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Entertainment Reviews

• Review: `Whip Smart' describes life as dominatrix (AP)

  AP - "Whip Smart" (Thomas Dunne Books, $24.99, 288 pages), by Melissa Febos. The memoir is a popular genre in books, thanks to writers like Augusten Burroughs, David Sedaris and even James Frey. So these days, if you're going to write a memoir, you need to be original.

  
  

• Jodi Picoult knows `Rules' of engaging readers (AP)

  AP - "House Rules" (Atria, 353 pages, $28), by Jodi Picoult: Jodi Picoult knows her audience. She tends to write family dramas that tug at the heartstrings. Her books have short chapters, usually written from the perspective of the main characters, and often have a surprise ending.

  
  

• "Children of Invention" a dramatically tepid tale (Reuters)

  Reuters - The loss of childhood illusions and of youthful naivete looms large in this first feature by Chicago-born Tze Chun, whose drama about a struggling, single-mom immigrant takes place in the Boston suburbs where he was raised.

• "Love Never Dies" a brilliant sequel to "Phantom" (Reuters)

  Reuters - Unlike lightning, Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom" does strike twice.

• Loud and "Clear" view of Iraq War from U.S. Marine (Reuters)

  Reuters - Television journalists might have brought the Vietnam War into our living rooms, but it's the soldiers who are providing the same service these days.

• DreamWorks' "Dragon" has no fire (Reuters)

  Reuters - "How to Train Your Dragon" pits dragons against Vikings with one small child standing between them crying, "Why can't we all just get along?"

• Deeply moving "Next Fall" deserves Broadway shot (Reuters)

  Reuters - In these recessionary times, it might take more than the imprimatur of celebrity presenters Elton John and David Furnish to make "Next Fall" viable for a Broadway run.

• Review: Question of faith explored in 'Next Fall' (AP)

  AP - To believe or not to believe.

  
  

• Author writes about loss, family in India and US (AP)

  AP - "Secret Daughter" (William Morrow, 352 pages, $23.99), by Shilpi Somaya Gowda: Sometimes the image in our minds of what we have lost is far greater than the loss itself, and so it is for Asha, who was given up for adoption by her birth parents in India.

• Author reveals the unwritten rules of baseball (AP)

  AP - "The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime" (Pantheon Books, 304 pages, $25), by Jason Turbow with Michael Duca: Major League Baseball is a complex, intricate game with a thick rule book that covers everything from balks and bunts to force plays and foul tips.

  
  

• Phantom sequel a "shadow of the original" (Reuters)

  Reuters - Comparisons with the original were inevitable when Andrew Lloyd Webber decided to write a sequel to his record-breaking musical "Phantom of the Opera."

• Capsule reviews: `Green Zone' and others (AP)

  AP - Capsule reviews of films opening this week:

• Review: 'Out of League' takes title too literally (AP)

  AP - Remember the hoo-ha over whether Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl made a believable couple in Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up"?

  
  

• "Sons of Tucson" mixes warmth with sly wit (Reuters)

  Reuters - One might call Fox's "Sons of Tucson" a blended-family comedy.

• Father, daughter make baseball a year-round quest (AP)

  AP - "The Baseball Fan's Bucket List: 162 Things You Must See, Do, Get, and Experience Before You Die" (Running Press, 288 pages, $15.95), by Robert Santelli and Jenna Santelli: Baseball is played by the boys of spring, whose sport also runs through summer and spills into the first several weeks of fall.

  
  

• Thai thriller straddles homophobia, homoerotica (Reuters)

  Reuters - In the slasher-thriller "Slice," a cop-turned-convict tracks down a serial killer by delving into his own troubled childhood memories.

• 'The Scottsboro Boys' examines racial injustice (AP)

  AP - Let's get right to the point. "The Scottsboro Boys" is a staggeringly inventive piece of musical theater.

  
  

• Life's too short for "Minute to Win It" (Reuters)

  Reuters - Without football or Olympics, NBC has a Sunday slot to be filled. At the same time, it has a game show, "Minute to Win It," which is capable of filling an hour. At NBC these days, that qualifies as a programing match made in heaven.

• Review: Pattinson still brooding in `Remember Me' (AP)

  AP - In "Remember Me," Robert Pattinson has temporarily stepped away from "Twilight," apparently in search of his "Five Easy Pieces" or "Rebel Without a Cause."

  
  

• "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" a cold-case chiller (Reuters)

  Reuters - Revolving around an investigative reporter and his unlikely crime-solving partner, Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson's posthumous Millennium trilogy of novels were not so much best-sellers as international publishing phenomena.