Arts

Pilot and author Richard Bach was hurt Friday when the small plane he was flying tangled in power lines as he attempted to land, according to media reports.

Kofi Annan has dedicated his life to seeking peace. The Nobel Peace Prize winner was the first career United Nations staffer to become secretary-general, after having been an assistant secretary-general for human resources, then for finance, and finally the head of Peacekeeping Operations, where he would be sorely tested by devastating wars in Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia.

When you can't beat the slowness of late summer as an entertainment season, you can at least embrace it, and that's what we did this week. Dog days of summer winding down, you say? We say it's time to talk about pop culture dogs. Not dogs in the "lousy product" sense, but dogs in the sense of literal, actual dogs. Faithful, friendly, silly, whether the size of an ottoman or the size of a wallet.

Among the little treasures, Stephen is fond of this slightly obscure dog — at least these eight minutes of him.

Ivan Doig's The Bartender's Tale, about a single father facing his past, debuts at No. 13.

In the post-apocalyptic film world, the tactic du jour for tipping off an audience that civilization and its inhabitants have all but kicked it seems to be simple color correction — specifically, zapping the frame of any lively hues and leaving behind a desolate palette of gray. Call it 50 shades of desaturated desperation.