Filmmaker and Music Video Director Julien Temple

Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson returns with his first solo album. Ken Tucker says Wilson has held onto the innocence associated with his old bands' early album. That said, it's impossible to separate the music from the bizarre media narrative of Wilson's personal life.

Bobbie Ann Mason's new, Spence and Lila, is about a couple who copes with the wife's breast cancer. Her previous novel, In Country, is being made into a film. She joins Fresh Air to talk about her approach to writing and the clowder of farm cats she raised.

While some film critics praise Bruce Willis's sensitive performance, Stephen Schiff says Die Hard's charm is in its fast-paced scenes of jubilant, large-scale destruction. It's this summer's guilty pleasure.