SCREEN (THEATERS) Riding Giants In the wake of his skate-umentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, director Stacy Peralta returns with the definitive history of big-wave riding. Peralta edits seminal late-'50s footage of longboard pioneer Greg "Da Bull" Noll and his crew of haole chargers on Oahu's North Shore into a tiki-party frenzy. But the best scenes come when Peralta's camera catches buffed-out hell men like Grant Washburn and Laird Hamilton waxing sentimental about their love-and-death bond with the ocean. – Josh McHugh
SCREEN (DVD) Thunderbirds (International Rescue Edition) It's tough being the youngest brother in the business of saving the world. But Alan Tracy can dream, and boy, does he in Thunderbirds Are Go: His song-and-dance fantasy at the Swinging Star – with spymistress Penelope right there on his arm! – is the highlight of this double-feature set. The '60s Brit TV show starred square-jawed puppets and space-age miniatures, but its real hero was the exhilaration of rocket launches in the era when Bonanza met James Bond. – W. O. Goggins
SCREEN (THEATERS) Open Water None of the safeguards built into modern scuba technology can save a bickering couple when they're left behind by a tour boat, bobbing like buoys in the middle of the sea. Director Chris Kentis produced a terrifying thriller with very little to work with – two unknown actors, the fuzzy palette of a low-end digital camera, and no special effects or animatronic beasts. (Yes, those 11-foot bull sharks are real!) Open Water has all of Waiting for Godot's pacing and every bit of Jaws' bite. – Beth Pinsker
SCREEN (THEATERS) Word Wars If you can make a word out of the letters C-H-O-P-P-S-Y in three minutes or less, you just might keep up with the four Scrabble champs profiled in this surprisingly high-octane documentary. No mere spelling bee contenders, these anagrammers memorize entire dictionaries and words with no vowels. They play all-day tourneys and viciously vie for paltry prize money. The players' strange misery (and their allergies, superstitions, and performance-enhancing drugs) make for a great road-trip film. – B.P.
GAMES (PS2) Crimson Tears The plot of this brawler may sound familiar: In postapocalyptic Tokyo, you play a cyborg who uses swords, flamethrowers, and fists to fight monsters and mutants, yadda, yadda, yadda. But the game's randomly generated maze design means there's always a surprise around the corner. And while booty captured during beatdowns can be traded for standard upgrades like new weapons, you can opt instead to donate your cash to the town for civic improvements. No game ever let me do that before. – Scott Steinberg
GAMES (GAMECUBE) Tales of Symphonia Sick of videogames that take the sword-and-sorcery shtick too seriously? Tales of Symphonia is light on RPG geekery and teen angst and heavy on comic relief; its madcap characters smack one another as often as they pound on baddies. The amazing anime-quality graphics blend seamlessly with the cinematic cut-scenes. Exciting real-time battles let you take down an evil empire's bureaucrats with wacky weapons like "gourmet" food items that you concoct. Tasty. – Chris Kohler
GAMES (PC, PS2, XBOX, GAMECUBE) Spider-Man 2 This action game is refreshingly open-ended: You could spend days just sightseeing in its enormous virtual NYC. Call it Grand Theft Arachnid: Big Apple. Clamber up the Empire State Building, swing through the steel canyons, and latch on to the spire of St. Pat's Cathedral. Don't forget to dole out some two-fisted justice along the way. Luckily, you'll contend only with Doc Ock et al., not the screwy camera that plagued the last Spider-game. Excelsior! – Darren Gladstone
GAMES (PC, PS2, XBOX) Shellshock: Nam '67 Iraq may dominate the headlines, but Vietnam is the gamers' war du jour. Of the four recent titles set there, this is the most brutal yet. It spares no atrocity as players torture prisoners and napalm civilians to advance. Barter for equipment and R&R time at base camp, then dodge sadistic booby traps that cripple your comrades as you complete missions ranging from all-out assaults to assassination attempts. Grainy v�rit� visuals and Apocalypse Now trappings aside, this is a solid shooter. – S.S.
MUSIC Sonic Youth Sonic Nurse Nineteen albums into its career, Sonic Youth is still doing what it does best: sprawling, feisty, guitar-drenched freak-outs held together by laconic vocals and elliptical rants against right-wing politics. When the band rips apart the pre-emptive strike on Iraq ("Peace Attack") the new record sounds just as vital as releases from more than a decade ago. On "Paper Cup Exit," frontman Thurston Moore knowingly sings, "It's later than it seems/new ears are listening." Older ones, too. – Stacy Osbaum
MUSIC Tracy and the Plastics Culture for Pigeon Tracy and the Plastics is a one-woman band masquerading as a trio. (Wynne Greenwood backs herself up on video during live shows.) But don't let the artsy concept put you off. Her quirky, low-fi beats and spine-chilling warble are naive but captivating. Greenwood sings weirdly intimate lullabies as pixelated dusk falls in the background. Spindly guitars, Casio squelches, and crudely programmed drums bristle like a Sanrio porcupine: cuddly at first glance, but cold and sharp to the touch. – Philip Sherburne
MUSIC The Album Leaf In a Safe Place Jimmy LaValle left the snarl of SoCal to record in an isolated Icelandic studio frequented by like-minded space rockers Sigur R�s and M�m. The resulting album is intimate and comforting. "On Your Way," a collaboration with Black Heart Procession singer Pall Jenkins, melds minimalist electronic beats with ambient guitar and xylophone to create the chamber pop song of the year. To describe it as meditative would be an understatement. This is music to dream by. – Eric Steuer
MUSIC PJ Harvey Uh Huh Her With song titles like "Who the Fuck?" and "The Pocket Knife," it's tempting to assume PJ Harvey has returned to the macho come-ons of her early work. The self-produced Uh Huh Her is raw, to be sure, but it's also an eclectic mix of romantic dirges and – gasp! – even some folk. Still, ever the banshee prom queen, Harvey manages to sneak in a few screeching art-rock masterpieces amid all the delicate emotion. Who says loud can't be sophisticated? – Michelle Devereaux
PRINT The Coma Alex Garland The screenwriter of 28 Days Later once again tackles the surreal with such clarity you have to wonder about his sanity. After a nondescript London office worker awakens from a deep sleep, he encounters a strange, off-key reality where he can't even remember his last name. Could it be he's actually not awake after all? An eerie, existential mystery, the novel's disjointed scenes flow together like a lucid, cinematic dream. A Danny Boyle film adaptation can't be far off. – M.D.
PRINT Life 2.0: How People Across America Are Transforming Their Lives by Finding the Where of Their Happiness Rich Karlgaard Looking to escape from cell blocks 212, 415, and 408? The publisher of Forbes shares inspiring case studies of entrepreneurs and coastal-bound IT pros who moved into more charming and less caffeinated communities. The book breezes past nonessentials like Karlgaard's small plane maintenance and ends with a fascinating appendix of 150 locales where mortgages are 8X cheaper and lifestyles 10X sweeter. – Bob Parks
PRINT Tales to Astonish: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and the American Comic Book Revolution Ronin Ro Jack Kirby didn't invent the superhero, but his page-bursting art and sophisticated plots made them immortal. In his 50-plus-year career he helped ink The Hulk, The X-Men, and The Fantastic Four and laid the groundwork for legions of comics. Ro lingers too long on Kirby's CV, but great moments come through – like when Kirby drew 10 pages of Daredevil just to show a new artist how the character is done. – Adam Rogers
PRINT How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization Franklin Foer Foer interviewed politicians, club owners, and soccer's most infamous thugs to gauge the sport's impact on global issues such as modernization, assimilation, and regime change. In one passage, he presents the clean-shaven faces of Iran's star players as proof of Western values seeping into Islamic culture. Foer's arguments aren't shocking, but they're entertaining. "You can't beat up an idea," Foer writes – though no doubt hooligans have tried. – Erik Malinowski
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