MOVIES
DEAD AGAIN. Kenneth Branagh, Shakespearean phenom of the London stage, hatched an improbable hit from this no-star film noir. Branagh has fun ransacking Hitchcock's skeleton closet, and his wife Emma Thompson is ravishing as the doomed heroine, but there's not much here to prop up a preposterous plot.
SEX, DRUGS, ROCK & ROLL. Eric Bogosian is the Swinburne of sleaze. The master monologuist finds fetid poetry in the butt ends of urban American lives: street people, soul-dead tough guys, ex-dopester rock stars. They crowd the stage in this one-man show, a 1990 off-Broadway hit artfully filmed by director John McNaughton.
EATING. Since its release in May, Henry Jaglom's "serious comedy about food" has earned a fervent cult audience. A melange of masochists, we'd say, since the mostly young, blond and svelte women in the cast mostly complain about how fat they are. Of time-capsule value only, to remind future generations of '90s America's obsession with appearance.
BOOKS
THE GOLD BUG VARIATIONS by Richard Powers (Morrow; $25). This complex novel demands a lot from readers, but its payoff is immense: two love stories coiled intricately around a thrilling intellectual quest to find nothing less than the meaning of life.
SAINT MAYBE by Anne Tyler (Knopf; $22). In her 12th novel, Tyler turns her ) generous sympathies and formidable skills to an investigation of the sources and aftereffects -- both comic and profound -- of religious faith.
MUSIC
ROBBIE ROBERTSON: STORYVILLE (Geffen). "Catch a thrill," Robertson sings in Go Back to Your Woods, and there isn't a bigger or better thrill to be heard anywhere right now than this ravishing new collection of songs that capture the fragile magic of American mythology and transform it into an eldritch excursion through the collective rock unconscious. Whew! Oh, mustn't forget: it really jumps too.
WYNTON MARSALIS: SOUL GESTURES IN SOUTHERN BLUE (Columbia). This three-CD series, recorded in 1987 and 1988, is an ambitious exploration of the most basic jazz idiom: the blues. The 18 sides mark Marsalis' transition from aggressive post-'60s modernism to a more sensual, lyrical style that draws on the work of past masters while forging a personal -- and thoroughly contemporary -- sound.
FREDDIE HUBBARD: BOLIVIA (Musicmasters). Hubbard seasons his dazzling trumpet with some Latin American spice in one of the most listenable jazz albums of the year.
TELEVISION
IRAN: DAYS OF CRISIS (TNT, Sept. 30, Oct. 1, 8 p.m. EDT). The crisis before last -- or was it the one before that? An earnest but uninspired docudrama about the events that led up to and followed the Khomeini revolution and the taking of American hostages.
LBJ (PBS, Sept. 30, Oct. 1, 9 p.m. on most stations). Love him or hate him, Lyndon Johnson continues to fascinate biographers. This four-hour PBS documentary provides an evenhanded, engrossing recap of his life, career and contradictions.