Tossed Off

In its heyday, Liberty Avenue was the place to go for dirty movies and magazines. But now, after more than 30 years, the monkey business has come to a close.

• by Melissa Meinzer

Practicing What He Preaches

The Rev. Ricky Burgess tries to heal the wounds of District 9

• by Adam Fleming

Neighborhoods: Shop's compassion good for Bloomfield, bad for business

• by Adam Fleming

Technology: Verizon would be good for customers, but not city coffers

• by Chris Young

Apple Time

It's a bounty of fall fruit at area orchards and farms.

• by Melissa Meinzer

Indian Spices

Poor service hampers this cozy, Northern Indian eatery.

• by Angelique Bamberg and Jason Roth

Bon voyage to ambient electronic artist My Boyfriend The Pilot

"I put on a cocktail dress and stopped trying to appeal to the same audience as the guys in black T-shirts."

• by Manny Theiner

Dean & Britta perform with Warhol's famed screen tests for the Festival of Firsts

"If you know that Freddie Herko jumped out a window not long after his piece was filmed, that might change the way you look at it."

• by Andy Mulkerin

16 Horsepower frontman performs as Wovenhand at Club Café

"I use a lot of minor chords which give it a melancholy feel right off the bat ... which is just aesthetically what I like."

• by Margaret Welsh

Locals Mariage Blanc release cinematic debut EP, Broken Record

Out of Mariage Blanc's seven songs, more than half would make a perfect closing-credits song for a quirky indie dramedy.

• by Aaron Jentzen

Punk vets NOFX play for the kiddies at Club Zoo

It's pop-punk with the speed and frenetic energy of hardcore -- both intense and listenable, often with surprisingly intricate and creative songwriting.

• by Sean Collier

The Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour swings through Brillobox

The Elephant 6 collective produced some of the most eccentrically brilliant underground music of the 20th century's final years.

• by Mike Shanley

The Pittsburgh International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

The 23nd annual festival returns with entertaining and provocative feature films, documentaries and shorts highlighting the gay, lesbian and transgendered experience.

• by CP Staff

Trouble the Water

The grim and maddening story of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward is familiar. But among the many reasons to see this new documentary from filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal is Kim Rivers Roberts, whose story, family and home-video footage are the film's core. Trouble builds from Roberts' rawly candid and charismatically narrated first-person footage; then Lessin and Deal document her relocation to Memphis and bittersweet return home. Yet none of it would be half as vivid without Roberts, 24, a former teen-age drug-dealer who survived with her faith in God and dreams of a rap career intact. Her most memorable moment, though, is when she performs along with a song on her lone professionally produced recording -- the sole remaining copy of which was miraculously saved by a friend. The track, a survival story, is startlingly good, and it's somehow Trouble in miniature: a clear-eyed assessment of life's woes framed by indefatigable optimism, an expression of individual pride in the embrace of a family, a community, no disaster can erase. Starts Fri., Oct. 17. Harris (BO) [3.5 out of 4 stars]

• by Bill O'Driscoll

Body of Lies

Ridley Scott's latest actioner, about a CIA operative (Leonardo DiCaprio) working to uncover a major terrorist in Jordan, unfolds like a better-than-average beach thriller; in fact, it's based on a novel by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. But if you've ever read a black-and-silver covered paperback seaside, you'll see most the plot coming, including the unbelievable romance and the snatched-from-the-jaws-of-death conclusion. Thus, the film's pleasures aren't in its widely telegraphed plot twists, one-dimensional characters or the over-used tech toys that let protagonists miraculously see and hear all. But the time-honored good guys vs. bad guys drama, dressed up in new geopolitics and directed by a competent hand, is like visiting an old, easy-going pal. There's some enjoyable work by Mark Strong as an urbane Jordanian intelligence official, and a bloated Russell Crowe amusingly chomps the scenery while simply talking on the phone. I must note, however, that even Hollywood's War on Terror-inspired stories are now taking on a world-weary, there-are-no-winners vibe, so don't expect a lot of rah-rah red meat. (AH) [2.5 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

City of Ember

Give today's perilous economic and geo-political climate, I applaud dystopian features aimed at tweens. It's high time they get used to no resources, broken infrastructure, isolated fearful communities run by ineffectual adults and, potentially, no future at all. That said, Gil Kenan's fantastical family adventure, adapted from Jeanne Duprau's novel, does manage to literally find some light amid the gloom, as two teen-agers race to keep the lights on in the their underground city. A cast of comfortably familiar older actors -- Bill Murray, Toby Jones, Mary Kay Place, Martin Landau and Tim Robbins -- should keep adults mildly amused, while Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) and Harry Treadaway (Brothers of the Head) as the dreamy teen saviors will give the young 'uns someone to root for. I wished the story could have been more complex -- I've not read the book -- but then again, any film that pits Murray against a gigantic man-eating mole is worth noting. (AH) [2.5 out if 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

I.O.U.S.A.

It's admittedly tough to get audiences to go see feel-bad films, particularly when the message is: The United States is headed off a financial cliff very soon, and with all of us on board. But in a lucky break for director Patrick Creadon (Wordplay) and the alarm-bearers in his film -- among them former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, Rep. Ron Paul, Warren Buffet and former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill -- America is currently obsessed with macro-economics. (The ongoing credit crisis is not directly addressed in I.O.U.S.A., but it's part of the debt sickness.) Unlike some other docs on serious and complex issues, I.O.U.S.A. doesn't sexy up its material with funny quips or goofy old footage; this is a grim, good-for-you outing comprised of talking-head interviews and charts. (You may get one laugh from an excerpted SNL skit about savings vs. credit.) Simple graphics help illustrate how we got in this mess and which new economic disasters are likely ahead, though because solutions are less precise, I.O.U.S.A. ultimately feels move overwhelming than empowering. In its coda of dire warnings, the film predicts that the national debt will hit $10 trillion in January 2009. As it to underscore the film's frantic call that the U.S. debt crisis is out of control, we hit that dismaying benchmark last week. Starts Fri., Oct. 17. Squirrel Hill (AH) [2.5 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

A Man Named Pearl

As a hobby, Pearl Fryar, an African-American factory worker in a small fading town, took up gardening, specifically creating fantastic and fantastical topiary. With no training, Fryar spent decades sculpting discarded hedges and trees into abstract art. Now, his three-acre front yard -- long an off-beat tourist attraction drawing both horticulturists and fans of outsider art -- is helping to put tiny Bishopville, S.C. on the map. In their charming little documentary, filmmakers Scott Galloway and Brent Pierson catch up with Fryar, as the soft-spoken sharecropper's son explains the larger rewards his garden has brought, including inspiring young people, healing racial rifts, honoring God and just giving him a chance to thrill in his unique talents. There are few surprises in this laudatory, inspirational film, but Fryar is a worthy subject and a motivator to careless gardeners everywhere. (Wait until you meet his neighbors.) His topiary works featured here are simply astounding. Starts Fri., Oct. 17. Regent Square (AH) [2.5 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

Prajna Paramita Parasher inspires at moxie DaDA with ancient language and 21st-century techniques.

• by Lissa Brennan

Suburbia's possibilities, along with its flaws, are explored in a new show at the Carnegie.

Like 18th-century chroniclers of Roman ruins, some of these practitioners see new sources of esthetic exploration even in the overwhelming qualities of suburbia.

• by Charles Rosenblum

This Just In: October 16 - 23

Highlights from the local TV news: Searching for the plane truth about the mystery B-25 bomber.

• by Frances Sansig Monahan

August Occasion

Will life mirror art this November?

• by Chris Potter

Letters to the Editor: October 15 - 22

Feedback from our readers: Another look at The Other Shore.

Former Harper's editor Lewis Lapham discusses the media, Obama and Wall Street.

• by Chris Potter

Comedian Artie Lange might be off drugs, but he's still on.

"Getting a triple-word score on the word "zipper," while an amazing experience for a guy into Scrabble, doesn't compare to crack."

• by Charlie Deitch

The Pillow Project's Twenty Eighty-Four dazzles.

The atmospheric setting befitted what turned out to be one of the most captivating and unexpectedly brilliant productions of this young dance season.

• by Steve Sucato

Radio Golf

There's no slight intended to Wilson to say that Radio Golf is one of his lesser works.

• by Ted Hoover

Can-Can

Yes, it's that over-the-top: eye candy that's at once sweet, salty and a bit (un)savory.

• by Alan W. Petrucelli

Kimberly Akimbo

In the wrong hands, Kimberly Akimbo could be just another Jersey drama, but director Michael E. Moats has chiseled every detail, and each actor excels.

• by Robert Isenberg

Fearless Dutch troupe Kassys visits the Festival of Firsts.

But the audience is not only a witness, it is a conspirator.

• by Lissa Brennan

Teatro de los Sentidos promises viewers one-of-a-kind experiences.

"When we do scripts, we do a script for body sensation, we do a script for touch, a script for the smells."

• by Jessica Lam