A+E

MOVIES: It's hard to say the season of grown-up movies has arrived when Jackass: Number Two is about to blurt from the pipeline, but fall offers some relief from blockbuster fatigue. This month, a couple of noirish takes on real incidents lead the way. Hollywoodland (September 8) stars Ben Affleck in what's being touted as a career-rehab vehicle, as if he needs one: the story of the mysterious death of old-timey Superman actor George Reeves. Adrien Brody plays the detective who investigates. Diane Lane costars as, well, who cares—she's gorgeous. The Black Dahlia (September 15) finds director Brian De Palma on familiar turf, the murder mystery, this time pacing Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson through the story of a young starlet who was murdered and cut in half in '40s Hollywood. Speaking of halfsies: Half-Nelson (September 22) was a hit at Sundance, and no wonder—it's the story of a great teacher (Ryan Gosling) who has a crack addiction. We hear it's not the sap-fest it sounds like.

MUSIC: Whether your car's thermometer agrees, summer officially ends in September, so why not embrace hot, multicultural music while there's time? Mexican band Kinky blends electronics, funk and rock, not to mention Spanish and english vocals, on third album Reina (September 5), while Venezuela's Los Amigos Invisibles should keep you baila-ing 'til dawn with their eclectic Latin-dance sound on Superpop Venezuela (September 5). And though the Brazilian Girls are based in Manhattan, the group's ultrahip fusion of reggae, jazz and electronic pop promises Talk to la Bomb (September 12) will feel distinctly imported.

BOOK: New York Times columnist Frank Rich doesn't break much new ground in The Greatest Story ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina. He doesn't need to. There's more than enough material already out there to pack this angry indictment of government propaganda and media complicity. Rich collates it all in what may be the ultimate noirish take on real events.

SIGNS OF (UNWARRANTED?) OPTIMISM 1. Spotted on the magazine rack at several local grocery—not book—stores: issues of Harper's AND The Atlantic Fiction Issue. Someone at mag-distribution central has great faith in the intellectual questing of food-buying housewives. Just don't bag the milk with the virulent anti-Bushism of Harper's!

2. The hopeful tone of the Review-Journal's August 20 story about jazz in Las Vegas: "According to some, the jazz scene is already beginning to pick up some momentum." Never mind this quote, 13 paragraphs earlier, from a local musician: "[Jazz is] going to die when we die ..." Don't worry; we hear momentum is picking up.

What Andy Warhol should have said was that in the future, everyone would sell their souls for 15 seconds of airtime. Or 1,000 hits on YouTube. Matt Felker (that hottie Britney Spears dry-humped in her "Toxic" video) is exploiting our fame fixation with a line of tees emblazoned "Who is Brad Lenz?" And who is Brad Lenz? Felker insists that each of us is Brad Lenz, from the celebutante munching celery at the Ivy to the homeless guy hassling you for a handout. "Brad Lenz is the person that we have been sold. The ideal. The obsession with fame." To get in on the irony, go to www.myspace.com/whoisbradlenz333

A Totally Scientific examination!

We ran several jokes by Blue Collar Comedy stalwart Ron White through our White Collar Laugh-o-Meter. The results:

1. "You've seen one woman nekkid ... you want to see the rest of them nekkid!"

2. Arrested after a bar fight: "I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability."

3. "Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty. Mine [Texas] is putting in an express lane."

Analysis: Naked-women humor crosses all class barriers, of course. Wan booze jokes have less appeal to cubicle folk—and many white-collar Americans actually fear Texas, where charges of metrosexuality can land you on Death Row.