A+E

Circa 700 BC: Hesiod's Works and Days tells of mythic first woman Pandora raising a lid and releasing poverty, crime, sorrow and eventually Ryan Seacrest into the world.

A.D. 46-120: Cleopatra commits suicide by snake: "She kept it in a box and she did prick and thrust it with a spindle of gold, so that the aspic being angered withal, leaped out with great fury, and bit her in the arm." Plutarch, Life of Marcus Antonius.

1773: Future Starbucks franchisees rejoice as colonial patriots dressed as Mohawk Indians toss 342 crates of tea into the Boston Harbor.

1995: Brad Pitt loses his head at the climax of David Fincher's Seven after realizing what envious serial killer Kevin Spacey put in the box.

2000: The Andy Warhol Museum opens 610 "time capsules"—boxes Warhol pack-ratted till his death in 1987—revealing uncashed checks, paintbrushes given to him by Dali, handwritten lyrics to the Velvet Underground's "Heroin" and a mummified foot.

2006: The suspense of opening 26 numbered cases leads game show Deal or No Deal to become the summer's highest-rated series; host Howie Mandel's hairless dome and germophobic tics make us forget the genius of St. Elsewhere.

MOVIES: Summer isn't generally the time to release movies about, you know, ideas, but July 14 brings us A Scanner Darkly, Richard Linklater's adaptation of the classic Philip K. Dick novel about the malleability of identity. We're iffy on this. An ironclad Hollywood syllogism would seem to be in force: If Hollywood has a shaky record adapting Dick's novels (for every Blade Runner there's a Paycheck), and if this one stars Keanu Reeves, then, logically, odds are it'll suck. But it also features Robert Downey Jr. and was directed by Richard Linklater in his rotoscoping animation-over-live-acting technique, so who knows. Meanwhile, in a triumph of optimism (we lovingly remember The Sixth Sense) over experience (we cringingly recall Unbreakable and The Village), we await M. Night Shyamalan's latest, Lady in the Water (July 14) with something like anticipation. Bryce Dallas Howard stars as an ethereal creature who lives under Paul Giamatti's pool; also, there are wolves. Sick of this seasonally inappropriate brainy stuff? Get back to hot summer action with Michael Mann's Miami Vice on July 28. Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx do Crockett and Tubbs. Forget rumors of on-set troubles and a ballooning budget—this looks like another smart, slick crime thriller from Mann, who can do no wrong as far as we're concerned.

MUSIC: DJ Cut Chemist has left Jurassic 5, but the hip-hop crew bolsters its lineup with guests Mos Def and the Dave Matthews Band on Feedback (July 25), J5's first album in four years. Summer's loose, go-with-it vibe makes this a great time to wander beyond your normal musical boundaries. Our suggestion? Legendary Malian bluesman Ali Farka Toure, who succumbed to cancer in March, but not before completing work on Savane (July 25), pegged by Britain's Observer as "the finest album of his career."

BOOKS: Robert Sullivan's Cross Country, both a chronicle of a family road trip and an engaging history of American road-tripping, sounds like the smart read of the summer. If you don't mind a book about, you know, ideas.

Why We Fight (4 stars)


$24.96

With the Independence Day fireworks now dissipated, this is a good time to pick up Eugene Jarecki's documentary on American foreign policy in the wake of the Cold War and President Eisenhower's warning about the "military-industrial complex." It isn't a pretty picture. Through extensive interviews and archival documentation, Why We Fight argues convincingly that America no longer is as interested in making the world safe for democracy as it is determined to infect the planet with the same strain of virulent capitalism that has nearly decimated the domestic economy. While not as engaging as Fahrenheit 9/11, Why We Fight should be made essential viewing for anyone who still thinks we're in Iraq for all the right reasons.