How To Have A XXX Sex Life (5 stars)
By Dan Anderson and Maggie Berman, $24.95
When you need help on something, you go to the experts, so it only makes sense that a book about improving life in the bedroom (or kitchen, or airplane restroom, or ...) would go to the women at Vivid Video, one of the larger porn producers out there. Jenna Jameson, Brianna Banks and other stars share their experience in such chapters as Knock on Wood and Bend Over Babes and Boys, each beginning with an explicit scenario from one of Vivid's films. The advice ranges from pretty basic ("Never underestimate the power of a kiss!") to, well, less than basic, but like all advice, its value is relative. But no punches are pulled and guaranteed it's coming from people who know their stuff.
DVDS
Pennies From Heaven (R) (4.5 stars)
Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Christopher Walken
Warner Home Video, $19.97
Warner has finally released Steve Martin's star turn in his first non-comedic role, and rewarded the patience of Dennis Potter fans by simultaneously sending out a boxed set of the brilliant BBC mini-series that inspired it. Martin is a Depression-era sheet-music peddler who can't understand why life can't imitate music. Don't miss Christopher Walken's amazing dance number.
Salaam Bombay Dreams (NR) (4 stars)
Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Queen Elizabeth
Red Distribution, $14.98
Most docs about the collaborative magic behind big-budget movies, television and stage productions are little more than thinly veiled press releases. But this four-hour package stands on its own as a revelatory chronicle of how this big-budget musical evolved from brainstorm stage to the gala benefit performance in front of Queen Elizabeth. A must for anyone who loves musical theater.
You Bet Your Life ... the Best Episodes (NR) (4 stars)
Groucho Marx, George Fenneman, Phyllis Diller
Shout Factory, $39.98
By the early '50s, Groucho Marx's movie career was history, yet his mind and tongue were as sharp as ever. For more than a decade, You Bet Your Life was a Thursday night fixture, thanks to Groucho's personality. This collection contains 18 classic episodes, with stars from Frankie Avalon to Johnny Weismuller; pilots of "What Do You Want," "Tell It to Groucho" and "The Plot Thickens"; out-takes; and original commercials.
Judging Books by Their Covers + Magazine Note
Shadow Divers
By Robert Kurson, $26.95
Whatever happened to the golden era of book cover design, when books about divers and submarines would have a picture of a diver or a submarine on the front? Those days are just gone, mister. Can you really trust a book that illustrates all that undersea adventure with some bubbles? What if it's just a whale passing gas? How are we to know?
Father Joe
By Tony Hendra, $24.95
The subtitle, The Man Who Saved My Soul. The monkish robe. The hands clasped around an obviously sacred book. Something about this cover suggests that this book is religious in nature! Isn't there an amendment against that?
Esquire and GQ
In their August issues, the rival men's magazines each try to explain President Bush. In Esquire's "The Case For George W. Bush," writer Tom Junod lights his portrait of Bush with the reflected glow of Abe Lincoln, suggesting intermittently convincing parallels between the two. His main point: Bush is right to insist that war on terror is the moral issue of our time, while his opponents are wrong to believe that the moral issue of our time is unseating Bush. But the argument wobbles thanks to the obvious selectivity of the evidence Junod presents. Meanwhile, GQ offers a scampish satire about 1972, Bush's "lost year"—you remember, his lightly documented stint in the Air National Guard. Writer Jason Gay's posits Bush as an agent for a super-secret intelligence unit. Yeah, funny. Bush was deployed to disrupt the North Vietnamese with a series of frat pranks—such as sticking a banana in the tailpipe of a Viet Cong official. OK, not ha-ha funny, more like brain-funny, and terminally lightweight. You don't have to hate Bush to chuckle. But it helps.
CD
Nancy Wilson (4 stars)
RSVP
A Las Vegas headliner in the '60s and '70s—and at one point Capitol Records' No. 2 top-seller after the Beatles—Nancy Wilson is back with a collection of never-before-recorded classics, each with guest musicians pulled from the worlds of jazz and R&B. A Vegas resident, Wilson's voice is as fresh, sophisticated and sprightly today as it was 40 years ago.