You’ve gotta hand it to Brad Pitt, for being so pretty, he has sure played some ugly parts. In Kalifornia, he’s a white-trash criminal who gets in on a cross-country ride-share with a writer (David Duchovny) and his girlfriend. As they ride along, Pitt charms Duchovny with his brashness & bold violence. Their weird tour grows ever more tense, but what the rest of the crew doesn’t know (except Pitt’s girl, Juliette Lewis) is that he’s leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.

Zombie warfare is about to get a lot more fun for you and Dead Rising 2’s main man, Chuck Greene. A new mechanical allows players to build their own zombie-slaughtering weapons. This is just one of the new features coming in this highly anticipated game. It is played in a new world, with a whole cast of new psychos. The Collector’s Edition set features a steel 2-disk case, art book & other promotional items. Let the slaughter begin!

Detroit. America’s Motor City is a crumbling metropolis leftover from a bygone-era of American industrial dominance. In their book, The Ruins Of Detroit, photographers Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre expose the decay of what 50 years ago, was one of our nation’s finest cities. Magnificent images of architecture in collapse & abandoned grandeur hint hauntingly to a past that may never be recovered. Hardcover, 200 pages.

James Bond. You know he’s cool. You know he slayed the babes & drove ridiculous cars. You may even recall his Lotus Esprit was a submarine that shot torpedoes. But, your knowledge about this international man of mystery doesn’t even scratch the surface. That’s why you need to get The Book of Bond. Author, Alastair Dougall, introduces you to Bond’s tastes, skills & enemies, as well as, breaks down each of the 23 classic films.

Christopher Walken in one the most perfectly cast roles of his career: the slimy, sinister crook father of Sean Penn who makes robbery and crime look like fun. Young Penn is a muscular teenage bastard stuck in Farmtown-nowhere. When dad rolls into town, Penn is exposed to the easy money and good times a life of crime could grant him. When he sees Walken kill a man, he has second thoughts. That’s when the story really starts cooking. Based on a true story, At Close Range also features 80s angel, Mary Stuart Masterson & Sean’s brother, Chris Penn.

Phil Selway steps from behind his drumset as the timekeeper & backbeat of Radiohead for his upcoming solo release Familial. The quiet, acoustic record is described by Selway himself as “10 hushed folk songs in the tradition of Nick Drake.” Selway’s emotional subject matter links this album to the tradition of Radiohead and their songs of the heart & heartache. The album will drop August 30th.

The Jerry Thomas Bartenders Guide was the very first bartender’s book published…way back in 1887. That pretty much makes it the Old Testament of cocktail chemistry. At 130-pages, this guide will take you through the most ironclad classics, the fundamentals of mixology and includes recipes for dreamy drinks like the Mint Julep, Tom Collins & the Manhattan. The book also includes a new introduction by author, Ross Bolton, who puts it all in perspective.

Showtime network has the sickest shows. And…the Dexter series is hands-down, the sickest. The multi-Emmy-nominated series about a crime scene scientist who is also a serial killer on his days off, may just be the best thing on TV. As well as…worth every extra penny on your cable bill. If you’ve missed anything so far, Seasons 1-4 DVD box set will get you up to speed. If you’re a die-hard, it’ll be a cherished collectible.

You saw Memento – hard to follow, confusing, dark. It was the handywork of director, Christopher Nolan. Well, Following came first. If you like movies that test your mental and take you into the warped minds of others – you’ll like this one, too. A man obsessed with following strangers is led into a world even weirder than he hoped for.

There’s something deeply romantic about towing your little house-on-wheels down the road & parking it in front of the vista of your choice. The design of these vehicles – part home, part car – made them strange and iconic. The hardcover book My Cool Caravan celebrates the unlikely elegance of the camper in 160 pages of stunning images from photographer, Hilary Walker with cool tidbits from the authors.

America’s greatest modern poet was a beer-drunk, lowbrow maniac named Charles Bukowski. He wrote the script for Barfly about himself. This 1987 cult-classic, featuring Mickey Rourke in the lead, is dark, humorous and tragic. It’s a series of sloppy bar room scenes and a passionate doomed-love hellride featuring a haggard Faye Dunaway in the role of Wanda, Rourke’s love interest/drinking partner. This movie will definitely make you want a drink…maybe two.

San Diego’s lo-fi pop trio Wavves dole out surfy, snotty punk that, like their home city, is sunny, vapid & devoid of culture. But San Diego is fun and that’s what their forthcoming release, King Of The Beach is all about. Simple, unrefined musicianship is bolstered by tricky arrangements from producer, Dennis Herring, who most recently made Modest Mouse sound “talented.” The Wavves make a perfect summer soundtrack. Turn it up…drive fast.

Your dad had Bruce Springsteen with his scratchy voice, tumbledown lyrics and American Flag. Who knew he’d become a legend? Well…today we’ve got The Arcade Fire. Equally unassuming: scratchy voice, tumble-down lyrics and a Canadian flag. The vibe is hauntingly similar. Their third album The Suburbs should be every bit as raw and heartfelt as their last two records. If so, maybe these guys will still be on tour 25 years from now.

The good thing about having this reference book, Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, is if/when you blackout you won’t have to remember any of the recipes. You can just dry out for a few days, open the book back up and start-over. Just avoid the Mind Eraser this time.

A bank robbery gone bad. Not quite Dog Day Afternoon, unless you add heroin, a hooker, buckets of booze & enough blood to drown Quentin Tarantino. This dark thriller from Director Roger Avary (who co-wrote Pulp Fiction and worked on True Romance & Reservoir Dogs) is a mess on purpose. Avary has actually been called a Tarantino rip-off, which isn’t really a bad thing when you get actors like Eric Stoltz and Julie Delpy in the mix.

Rules For My Unborn Son by Walker Lamond is chock full of fatherly aphorisms, affirmations & advice. Words to live by – you could say. Lamond packed 224 pages with sage advice like, “When in doubt, wear a tie,” and “Men with facial hair have something to hide.” Part entertainment, part real wisdom, this book is a great gift for a father-to-be or your own inner child who still hasn’t grown up.