Prestige filmmakers take note: If you want the Times critics to really love you, what you need to do is put the fear in them. At least it worked for Tim Burton; his adaptation of Steven Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd gave reviewer A.O. Scott nightmares. And for that, Scott deems the film “close to a masterpiece, a work of extreme – I am tempted to say evil – genius.” (Current Rotten Tomato rating: 88% fresh.) One......

Z100 Jingle Ball Rock We remember Z100 fondly. It was our morning listen for much of elementary school, and for better or worse, has stuck to the same broadcasting formula for all this time. The annual Jingle Ball is a fun tradition, if for nothing else, as a convenient year end recap of all the biggest pop hits of the year we might have missed. Getting all these names together for one night only is......

Looking ahead to this week's movie options, there's a few indie-sized pics and one massive, Super Big Gulp-sized car racing comedy. Ordinarily Gothamist is all about championing the cinematic little guy, but when it's this goofy, yet earnest we say go for the excess. But to the small fish first: Quinceañera is a Los Angeles coming of age story centering around one Mexican-American girl, Magdalena and the traditional celebration which marks her 15th birthday. A......

Gothamist saw the trailer for the new Jennifer Connelly movie, Dark Water. Basically, she finds an apartment (with the help of John C. Reilly, a fellow tenant) in what looks like one of those huge NYC apartment buildings that are so big and nondescript, they look like projects, and moves in with her daughter, even though the elevator is freaky. She proclaims it perfect, but, of course, that's when the scary stuff happens: Leaky ceiling......

Big casting news this week on Broadway as Denzel Washington is announced as Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The big-screen box office king hasn't been sighted on the Great White Way since 1988, when he appeared in the show Checkers. Playbill reports that the show will be opening in March at the Belasco. The current tenant is Dracula, which is struggling to stay alive and should probably see a closing notice posted imminently. But Gothamist......