Pat Dowell

Productions Peter Pan have reflected changing social attitudes toward children over the years. The result is that until recently, Peter, the boy who wouldn't grow up, was played by a woman. NPR's Pat Dowell explores the history of the character.

Ancient Rome and Greece seem to be the hot topics for major motion pictures once again. Troy, with Brad Pitt as Achilles, opens in theaters next weekend. Alexander, directed by Oliver Stone, opens this summer. Pat Dowell reports on why filmmakers find the ancient venues so appealing.

The Return of the King, the last film in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, leads the Academy Awards race with 11 nominations, including best picture and best director. Master and Commander gets 10 Oscar nods. With her film Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola becomes the first American woman to be nominated for best director. Hear NPR's Bob Edwards and reporter Pat Dowell.

Bob Hope, master of the one-liner and world-famous comedian, dies of pneumonia at 100. A star in vaudeville, radio, television and film, Hope helped define the monologue. He was best known for entertaining U.S. troops at bases around the world. Pat Dowell has a remembrance.

Screen legend Katharine Hepburn, who starred in more than 50 films and projected the ideals of independence and intelligence to generations of women, dies at 96. Hepburn won a record four best actress Oscars in her 60-year career, for her roles in Morning Glory, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Lion in Winter and On Golden Pond. Hear Pat Dowell.

Gregory Peck, one of the enduring stars of Hollywood's golden age, dies at his home in Los Angeles. He was 87. More often than not, Peck played the hero. He won an Oscar for his 1963 role as the quietly courageous defense lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird. Pat Dowell offers a remembrance. (Please note this correction: "Listeners to the first feed of our program last Thursday may have heard an error in our obituary for Gregory Peck. Pat Dowell placed the story of To Kill a Mockingbird in Mississippi. That led Chuck Bearman, chief of staff in the office of Mississippi's secretary of state, to write. As he pointed out -- It was not set in Mississippi, but in Alabama.")

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.

Avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage's death at age 70 ends a career that made a lasting impact on fellow directors. Brakhage made nearly 400 films, most silent, many quite short. He sought to reflect "every kind of seeing" on film. NPR's Pat Dowell reports.