ongoing

"Inception" is centered around the type of plot device usually riddled with questionable developments. But Christopher Nolan’s latest mind-game is a full-blown success. Leonardo DiCaprio is Cobb, the head of a mercenary dream-team (pun intended!) of information thieves, the kind that get into your head while you sleep.  Most of the time, Cobb and his team are the best, they know how to break down the safeguards of the mind and “extract” desired information for their employer. But when Japanese business mogul Saito hires them to do the nearly impossible – to plant an idea in someone’s mind, rather than take it (called “inception”) they get into a swirling mess of dreams-within-dreams that nearly kills them all.

Time travel and dream sequences are more often than not the undoing of many a decent adventure picture. Interesting premises go sour when logic falls by the wayside or dreams stray too far from reality. An easy way out is for a writer or director to make up new rules as they go, in order to excuse a digression from the structure of earlier scenes. So all the credit to Nolan for offering up just enough exposition to let us in on how things work, and then not bending his own rules too much.

Mon. Aug. 2

Carl Hiaasen is one clever bastard - to quote Ian Dury - and our favorite novelists. Has been for years. With crazy, but believable characters (villains, hereos and mixes of both) a vehemently pro-environmentalist slant, and just some of the best black humor going, Hiaasen just keeps hitting the mark. "Star Island," doesn't come out til July 27, but the bits we know: It involves a one-time teen pop star named Cherry Pye, who hit the skids, did the D/A rehab route and is in the midst of another comeback. (Remind you of anyone, Britney?) She also has a body double, who functions for her when Cherry just can't make it off the floor to go clubbing, and this body double manages to get kidnapped from South Beach - Florida is Hiaasen's stomping ground (he loves the place, hates what's happened to it) - by a paparazzi. It's fair to say hilarity will ensue, but that hilarity will have a subtext. We know this because Skink, Hiaasen's ex-gov-turned-madman-hermit-environmentalist makes a return. And we know it because Hiaasen really is a master at wrenching some heart and soul out of a funny romp. He's the literary Warren Zevon. And it's no stretch to see why the two became friends after being mutual admirers, and ended up writing a song together. "Basket Case." Hiaasen reads from "Star Island" Monday Aug. 2 at 7.

40 Brattle St., Cambridge, 617-876-8021 www.brattlefilm.org

Sun. Aug. 1

One of favorite songs from the English psych-rock band Kula Shaker - remember was them? - was "Grateful When You're Dead/Jerry Was There," a trippy tribute to the late Garcia, where, in the song, it suggested many Deadheads held events where they swore, man, that "Jerry was there." Why do we think that will happen Sunday Aug. 1 out in Boston harbor? Because it would have been his 68th  birthday and this take on a 419 aspect in the Deadhead world. (Jerry went down for good 15 years ago, after years of hard drugs and dietary trouble took their toll.) This year, to make that day extra special (why do we celebrate death days?) on Sunday Aug. 1 you can board the Rock and Blues Cruise with The Grateful Dread, the long-running reggae/Dead tribute band. It's not, as you no doubt realize, a goof. There's links between the languid Dead and the languid reggae/ska sound and, of course, there's the pot. Check out the Grateful Dread at www.thegratefuldread.com. The Dread have been packing Martha’s Vineyard clubs and selling out shows across the region since their inception. 

   The Dread takes the Dead songs - "Dark Star,' "Franklin's Tower's

ongoing, Fridays and Saturdays

 Sure, it's out of town - about 40 minutes from Boston - but so is Comcast Center and that can be a headache and a half when you consider traffic/parking/etc. If you like quality music outdoors and on a slightly smaller scale, we heartily recommend the Lowell Summer Music Series. We've seen Richard Thompson, Los Lobos, and recently Amos Lee and have yet to be disappointed by the music or the vibe. It's a bring-your-lawnchairs/bring-your-kids type of place and can seat several thousand folks. It's a summer with Lyle Lovett, the B-52s (in photo) and the Indigo Girls. Not bad at all. It takes place at Boarding House Park in the center of Lowell. JSInk spoke with programming director Peter Aucella about the series, past and present.

JSInk: How has the Lowell Summer Music Series evolved over time?
PA: I started the Series in 1990 as Boarding House Park construction was completed.  The trees have certainly grown much larger, but the venue is still in great shape as we proceed with our 21st season.  Our initial concept was to do ethnic music similar to the Lowell Folk Festival, but onegenre per night, since the immigrant story is part of the historyinterpreted by the Lowell National Historical Park.  We had a limited budget and free admission, so it was a modest affair.  We realized that it takes just as much work to do this for a smaller audience as it does for a bigger one, so we began to grow the series and the number of name performers steadily each year since then.  I don't think we ever envisioned having acts like the B-52s, Lyle Lovett, Indigo Girls, Jimmy Cliff and Herbie Hancock but people really love seeing these shows in such anintimate venue.

Sat. July 31 & Mon. Aug. 2

Generally speaking you'll se the Chandler Travis and one of his innumerable bands (the Incredible Casuals and the Chandler Travis Philharmonic) to name two at local clubs like Toad or Johnny D's. By local, we mean Boston area: Travis - a prolific and genre-scrambling singer-songwriter-guitarist - is based on Cape Cod and from the looks of it plays just about every night of the week down that way. But he's got a really big shoe coming at the Berklee Performance Center on Monday, August 2 at 8:15). Travis sent us five tracks from the upcoming, swinging, jazzy new CD, "The Chandler Travis Philharmonic Blows" -it's rather horn-driven. But in the lyrics you will note the witty and droll observations Travis is prone to put into songs. There's one Kinksian, almost happy/quasi-weary song about "Pushing Up Daisies." It's about carrying on until, well, the inevitable.

Travis is playing looking forward to the bigger Berklee venue and thinks he and his large band can do things a lot more theatrical and not just be playing for a bunch of customers more intent on their next beer than the music. (Nothing wrong with that. You make your living in clubs, that's part of the package.) But, writes Travis, "I just wanted to make a case for my/ourselves as doing something unusually original, ambitious, and necessary between these various bands. I've been working like a crazy person with three different bands with at least three different mostly original repertoires. My summer schedule is just hilarious and the CTP is certainly the most of everything, and possibly deserving of more attention in Beantown." Tickets: $15. Starts at 8:15.