1 "Whiplash" is a bruising, anger-scarred music academy drama not to be missed. It turns the pursuit of a jazz career into a macho battlefield, the basis of a superbly edited film that leaves you surprised and a little stunned. Like the cutthroat salesman clashes of "Glengarry Glen Ross" or the Marine Corps nightmare of "Full Metal Jacket," "Whiplash" is a psychodramatic portrait of men — chiefly the teacher and the pupil — under pressure, revealing agonized cracks in character. The climax, at New York's Carnegie Hall, is musical melodrama incarnate.

3 The gripping, one-act drama "A Steady Rain" at the Guthrie tells the story of two men who grew up as best friends and non-blood brothers, with one dominating the other. They are cops and partners but their lives have been diverging for a while. Now, after an encounter with a serial killer on their beat gets them in hot water, their rivalry becomes life-and-death. On Broadway, Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman played the two cops. We can't imagine they were any better than Thomas Vincent Kelly and Sal Viscuso. guthrietheater.org

4 "Dear White People" is a comedy so socially serious, a drama so archly satirical, a campus story so worldly that you leave it with wild outbursts of comprehension and giggles. The provocative first-time feature directed and written by Justin Simien looks at race on a mythical Ivy League campus with a small cadre of black undergrads. Telling the story of four black students (the dean's son, a would-be reality-TV starlet, a social loner, a campus-radio DJ), Simien packs the film with sharp, funny dialogue and flawless visuals.

2 Just in time for hunker-down hibernation season comes "Unbored Games: Serious Fun for Everyone," a book chock-full of smart, totally not-lame ideas to amuse and give the brain a workout. A sequel to the critically praised "Unbored: The Essential Guide to Serious Fun," by Minneapolis writer Elizabeth Foy Larsen and Bostonian Joshua Glenn, it features more than 70 activities, including back-yard antics like QB Rescue (football, no tackling) and even games that embrace modern technology like "Smartphone Scavenger Hunt." The authors will read Nov. 1 at Birchbark Books in Minneapolis. birchbarkbooks.com

5 If the Flaming Lips' guest-studded, track-by-track remake of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" sounds like a gimmicky, ridiculous affair on paper, just wait till you hear it on record. The cosmic Oklahoma rockers — who also previously staged a "Dark Side of the Moon" redo — get their freak on throughout the playful remake of the sacred 1967 Beatles LP. Miley Cyrus' involvement alongside Tegan and Sara and members of Dr. Dog, My Morning Jacket and Phantogram is a sure sign the project never takes itself too seriously. Perfect.