August 29, 2003

AFTER the blink-and-you-missed-it summer of 2003, marked by controversies both old (the crowds, the traffic jams) and new (gay men arrested for having sex on the beach, the mysterious draining of Georgica Pond), and increasing concerns about the slumping summer rental market, many New Yorkers are approaching the Labor Day weekend with a pressing question on their minds: ''Are the Hamptons finally over?'' Page 6.

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey releases 2,000 pages of documents, most of them transcribed radio transmissions, from dozens of people in and around World Trade Center on Sept 11; The New York Times sued Port Authority for their release; transcripts cover 260 hours, beginning moment before first plane struck and continuing for nearly two hours after final collapse; they include calls from Port Authority police officers and conversations on two-way radios among civilian employees who worked in building trades in complex; transmissions reflect critical difficulties faced by those who survived plane crashes--at least 1,100 people--yet were unable to escape buildings; few, if any, of those speaking over radio appear to realize that buildings are moments from total collapse; messages include some desperate calls for help, but many of transcripts deal strictly with logistics of evacuations--of saving people in buildings, and of survival; as such, they provide fresh views into little-known aspects of human struggle against catastrophe was beyond imagination; photos; diagram (L)

Environmental groups and state officials across Northeast begin preparing legal challenges to new rules issued by Bush administration that will relax pollution-control regulations for thousands of power plants and factories; New York State Atty Gen Eliot Spitzer announces plans to file federal lawsuit charging that new rules violate Clean Air Act, and Gov Pataki says he will support effort; in New Jersey, Gov James E McGreevey says his appointed attorney general, Peter C Harvey, will also take legal action (M)

The subject matter of the British director Shane Meadows's "Midlands" is a wry counterpoint to the film's sprawling, epic title. The movie is a soulful domestic comedy with more in common with the enchantingly freakish twitches of life found in a Bill Forsyth film like "Local Hero" than one of Sergio Leone's blood-orange epics like "Once Upon a Time in the West." "Midlands" weaves a large number of characters throughout the tract homes of Nottingham, where the movie is set. It threatens a showdown between a pair of rivals, Dek (Rhys Ifans) and Jimmy (Robert Carlyle), who both want Shirley (Shirley Henderson). And by the end of the film, Mr. Meadows exaggerates the conventions of the western to make his own points about the foolishness of machismo. But what really separates "Midlands" from Leone's desiccated, terse genre work is Mr. Meadows's doting attention over his characters' decency. It gives a demonstrative bittersweetness to a likable but small story. Jimmy strides into Shirley's life to reclaim her and their daughter, Marlene (Finn Atkins), though he's been out of the picture for so long that there could have been a reality show about his disappearance. It's an actual reality show that has caused the trouble for Dek; he proposed to Shirley, with whom he's been living and helping to raise her little girl, and she rebuffed him on national television. Stunned, he's picking up the shards of what used to be his dignity when Jimmy returns, further tangling the knot of emotional complications. "Midlands" is primarily a film about the need that fatherhood fills — Dek's closeness to Marlene registers strongly. — Elvis Mitchell

Powerful voices in college football, including that of Northwestern University athletic director Mark Murphy, are trying to ensure that programs see success on field, in classrooms and with NCAA; are disturbed by year marred by scandals and rules violations that brought down level of integrity at well-respected institutions; photo (M)