MOVIES: In "Air Force One," "Harrison Ford is the president we deserve," says TIME's Richard Schickel, "a morally square peg in the Oval Office." When Air Force One is taken over by terrorists (led by Gary Oldman), Ford's James Marshall eludes the invaders, and finds himself stalking the surprisingly capacious byways of the plane. "There is good -- sometimes witty -- suspense in Marshall’s single-handed efforts to coordinate a rescue effort by his Washington staff with his own attempts to set his people free using whatever modest tools (a table knife, a cell phone, a fax machine) come to hand," says Schickel. "One wishes, though, that the movie, directed by Wolfgang Petersen ('Das Boot,' 'In the Line of Fire'), had retained its claustrophobic intimacy to the end." As Schickel notes, "no big-time action film can conclude without an orgy of special effects. As 'Air Force One' climaxes, a lot of people fly through thin air on thin wires. Too bad. The stalking struggle between reason and unreason that precedes it is much more gripping -- and fun."

MUSIC: "Summer 1997 seems like a good moment for Blues Traveler," says TIME's Christopher John Farley. "Grunge is gone, alternative is stale, and so the band’s harmonica-happy pop-blues may be just what audiences want. Alas, 'Straight On Till Morning,' the band's follow-up to the 6-million-selling 'Four,' is an aggressively mediocre album. The problem with 'Four' was that its two great songs were islands in a sea of banality, and the new record suffers from the same inconsistency, resulting in an album long on harmonica solos and short on melodies."

VIDEO: " 'Hollywood Rhythm,' Kino on Video’s four-cassette release of 31 musical shorts from 1929 to 1941, is something to sing about," writes TIME's Richard Corliss. "They reveal terrific artists -- Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, Bing Crosby, Ethel Merman, Ginger Rogers -- in their early prime, making the music that made them famous. The films have the audacity of the talkies’ youth: the films are filled with racial caricatures, and you’ll hear “hell” and “damn” in the 1929 Makers of Melody. But the tunes sound fresh, the interpretations supple. They embody the spirit of the Hollywood musical at its primitive best: Have fun; give joy."