Drawing on his roots in the fecund 1970s East Village avant-garde film scene, critic J. Hoberman has spent his three decades at the Village Voice introducing readers to the more adventurous cinematic worlds awaiting beyond the realm of Hollywood. He is the author of nine books, most recently The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties, which was described by Slate as "an extraordinary publishing event." To commemorate his thirty years at......

The Oscars are in town! Well, at least some 8-foot Oscar statues for the official New York Oscar night celebration at the Carlyle hotel, where east coast industry folk will come together Sunday night as the show goes down in Hollywood. Nominees were announced on January 22nd with Best Picture nods going to Michael Clayton, Atonement, There Will Be Blood, No Country For Old Men and Juno. The love and buzz continues to surround the......

Photograph of Kathy Bates and AMPAS President Sid Ganis announcing the nominations by Chris Pizzello/AP While the writers' strike continues and prospects of an awards ceremony are unclear, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences went ahead and announced the contenders for their 80th annual back-slapping ceremony. Oscar-winning friend of the academy Kathy Bates was on hand to announce this year's golden picks. From Bob Dylan to Michael Clayton, many of the nominations......

The New York Film Critics Circle met yesterday to vote on their “Best of” list for 2007; widely viewed as a barometer for the upcoming Academy Awards, the critics pride themselves as “a principled alternative to the Oscars, honoring esthetic merit in a forum that is immune to commercial and political pressures.” But if one anonymous member is to be believed, the meeting sounds more like a “principled” excuse for an Aint It Cool News-style......

On Wednesday night Tim Burton gave the Film Society of Lincoln Center a 17-minute taste of Sweeney Todd, his film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s macabre musical. The 1979 Broadway hit was inspired by Victorian folklore about a crazed London barber who slits his customers’ throats and, in some versions of the story, colludes with his lover to bake the corpses into meat pies – which become wildly successful! (Ah, the culinary possibilities before rogue......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A pedestrian struck at 12th Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan, a homicide in Brooklyn, and a water rescue in Forest Park in Queens Mathieu Eugene showed NY1 his new apartment and says that he was sleeping there before the election; if that's really true, why didn't he say so earlier and why won't he show NY1 the lease? In order to avoid any parking ticket squabbles, the city......

If things have seemed quiet at the usual New York haunts of movie folks like Film Forum or Grey Dog Coffee this last week, it's because practically the whole community is in Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival. The annual launching pad of many subsequently huge independent features (see this year's Best Picture Oscar nom and last year's festival break out, Little Miss Sunshine), Sundance is a crazy week. Parties, swag, deal-making and......

There is tons of speculation all over the Internet about the Oscar nominations for films released in 2006. As an Oscars fiend, we're not going to digress about the calculus of vote-splitting. Instead, we'll point out a couple things we noticed: - Best surprise nomination: Ryan Gosling's Best Actor nomination for Half Nelson; Gosling plays a drug-addicted teacher in Brooklyn trying to help one of his students...it'll be on DVD in three weeks - see......

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association voting pool for the Golden Globes only consists of 83 members, but every year their mainstream tastes become one of the potential early prognosticators for the Emmys and the Oscars. Over in Beverly Hills today, the stylists are putting the finishing touches on the stars' couture, that long red carpet is being laid and some assistant is double checking the seals on the envelopes. Here in New York of course,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery in Coney Island, a Police motorcycle MVA on 54th Street and Park, and a Homicide on Nostrand in Bed-Stuy. The Christmas lights have started going up in Dyker Heights-- and Janelle and Gowanus Lounge have pix. Or go in person: the best lights are on 84th Street between 12th and 11th Avenue. Canadian black squirrels have begun invading Boerum Hill. Soon there won't be any jobs......

It's the itch we can't scratch - the Academy Awards. We make sure we see the announcements at 8:30AM and then rush to work, thinking about the nominations while on the train. This morning, Academy President Sid Ganis and Mira Sorvino (who isn't doing anything else, anyway) announced the nominations. As expected, Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck, and Capote earned many nominations, and Crash made a surprising showing with Best Picture, Best Director......

The obvious 800-pound, 2000-pound or even 20-ton gorilla in the room is King Kong. It's all about the great ape this weekend, and rightly so. Gothamist caught a screening of Peter Jackson's epic on opening day and it is a sight to behold -- perfect popcorn fodder with some of the most amazing effects and action sequences you've ever seen. (Specifically, the royal rumble between Kong and three T-Rex's is potentially one of the great......

It's all about Brokeback these days: This morning, Kate Beckinsale, Mark Wahlberg, and Steve Carrell announced the 63rd Annual Golden Globe nominations, and Brokeback Mountain walked away with 7 nominations, including Best Picture (Drama), Director, Actor, Supporting Actress (Michelle Williams). Match Point, the unreleased Woody Allen movie, also got nods in Picture and Director, plus Supporting Actress Scarlett Johnanssen. As for the TV nominations, the ladies of Wisteria Lane took four leading actress nominations, giving......

If it's movies awards season, it's time for Gothamist to be both excited and angry (basically an average day, just amped up a bit). The Golden Globe Nominations for 2004 were announced and there were the expected nominees ("Lord of the Rings," "Cold Mountain," for film; "Sex and the City" for TV) as well as happy news (Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannssen nominated for "Lost in Translation"; we'd like to see Murray win, but he......

The New York Film Critics' Circle has announced its picks for the year in film, with many smaller films getting kudos, but studio epic Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was called best picture. Lost in Translation was recognized with Sofia Coppola as best director and Billy Murray as best actor (from indie major Focus Features), and indie Secret Lives of Dentists emerging with best actress Hope Davis (earning the award for......

The new Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father) film, In America, just won the AFI Fest's Best Picture award. In America is about an Irish family who move to a rundown New York City apartment to restart their life. Even though the trailer seemed a bit mawkish (adorable Irish kids befriending their black neighbor or asking what transvestites are), the presence of Samantha Morton and Paddy Considine, as well as......

Oscar Commentary
Oscar is celebrating its 75th anniversary, I'm celebrating my 25th anniversary of watching Oscar....

The evening is over, while Gothamist will be following up with extensive commentary about the actual Oscar telecast, here are the winners and some post-game analysis: Best Picture: Chicago - Marty Richards Not a huge surprise given the momentum Chicago's had since the Golden Globes, but there was an outside chance of a Pianist upset with The Pianist's acting, directing, and screenplay awards. But in the end, Harvey got his best picture. Best Actor in......

If the Oscars do go on tonight, I'll be glad because then everyone can shut up about it. It may seem strange for me to say this, given my love for movies and the Oscars and how I generally live for movies and love the day the Oscar nominations come out...but there's no Best Picture film I'm really behind this year...the only category I'm interested in Original Screenplay, and it's highly doubtful Almodovar or......

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, the Orange BAFTA Awards, were handed out yesterday and the big winner was The Pianist, Best Picture and Best Director Roman Polanski. Other winners included Daniel Day-Lewis for Gangs of New York, Nicole Kidman for The Hours, Catherine Zeta-Jones for Chicago, Christopher Walken for Catch Me If You Can (I wonder what he'd rather have done - been in London to pick up his award or......

Let the games begin. The Directors' Guild has announced their nominees, and they are Stephen Daldry for "The Hours," Peter Jackson for "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," Rob Marshall for "Chicago," Martin Scorsese for "Gangs of New York," and Roman Polanski for "The Pianist." The most likely nominees for the Academy Awards' Best Picture of the bunch are "The Hours," "Chicago," and "Lord of the Rings." Photos above and an article(registration......

Another year, another Golden Globes ceremony. People are mainly yammering about how the Oscar race is between The Hours and Chicago, but let's face it, the 87-93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press can't really be predictive of the thousands of members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has different branches like Editing and Writing which nominate the categories. What the Golden Globe winners can enjoy is more press, attention, and......