Culture Catch-Up: The loop is here and we're bringing you in
Books. Duh. Maybe you've heard of a certain teen wizard who has the power to force parents to stay up past 1 a.m. partying at bookstores with their costumed kids? He's 16 and dealing with normal teenager stuff, as well as annoying prophesies of his possible death in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($30) by J.K. Rowling. Your kids may be able to inhale the 672-pager in a 24-hour period, but if you don't have that much reading time, think about commuting with the audio version ($75 on CD), voiced by Jim Dale, who is possibly the most beloved audio-book guy ever. While you're at the bookstore anyway, think about picking up No Country for Old Men ($25), the first novel out from Cormac McCarthy (author of All the Pretty Horses) in seven years. It's a gritty and gruesome tale of a man who finds $2 million and then has to get the heck away from the people who want it back.
Movies. With all of the country's children in bookstores on Friday and reading all day Saturday, many will probably be spared from watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the new Tim Burton movie based on the Roald Dahl book of the same name. Although the original movie from 1971 with Gene Wilder was creepy enough to give kiddies nightmares for years, the new take—starring Johnny Depp as the candy capitalist—is truly more terrifying, probably because it hews closer to Dahl's vision. Parts of the film are fun, but stick to the old flick. Speaking of kids who refuse to grow up, the two main characters in The Wedding Crashers, played by funnymen Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, eschew real relationships to get easy action at post-nuptial bashes. They break their own rules though by falling for their targets, the daughters of the powerful treasury secretary (Christopher Walken, who is refreshingly nowhere nearly as freaky as Depp). The unabashedly R-rated flick has some very funny banter, but slides into cheesiness a bit more than it needs to.
Music. Face it: Carole King isn't going to come to your dinner party. But she'll fill your house with music if you pop in The Living Room Tour ($20), the live CD taped from her tour last summer (she's reprising it this summer). Everyone loves it, and it's not hard to hear why. This is, after all, the woman who brought the world "(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman" and "It's Too Late," both of which are included—along with many other old hits and two new ones, "Welcome to My Living Room" and "Loving You Forever."
TV. The red carpet won't be filled with the ladies of Wisteria Lane until September 18, but the Emmy nominations were announced this week and Desperate Housewives —with 15—appears to be positioned for a big night. If you've missed out on the made-for-TV movies that are in the running, think about checking out the two frontrunners (both from HBO) on DVD. Geoffrey Rush stars as the legendary mimic in the biopic The Life and Death of Peter Sellers ($27), and Kenneth Branagh channels FDR in Warm Springs ($27, not available until August), which focuses on the healing resort in Georgia where the president dealt with his polio. Since Comedy Central's Stella (Tuesdays, 10:30 p.m. EDT) just premiered this summer, the show won't be up for any awards. And, well, it probably won't be next year either. But that doesn't mean that the goofy program, starring the trio of Michael Ian Black (that guy from VH1), Michael Showalter, and David Ian, isn't elevating the sitcom art form to new post-modern levels each week. Two words: fake moustaches. You can also check out their absurdist form of comedy in the 2001 movie Wet Hot American Summer ($15). If you have DIRECTV, you may have noticed that you got a new channel last week from the people who brought you TRL and Punk ' d. MTV is expanding its reach in American youth culture by introducing three new networks for Asian-Americans. It has started with MTV Desi, a station for South Asian hipsters, with shows like Bollywood on Ice and Maximum Party. Still to come: MTV Chi (for Chinese-Americans) and MTV K (for Korean-Americans). Maybe that means at least one of them will be playing music?