Weekend -- Philadelphia Inquirer

Male-menopause wisecrackery with heavy-duty Harley-Davidson product placement, Wild Hogs stars Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy and John Travolta as weekend biker buddies who chuck their dull suburban lives - for a week, anyway - to ride their glistening chrome machines into the sunset. A roiling, boiling mix of blaxploitation, sexploitation, Tennessee Williams and the Tennessee outback, Black Snake Moan comes by way of Craig Brewer, the Memphis-based writer-director of Hustle Flow.

The New York of Maria Maggenti's Puccini for Beginners is located in the same general vicinity as Woody Allen's - the streets aren't oppressively crowded, the apartments aren't oppressively small, you can actually hear your companion in that cute corner bistro, and everyone seems well-read, armed with a clever quip. (It's also, in many ways, the New York of Sex and the City - girlfriends sharing lunch and gossip and the intimate details of their lives and liaisons.) Playing the romantic lead opposite Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston and Meg Ryan should generate big box office at least once, right? The teen comedy Full of It illustrates the cinematic Carmen Electra Rule, honed to perfection in Cheaper by the Dozen 2: If the best joke involves her, the movie should not be released, unless there are mitigating circumstances, such as the appearance of Channing Tatum. In the new comedy Wild Hogs, Tim Allen, John Travolta, William H.

Macy and Martin Lawrence play weekend-warrior buddies from Cincinnati who jump on their Harleys and take a road trip to the Pacific in hopes of pepping up their humdrum suburban lives. Chris Difford of Squeeze plays the Tin Angel tonight, along with Elvis Perkins in Dearland (son of Tony)..

. . Latin jazz pianist Eddie Palmieri and percussionist Poncho Sanchez share a bill at the Kimmel Center tonight.

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Honky-tonker Gary Allan catalogs his woes at the House of Blues in Atlantic City tonight...

. Insouciant Venezuelan dance band Los Amigos Invisibles will get booties shaking at the World Cafe Live on Saturday..

. . Woolen-capped Brit songsmith Damon Gough - better known as Badly.

.. Feel no shame if a big part of your Flower Show experience is about shopping.

This is the right time, and certainly the right place, to find useful and unusual things for your garden. When it comes to THQ's Supreme Commander, there's good news and bad. I'll give you the good first: The game represents the return of ace designer Chris Taylor.

In Supreme Commander, new for PC, Taylor improves upon his 1997 real-time strategy (RTS) classic, Total Annihilation, a game still played by devotees, including yours truly. There have been many e-mails from gamers who ask me, How did you get this gig? or How can I write about games?

Well, there are lots of ways. Start a blog on the Internet, gain respect for your thoughtful posts in major online forums, maybe write for your local paper for free, etc. But no matter which approach you take, it can't be done correctly without the first-ever Videogame Style Guide and reference manual.

This guide, set to hit shelves on June 1, is a major achievement in the world of game...

Considering the number of major works by Marcel Duchamp that have been on view in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Arensberg Collection since the early 1950s, it's not surprising that his influence is reflected in the work of many of this city's artists. Then again, Duchamp's shadow is sometimes shorter than it seems.