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Slate contributor Ben Williams offers a weekly round-up of what film critics are saying about the weekend's major film premieres: Alfie, The Incredibles and It's All About Love.

Capable of singing blues, R&B, jazz, and pop, Dinah Washington touched the jazz world with her gritty, salty vocals. Her album, Unforgettable, contains the hit, "This Bitter Earth." According to jazz commentator Murray Horwitz, the album conjures up 1960s images of supper clubs, cocktail dresses, and suits with skinny ties.

When Sarah Vaughan was a rising jazz star in her 20s, she recorded The Quintessence. The collection features solos by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Teddy Wilson, Bud Powell, and others.

Writer Augusten Burroughs has two best-selling, often funny memoirs to his credit. His first, Running With Scissors, portrayed his early years with his mentally ill mother and her equally mentally ill shrink. His second, Dry, was about getting sober. Now Burroughs has a book of stories, Magical Thinking.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York celebrates its 75th birthday by opening an expanded new home. The $425 million project, five years in the making, doubles the size of MoMA's galleries. David D'Arcy reports.

From the thought-provoking artwork on the cover to the typeface and cartoons, a new magazine in Russia bears an uncanny resemblance to the American weekly The New Yorker. But the magazine has no connection with its U.S. twin.

Turkish author Orhan Pamuk's Snow is an admittedly political novel. But while its subject matter touches upon everything from the European Union to Islamic fundamentalism, Snow has been praised for its indelible characters, its insistence on a basic humanity. NPR's Steve Inskeep spoke with Pamuk about his latest novel.

In Finding Neverland, his latest film, Johnny Depp plays Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie. NPR's Elizabeth Blair speaks with Depp about Barrie and some of the other eccentric characters he's inhabited.

Slate contributor Ben Williams delivers a weekly roundup of what film critics are saying about this week's major new movie premieres -- The Grudge, Surviving Christmas and Sideways.

Day to Day music critic Christian Bordal reports on the Shortlist Music Prize, a music award given out annually to a rising independent artist.