Screen (Theaters) Brush With Death Art School Confidential In 1991, Daniel Clowes stuck a tiny four-page rant about art school at the end of his comic, Eightball #7. That afterthought is now the premise of his second motion picture. The film follows a doe-eyed freshman as he tries to paint his way to fame while contending with a dispirited prof (John Malkovich), theory-spouting posers, and a venal gallery owner. But there's a more talented artist on �campus: a psycho killer. Compared with Ghost World (Clowes' first effort), Confidential feels thin. Sure, it's got smart, ruthless satire, but it's a mishmash of drama, thriller, and romance. For substance, look to Fantagraphics' companion book, which packs the screenplay, original comic, and Clowes' production sketches. – Jason Silverman
Music Pink I'm Not Dead Not Dead's big, safe pop songs temper social �critique with personal reflection. Pink doesn't inject enough vitriol into tepid protests like "I Got Money Now" and the Indigo Girls-�assisted "Dear Mr. President." She comes back to life when she gets spunky, like on the kicky feminist "Stupid Girls." – Julianne Shepherd
Music Yeah Yeah Yeahs Show Your Bones These hipsters totally score with the disco-lite �shimmy of "Honeybear." But on other tracks guitarist Nick Zinner sounds like he's shredding Parmesan instead of axe, and Karen O's iconic howls are spoiled by lyrics like "I think I'm �bigger than the sound." Right. Like the LP title suggests: Show, don't tell! – Adrienne Day
Games (Nintendo DS) Metroid Prime Hunters Hunters blasts a hole in the notion that first-person shooters and handhelds don't go together. Controls are counterintuitive (tap a touchscreen to aim?), yet quickly become second nature. The single-player mode has fab puzzles and gadgets, but Wi-Fi multiplayer is the killer app. – Steven Kent
Games (Mac/PC) DOFUS Afraid to commit all that time, money, and hard drive space to World of Warcraft? Here's a similar online experience in a 40-Mbyte Flash file sfor about $7 a month. The turn-based combat can get tiresome, but DOFUS offers a surprising variety of missions, professions, and socializing. – Jim Rossignol
Print The Jasons Ann Finkbeiner Never heard of the Jasons? These crack US scientists with top-secret clearance have advised the Pentagon since 1960 on some of its toughest problems. Finkbeiner's unusual access makes for a true story that reads like a Tom Clancy novel. – Michael Reilly
Print What We Believe but Cannot Prove Edited by John Brockman More than 100 top thinkers tell us what they believe in – despite a lack of evidence. Turns out, true love and cockroaches with consciousness do exist. The soul and time don't. The point? What's really at stake here is the nature of "proof" itself. – Jennifer Hillner
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