A+E

Spin's three-star review of The Killers' Sam's Town
(2 stars)

You kinda want to be snotty about this review: It's in a magazine whose apparent ambition is to be a third-rate Rolling Stone; it substitutes lazy Vegas allusions for critical thinking (“... it often brings to mind one of the city's not-so-glamorous institutions: the all-you-can-eat buffet"; “... Almost every song is in the Vegas tradition of showmen who don't know when to say when"); and even the smart-sounding stuff (“...The Killers are a quintessential Vegas act—a gaudy triumph of pastiche and artifice") sounds like it's already been said by French philosophers. But reviewer Dennis Lim nails some aspects of the band's music, including the “brute efficiency of the hooks" and its essentially derivitive nature (“whomever they're borrowing from, The Killers know only one kind of song"). We've read better, we've read worse.

Dudes, Get Your Comedy Career Started!

Attention, male dive-bar patrons! As a frequenter of many skeevy establishments, Nathan Lund insists, “If your [penis] is the cleanest thing in the bathroom, you don't have to wash your hands." A begrudged giggle at potty humor is still a laugh, so says Lund and the other 11 comedians who took the stage Wednesday night. “Laugh or Die Trying!," Luke Andersen's stand-up comedy open mic, is gaining momentum with weekly showcases at Bunkhouse. Winners compete for pay on the following First Friday.

For the opportunity to impart your wise cracks of wisdom, sign-up in person Wednesday before 8 p.m. or send a plea to: myspace.com/lukeandersen.

WWW.EDGE.ORG The Internet, much to our surprise, turns out to be good for more than—in case the boss is reading this—looking up very important, work-related information in a timely manner. It's also good for killing time. At least edge.org occupies your idleness in a brain-building way. It brings together scientists, writers, thinkers and other members of the nerderatti to puzzle out loud about intelligent design, the nature of physics and that sort of thing. It's a little hard to navigate at first, but once you're in, ideas gallop across its pages, just as Einstein envisioned when he invented the Internet in 1905.

District B13
(4 stars)

$26.98

Produced and cowritten by Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element), District B13 was hands-down this summer's most exciting and frenetic action-thriller, as well as the most neglected. Instead of being promoted as a Gallic Kung Fu Hustle to martial-arts junkies, it was sent out as a beret-wearing Mad Max for the art-house circuit. To summarize: The year is 2010, and the housing projects of Paris have been walled up to contain the miscreants. Outside, peace is maintained by corrupt politicians and brutal cops; inside, drug dealers and thugs reign. Somehow, the B13 dwellers come in possession of a neutron bomb, with which they plan to hold the rest of city hostage. An honest cop and an ex-con from B13 work together to prevent such a disaster. In addition to the hectic pacing, what separated District B13 from the pack was the fighting discipline “parkour," which required the actors to spring from building to building, ledge to ledge, as if they were gazelles. It's a hoot from start to finish, made even more entertaining by the fact that most of the stunts were performed without the benefit of wires or digital effects. It deserves a better fate in video.

In Echo House, The Unfinished Season and The Weather in Berlin, Ward Just spent the past decade retelling the story of the last American century. At last Mr. Just has reached the present, and our grappling with global jihadism, in Forgetfulness (Houghton Mifflin, $26.98).

Just's finest novel yet concerns an expatriate American painter named Thomas Railles, whose wife, Florette, dies on a hike in the mountains near the Pyrenees village where they live. She might have been the victim of random violence, but Thomas's former colleagues at the CIA think otherwise and are eager to help him exact revenge. A tremendous opening set piece both recounts Florette's nightmarish end and establishes how Thomas' ambivalence toward his American identity will complicate his decision about how to proceed. Mr. Just is at this best when weighing moral dilemmas, as when his main character tries to understand the nature of vengeance. Faced with the opportunity to use the tools of secret war in a moment of personal anguish, he is not so sure he wants to walk away this time.

This weekend, video-game players of all shapes and sizes will descend on the Aladdin hotel for the World Cyber Games, but it's a safe bet that none of them will be quite as lovely as the gamers who met with fans at the Aladdin's pool this week.

Les Seules (French for “Outsiders") is an all-female gamer clan of five Scandinavian beauties. But don't let those alluring feminine features fool you. Approach these sirens in an online game of Counter-Strike, and you're liable to disappear in the flash of a grenade. And you thought rejection was tough in the real world.

The internationally renowned team made a stop in Las Vegas as part of its ongoing documentary series, Play Us, in which the group is subjected to a series of surprise activities, from game competitions to fashion shows. The program has yet to be picked up stateside, but Les Seules already have a small U.S. following and took time to sign autographs and chat with about 20 Vegas fans, with reality-show cameramen in tow. The hectic schedule is a drastic change from their usual online fragging routine.

“I play a lot—about eight, nine, 10 hours a day—pretty much every day," says Nathalie EK, better known by her gamer handle NatO.

As frequent finalists and champions in game competitions, the Swedish, Norwegian and Danish girls decided to form Les Seules in 2004. “It's the adrenaline of getting together for competitions that got me hooked," says Louise “Aurora" Thomsen.

Good looks and handy with virtual machine guns? Sounds like a gamer's dream come true, but these gals can be picky when it comes to dating.

“He'd have to at least like video games," NatO says, “so he'd understand why I spend so much time playing." Game, anyone?