We know July 4th is around the corner when we hear about the police seizing caches of illegal fireworks. Yesterday, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly announced "one of the largest fireworks seizures" in city history: 9,000 pounds of fireworks were found in Sheepshead Bay. Newsday reports that the fireworks included "mortar shells typically used in professional displays, as well as something called the 800-Shot Grand Finale Saturn Missile Battery, which is as big as a small table."
NYPD's July 4th Warm-Up: Illegal Fireworks Raids
Teenagers in Movies Today
Gothamist finally saw Better Luck Tomorrow this past weekend and enjoyed it very much. We don't know if it was the intelligent acting or the frenetic insanity of it, but the film seemed like a breath of fresh air, not just in its depiction of Asian-American teenagers, although that was a big part of it. This recent L.A. Times article about the trend towards depicting extremely gritty teen life captures what was intense about seeing Better Luck Tomorrow: The idea that teens (i.e., people) are fallible and empowered to make decisions in non cookie-cutter ways, a la What a Girl Wants. Although that's an idea Gothamist would like to pitch: Asian teen movie with Colin Firth. Oh, yes.
What I Don't Want
Gothamist has been looking for a way to talk about What a Girl Wants, the new Princess Diaries-ish movie starring Nickelodeon star Amanda Bynes, if only to talk about Colin Firth, making the transition to playing fathers of teenage girls. Warner Bros. is backtracking and trying to eliminate the peace sign from WAGW posters according to the Hollywood Reporter. No matter that there are tons of posters that have been up for weeks.

