For Mature Audiences Only

Another great doc, Dylan returns (again), and more media

August 29, 2006

MUSIC: Critics have been doing cartwheels over Bob Dylan's latest record, Modern Times. And for once, you can believe the hype: With old-fashioned blues shuffles and caustic-as-ever lyrics, the old man reminds us why he became famous 44 albums ago. Other noteworthy arrivals include M. Ward's elegiac Post-War and the Roots' politically charged Game Theory, their first for Jay-Z and Def Jam.

TV: You won't see any of the aforementioned at Thursday's MTV Video Music Awards, as great music takes a backseat to celebrity-ogling and shameless self-promotion at the Jack Black–hosted event (in other words, we wouldn't miss it for the world). Too lowbrow? Tune in to Monday night's Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Diff'rent Strokes on NBC.

MOVIES: Don't waste your time with The Wicker Man, Neil LaBute's pointless remake of the 1973 occult classic that stars Nicolas Cage. Instead, seek out Kirby Dick's eye-opening, hilarious doc, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which gets to the, ahem, bottom of the movie industry's shadowy ratings board. Don't miss it.

BOOKS: In his gloomy, riveting memoir The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, Daniel Mendelsohn travels through Eastern European in search of traces of his long-lost relatives who died in the Holocaust—kind of like Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated, only it's not fiction and it's not, you know, supremely agitating. And those interested in vanishing elephants, man-eating cats, and other animals that lend themselves to dating metaphors will appreciate Haruki Murakami's new short story collection, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.

DVD: In addition to being both smart and funny, Nicole Holofcener's Friends with Money offers Jennifer Aniston trying to hold her own opposite Catherine Keener and Frances McDormand. (Spoiler alert: She can't.) Also of note: The members of Monty Python (that's John Cleese, above right) release yet another best-of collection, the six-disc Personal Best. Hey, not everyone has Dylan's stamina.