If you count yourself as a New Yorker and a movie lover, it's tough to not have a special affinity for films by Woody Allen. Practically the filmmaker laureate of the city, Allen's prolific 40 plus year career is getting a three week long screening series at Film Forum starting this Friday. Gothamist loves Allen's movies (both the highs and the lows) so much that we thought we'd chat with an Allen expert, Queens College......

Really, we shouldn't be talking about heat in January but we're in the midst of another stretch of unusually warm weather. Temperatures were 15 degrees above normal over the weekend and at least that much again today (It's already 60 degrees at JFK!). If Gothamist has done our math correctly we will easily be the fourth warmest January on record and may squeeze by 1950 and 1990 to finish in second place. At two degrees......

Mayor Bloomberg will not only have celebrity friends at his inaugural party, he'll have hot dogs too! On the menu, according to the Daily News, are tomato soup, mini sandwiches, hamburgers, grilled vegetables, popcorn and pretzels, cupcakes decorated in orange and blue (the city's colors), chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and "Hizzoner's favorite dish," hot dogs. Hot dogs are really his favorite food? Hmm, wonder if he prefers the Kobe Beef Hot Dog - or......

If Gothamist was running a school, we'd be suspicious of a group called the "Yogi Bear Sunday School" even if they were performing non-religious pageants, because once you try to meld a Hanna Barbera cartoon character and the idea of Sunday school, there are bound to be problems. PS 274 had problems when the Yogi Bear Sunday School handed out Christmas stocking with religious materials - a no-no in a city public school. The Post......

A lady is suing the Elizabeth Arden salon at Saks for losing her huge engagement ring...because she left it on the shelf! The Post says that 66 year-old loyal customer, Angela Abelow, claims that her 3.77 carat diamond engagement ring (worth $95,000) was stolen from a "service shelf"; Abelow had been putting her ring on the shelf every time she'd visit over her 15 years of patronage. Her lawyers say that there has been another......

The Straphangers Campaign has released its annual State of the Subways Report Card and yet again, the 6 train is named the best line while the N is the worst. The other trains, from best to worst, were the 1/9, 7, 4, E, J/Z, L, 5, Q, 2, 3, V, F, A, D, R, M, B, W, C. So, overall, it seems that the crappiest grouping of lines are the B, D, F, V......

State Assemblymember Scott Stringer and State Senator Tom Duane want the city to http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nyc-sign0808,0,4676706.story?coll=nyc-homepage-breaking2">crackdown on illegal outdoor advertising, specifically on the sidewalk shed scaffolding. They call it damaging to quality of life, Gothamist sort of agrees, as we stumble when we're trying to figure out what the ugly ass ad's message is trying to be (We get it, Song, you're almost as good as JetBlue!), but we rather the scaffolding smell less like piss. String......

Barbuto's Peach Chutney...

Earlier this week, the Daily News ran a story about people looking to lose their New York accents. Sam Chwat, who founded New York Speech Improvement Services - and has worked with Julia Roberts and Andie MacDowell, and is even working with the cast of Glengarry Glen Ross for their Chicago accents - says many of his clients are trying to rid themselves of the "streetwise image of fast-talking New Yorkers." "If you spend......

More fallout over the ticketed Girl Scout activity in Williamsburg: After the media had a field day upon hearing that a little girl's dad was ticketed for helping her, the Mayor said, during a press conference that was probably about something much more important, "The story had some inconsistencies in it and the police department is investigating, but I think it's fair to say our crime reduction strategy has little to do with Girl Scout......

am New York reports that the City Council will discuss banning the sale of spray paint, to continue efforts to deter the spread of graffiti. The City Council wants its time in the sun, ever since the Mayor announced his anti-graf plan. Of course, this might affect people with legitimate uses for spray paint, but City Councilman Peter Vallone thinks the "benefit of less graffit outweighs the inconvenience of taking a trip outside the city......

The publication of the Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker (there are two CD-ROMs included with the 9 pound book that hold all 68,647 cartoons ever published) reminds Gothamist of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine can't figure out what a New Yorker cartoon is about:Elaine: Look at this cartoon in the New Yorker, I don't get this. Jerry: I don't either. Elaine: And you're on the fringe of the humor business. George comes in George:......

Gothamist's favorite law-breaking animal lover, Antoine Yates, was sentence to five months in prison and five year probation for keeping illegal pets, most notably a 400 pound Bengal tiger and an alligator, in his Harlem apartment. Yates pleaded guilty, in exchange for having child endangerment charges dropped against his 68 year-old mother (her children would visit the apartment-turned-zoo). Yates' lawyer feels the charges were due to race and said, "If his mother had been Martha......

If Gothamist Weather were in LA today we'd have an easy forecast: foggy in the morning followed by a sunny afternoon. Highs in the 70s near the coast and in the 80s inland. But, no, Gothamist Weather is in New York and in New York we have a mess of a forecast on our hands. You want hot and humid? We got hot and humid. You want thunderstorms? We got thunderstorms. Gusty winds? Got......

The gig is up for Dean Kamen: His 12 mph speed demon, the Segway Human Transporter, has been recalled! Apparently people have been falling off when the batteries are low. Yikes, that's just like...riding a bike! Helmets, people, helmets. Pressing questions Gothamist has: - How will Phillip Torrone get around? What happens to the Book of Seg? If Gothamist ran a network news division, he'd be number two on the list (behind Kamen) of......