A+E

One-Twelfth of the Year at a Glance: October

Movies: Here's a cinematic gimmick destined to go nowhere: people having actual sex on film. And it's not even pornography! Sex has been "cheapened" by porn, writer/director John Cameron Mitchell told a reporter regarding his controversial film Shortbus (October 27, tentatively). It's hard to see sex being much better served by arty drama—in this case, the intertwined stories of sexually dysfunctional New Yorkers drawn to an underground club called Shortbus—but we'll watch it as many times as it takes to form a definitive opinion. We suspect it won't take nearly as many viewings to judge Man of the Year (October 13), Barry Levinson's ripped-from-the-headlines tale of a comedian (Robin Williams) mistakenly elected president. In Marie Antoinette (October 20), her ripped-from-the-history-books take on another doomed head of state, Sofia Coppola ditches the usual somber period approach to tell a stylized, contemporary story, complete with, of course, '80s soundtrack. The French booed it at Cannes, probably because the movie was fun.

Music: Their last album was a stunner, so even though you've never heard of Akron/Family, we're urging you to take a chance on their new disc, Meek Warrior (October 3). To say that these guys run the gamut of the spectrum of the range is to merely begin to suggest their stylistic eccentricity, from psychedelic guitar to skronk-jazz sax to a cappella whatever. Somehow, they make it work. Trust us. On the other hand, can you trust Beck? He's up one album, down the next. Perhaps this helps: The Information (October 3) is produced by the guy who did Mutations and Sea Change, so if you liked those, you might not think this one is, heh heh, a loser. And speaking of forces of evil in a bozo nightmare: Meat Loaf! Proving he's unafraid to dip into the same well yet again, he'll release Bat Out of the Marketing Department 3: Let's Cash in Again! (October 31) just in time for Halloween. This one's all about the cover art, folks.

Book: Somewhere in America, a Publishers Weekly reviewer lies near death, spent from writing the magazine's swooning review of Erik Larson's Thunderstruck (October 24). Like his block-busting The Devil in the White City, Larson's new volume is a gripping true-crime historical yarn featuring a killer and a genius whose fates are inexorably linked. This repetition does not make him literature's Meat Loaf: It's "splendid, beautifully written," sez Publishers Weekly.

The Notorious Bettie Page (2 stars)

$19.95

Cultural ephemera you
must know about!

1. Is there any bar mitzvah, family dinner or baby shower that can't be enlivened by a farting teddy bear, only $14.95 from Direct Source of Orangeburg, New York? When someone picks him up, aw, cuuute, you trigger the remote and, according to the ad in Sunday's R-J, you get "guaranteed laughs for everyone!" Curiously, that's how it works in several sections of the Sunday R-J.

2. The mission statement in the debut issue of Good magazine says the publication is here to push a movement of people united by "a passion for potential mixed with fierce pragmatism and creative engagement. We sum this all up as the sensibility of giving a damn" (italics very much theirs). To that end, this issue offers a thinky piece on America's place in the world, a nonpartisan guide to midterm elections and a well-intentioned piece on "the next generation of America's public spaces." Imagine the forced uplift if they were doing Great.

The best antidote to censor overload

September 28, 7 p.m., main theater, Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road. 507-3459.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and Las Vegans are taking up the cause. Mark James, creator of Cockblocker Clothing and son of a breast cancer survivor, is auctioning off celebrity-autographed CBC stuff to benefit the Susan G. Komen Foundation on eBay through October 1. Bid on C. Thomas Howell's signed PONY shell toes at www.blockerclothing.com/fightingbreastcancer. Or hit the Beauty Bar October 4 for a Martini and Manicure mixer—sit with other do-gooders for a philanthropic buff and polish. www.beautybar.com.