EXHIBITIONS

The Augusta Savage Gallery at UMass will present "Young Artists: Images from Israel." The series is dedicated to featuring visual art by children from diverse global communities. The exhibit is slated to run through Oct. 18 and will feature paintings, drawings and writings by two groups of students from Israel, gathered from the classrooms of Phyllis Gross (Gvanim Elementary School) and Haya Cohen (Nes-Ziona School). Free admission. Call 545-5177 for more information.

SELECT FLICKS

Academy of Music Theatre

(584-8435)

Steve Coogan plays Tony Wilson, the manager of the Sex Pistols and the man behind the scenes of a musical revolution in "24 Hour Party People," the best effort yet from British director Michael Winterbottom.

Cinemark at Hampshire Mall

(587-4233)

Decent performances by Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon go to waste in "The Banger Sisters," a tale of reunited groupies that sounds like fun but is missing the impact the title implies.

"Swimfan" stars Jesse Bradford as Ben Cronin, a star swimmer plagued by the advances of femme fatale Madison Bell (Erika Christensen) in a "highly watchable" thriller directed by John Polson.

Predictably, "Stealing Harvard," Bruce McCoullough's comic story of a man named John Plummer who turns to crime in order to pay his niece's college tuition, falls pancake-flat. The jokes not only fail to amuse, but the considerable talents of Jason Lee (in the starring role) are laid to enormous waste. Also starring Tom Green.

"Sweet Home Alabama" is reviewed in this issue.

The sleeper comedy "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" stars Nia Vardalos as Toula, an unmarried 30-year-old who falls in love with the decidedly non-Greek Ian (John Corbett), but must find a way to overcome her über-traditional Orthodox family's reservations before she can marry him.

Pleasant Street Theater

(586-0935)

"The Good Girl," starring Jennifer Aniston in a role so refreshingly different from her vapid "Friends" character it's astounding, is a darkly humorous and moving film about what happens when people stop being polite and start getting really depressed and strange.

TALKS

The Amherst College Creative Writing Center will kick off its Fall Reading Series with poet/novelist April Bernard this Wednesday at 8 p.m. in the Porter Lounge at Converse Hall. This Walt Whitman prizewinner has authored three volumes of poetry and a novel, in addition to teaching literature at Bennington College and in the Bennington Writing Seminars MFA program. Free.

China's own "living Buddha," Master Yu Tian Jian, will lecture on "Ancient Secrets and the Modern Mind" as part of the religious advisors lecture series. Jian serves as the Buddhist representative to the United Nations Millenium Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders. The talk will take place Oct. 2 and 3 at the Cadigan Center for Religious Life from 3-5 p.m.

Professor Elizabeth Spiller '87, a current member of Texas Christian University's Department of English, will lecture on "Men's Science, Women's Reading: Thomas Hobbes and Margaret Cavendish's Anti-Mechanistic Theory of Reading." This lecture is sponsored by the English department. (Thursday, Oct. 3, Babbott Room, Octagon.)

TUNES

The Amherst College Department of Music will bring renowned jazz trumpeter Ingrid Jensen to campus on Friday, Oct. 4 at 8:30 p.m. in Marsh House. Jensen's quintet will be comprised of herself, bassist Frasier Hollis, drummer John Wikan, saxophonist (and College jazz director) Bruce Diehl ,along with Professor of Music Dana Gooley. Free and open to the public.

The Smith College Music Department will present Lory Wallfisch and Luz Leskowitz, who will be performing an all-Mozart concert on Sunday, Oct. 6 at 4 p.m. in Smith's Sweeney Concert Hall. The program, which features Wallfisch on piano and Leskowitz on violin, will include Mozart's Adagio in B Minor, Sonata for Piano and Violin in B Flat Major K. 454, Sonata for Piano and Violin in C Major K. 296, among others. Free.

STAGE

The Smith College Theatre Department's annual New Play Reading Series will open this fall with "Lesbians Talking About RICE: Conversations in Black and White," a play written by MFA candidate in playwriting, Lenelle N. Moise. The play explores the sexual, racial and sexualized racial tensions between women in a series of wide-ranging vignettes. (Thurs., Oct. 3, 7:30 p.m. Earle Recital Hall, Smith College.)

The Residential Arts program at UMass will present Tere O'Connor Dance. Tere O'Connor, winner of two New York dance and performance "Bessie" Awards, stitches together widely-varied dance styles and sequences to make a boldly constructed patchwork quilt of a performance. (Friday, Oct. 4, 8 p.m. Kendall Studio Theater, Mount Holyoke College. Tickets are $12 for general admission and $5 for five-College students. Call 545-2511 for more information.)