozen shows in the dark.

From Darth Vader to Scarlett O'Hara, the best fictional characters reflect something about who we are and how we got here. In Character, a six-month series from NPR, explores indelible American characters from fiction, folklore and pop culture.

Three big auction houses — Christie's, Sotheby's and Philips de Pury — are selling works whose value they estimate at more than $900 million. Lindsay Pollock, a journalist specializing in the art market, considers whether the contemporary art bubble could burst.

Actor Hugh Grant auctioned the painting for $21 million.

The Writers Guild of America strike is heading into day four, with chants and signs that leave a little something to be desired. These are the folks who right sitcoms and movies, and the best they've got is "No Money, No Funny." Dimassimo Goldstein copywriter Annie O'Rourke debuts some new possibilities.