Photograph of Queens native Amy Ryan, nominated for best supporting actress for her role in Gone, Baby Gone At 8:30PM (following a half-hour red carpet special), the 80th Annual Academy Awards ceremony will begin, finally putting an end to the "There Will Be Oscar" or "Oscar Country for Old Men" type headlines. You can prep yourself with the Oscar nominees list as you watch (or avoid) red carpet coverage. You could read NY Times......

Robert Altman, maverick film director, died on Monday night in Los Angeles. He was 81 years old. Altman had recently been promoting the DVD release of A Praire Home Companion, a film in which the movie studio hired Paul Thomas Anderson to be an assistant director in case, as Altman put it, he kicked the bucket. He had been nominated five times for best director at the Academy Awards, but never won one (a......

Let’s be clear about something – Love Walked In is not a romantic novel, even though it’s all about romance. And even the true love triumphs. And even if it makes some of its sappier readers cry. Love Walked In is as much about romance as life itself is. Which is a good recommendation for a novel. Yes, it starts with the perfect man walking through the door, just like in the movies. But a......

A week after Curbed (and the Tribeca Tribune) covered the future 10,000 square foot Tribeca house that's supposed to be very a humble little family that couldn't resist a good deal (a good deal with you gots millions), the NY Post takes up the story. Which makes Gothamist wonder if the Schnall family and their architect are trying to win over the court of public opinion, if not the Landmarks Preservation Commission, in trying to......

As a part of their continuing series of classic movies on Thursdays, tonight the Clearview in Chelsea will be showing Alfred Hitchcock's brilliant North by Northwest (1959). Tickets only cost $5.50 (what a steal for a movie in Manhattan!) and the live pre-show event starts promptly at 7 pm. To get geared up, we bring you below a bit from the book-long conversation between French New Wave director and critic, François Truffaut and the Fat......

The weather is a mixed bag this weekend as we stick around the city this weekend (we're glad we won't need to follow Gawker's rules of conduct for getting to the Hamptons - we've seen people getting on and off the Jitney and it looks worse than the school bus we had to take). We've been trying to think of what we want to do, and have come up with some ideas that we'd like......

Matthew Rose, Wall Street Journal...

Pico Iyer's essay about how Hollywood has been slowly steering away from Hollywood endings mentions recent films like Cold Mountain, Lost in Translation, House of Sand and Fog, and Mystic River as having darker or less resolved endings. But, as Iyer acknowledges, the tradition can be seen with Gone with the Wind or Casablanca. Which made Gothamist wonder what are the endings that linger more: Seeing Vincent Vega walk end Pulp Fiction alive (versus......

Proving that Hotlanta only means hot in temperature, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a picture of the Britney and Madonna on its front page and the readers freaked out. Letters from readers, plus the managing editor's statement that it probably wasn't the best decisionto run it Page A1, are here [via Romenesko's Media News]. One reader's letter asks an interesting question: I am amazed at the lighthearted media coverage given the Madonna-Britney-Christina kiss. It makes me......

There's a new restaurant in what is arguably one of the sexiest buildings in the city, if you're into glass, steel and High Modernism with International Style. The Times reports that a 130-seat restaurant with a "honeycombed" interior will be opening at the back of the courtyard plaza of Lever House, Gordon Bunshaft's "corporate modernist" masterpiece. The restaurant will be run by proprietors of Mercbar, Canteen, Time Cafe, Fez and Joe's Pub. Hmm...that's sort of......

Hipsters and indie rock fans (Gothamist is not sure if these are the same people; working on the Venn diagram), rejoice: I Am Trying To Break Your Heart is on DVD today. The Sam Jones directed documentary of Wilco recording Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was critically well-received. But of course, you hipsters and indie rock fans don't care and already know the documentary is good. Updated: Last summer in the Observer, Lynn Harris brilliantly dissected how......

As a hopeless cinephile, I feel that the year I spend watching movies is like having a crush on some unattainable person. It makes me feel alive, with all the planning and dreaming and effort I put into it, and somehow, even when I see a bad movie, it’s okay, because it’s one of the knocks I take in wishing that maybe this in time, after paying $10+ for a movie, it might reward my......