The Hollywood Reporter has news that Beastie Boy Adam Yauch will be expanding his music and film production operation, Oscilloscope Laboratories, into indie film distribution. Under the nom de plume Nathanial Hörnblowér, Yauch has orchestrated many of the Beastie Boys videos, as well as the hip hop group’s inventive full-length concert doc Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That! Oscilloscope also shot and produced live concert videos for Beck and Ryan Adams. Former ThinkFilm vice president David......

The producer of Pan's Labyrinth, the Oscar-winning film that partially delves into the world of abuse, may in fact have done some abusing of her own. A lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court yesterday against Frida Torresblanco. Her nanny, Angelica Hernandez, claims she was treated like a virtual slave. Hernandez (who was hired in February 2007) worked up to 150 hours a week for seven months in the producer's Tribeca apartment and brought home......

We've been monitoring how I am Legend, the big budget post-apocalyptic zombie movie set in New York, will be portraying the Big Apple ever since filming took place on the Brooklyn Bridge (it eventually gets blown up). Now, with reviews starting to pop up, we're hearing mixed things about the movie but raves about how a futuristic people-less New York City looks. The Observer's Sara Vilkomerson was freaked out, noting how the city is......

Some folks were mighty disappointed when a Daisy May's BBQ cart on Park Avenue and 52nd Street turned out to be a tease. According to Midtown Lunch, the cart was set up outside the Seagram Building for the filming of the next Adam Sandler movie, You Don't Mess With Zohan. The Hollywood Reporter says You Don't Mess With Zohan was written by Sandler, Judd Apatow, and Robert Smigel and it "follows the exploits of......

Recipe for a Cuban Molotov cocktail: Michael Moore, Harvey Weinstein, a documentary about U.S. healthcare and a federal investigation. No need to mix, because it'll stir into a frenzy on its own. Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore and his distributor, Harvey Weinstein, appeared at a press conference yesterday to question why the government is investigating Moore's trip to Cuba for his upcoming film, Sicko. The film, which premiered at Cannes and is scheduled to open......

As of last night, Pier 54 became a temporary home for the band Cartel. Haven't heard of them? That's probably why they opted for this reality show/publicity stunt thing. Through June 12th they'll be recording their second album inside a partially transparent bubble. The stunt is brought to you by MTV, Dr Pepper and Epic Records - surprisingly David Blaine had nothing at all to do with it. You can check in live with the......

It's December today and you know what that means...let the rampant awards season speculation commence! As the year comes to a close, it's that magical time when all of the movie studios begin unloading their most precious commodities into our theaters, making sure things come out in New York (and LA) before Dec. 31 so they'll be eligible for this year's Academy Awards. But of course, we're still weeks away from any nomination announcements for......

Last night, Katie Couric made her CBS Evening News debut. Overall, the newscast was perfectly fine - no banter, a long Lara Logan feature on going in Taliban-run Afghanistatn, an interview (sorta like The Daily Show, just without the humor) with the NY Times' Thomas L. Friedman, a segment from Morgan "30 Days" Spurlock, and what the public has really been waiting for, pictures of baby Suri Cruise (she has a crazy head of hair!).......

Aha, the cast changes we've been wondering about: The Hollywood Reporter says Dennis Farina is leaving, while Conviction's Milena Govich will come on board. And since Govich played an ADA on the now-cancelled Conviction, she'll probably be playing an ADA on Law & Order. Lucky for her to get another season of work, but L&O will be on Friday nights at 10PM (GASP!), moving from Wednesdays at 10PM for the first time ever, so some......

It's been oh, about five million, thirty-one thousand, three hundred sixty minutes since the musical Rent premiered on Broadway, and Gothamist must admit that because Seasons of Love has been playing over and over again thanks to the ads for the movie Rent, we're tempted to see it in order to get the song out of our head. Some early reviews are out (Variety thinks it's very Chris Columbus, very lame but the Hollywood Reporter......

Once upon a time in 1999, a book of short stories titled, The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing, came out and captured the hearts of female readers, many of them single, New York women looking for love and career fulfillment (much like the main character in most of the stories, Jane), as the Bridget Jones/Sex and the City zeitgeist started to take hold. And Gothamist thought, "This should be a movie!" And a year......

Mick Stingley, Low-Rent Rock Critic...

Starting today, the Reverend Billy Graham will be preaching in Flushing, Queens in what it seems like everyone is excitedly calling "his last crusade" because he's old and seems to be ready to die. The "crusade" is expected to attract hundreds of thousands of people, and it'll be a big media event, too - Brian Williams anchoring the NBC Nightly News tonight from Flushing Meadows Park tonight; the Hollywood Reporter points out that Graham's......

Gothamist did not need to check Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, or Defamer to know that Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith would become the most popular movie across America this weekend. Gothamist knew it the moment we overheard a neighbor playing a DVD of the movie very loudly on Saturday afternoon. Said neighbor purchased the DVD in Chinatown, and while he missed the group experience of being around tons of people dressed up like beings......

The Hollywood Reporter says that Meryl Streep will be playing the Anna Wintour-inspired devilish boss in the movie of The Devil Wears Prada. Streep has already played another Conde Nast employee, New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, in Adaptation, so we can't wait until she plays Graydon Carter or Jeff Jarvis next (hey, she played a rabbi in Angels in America - she can probably do it!). We think that someone like Lara Flynn Boyle, with......

The reviews are out, and Chris Rock is getting a mixed bag of feedback for his duties as the MC of the Oscars. The NY Daily News' David Bianculli says he wasn't edgy or funny enough, Variety says his opening monologue was great (subscription required), the Hollywood Reporter says that Rock wasn't on a roll, and the Washington Post's Tom Shales says Rock was strangely lame and mean-spirited. Gothamist wonders if there's a generational divide......

One of the great uncles of the reality TV genre, Taxicab Confessions, has its 11th season premiere tomorrow night on HBO. The NY Times had an Arts & Leisure feature about the show last weekend, noting that most New Yorkers ignore cab drivers, which could be partly due to some cabdrivers' chats on the cellphone, but, yeah, New Yorkers will conduct all sorts of strange business anywhere. Most of the other seasons of Taxicab Confessions......

Brooklyn resident, angry old man, and famed writer, Norman Mailer, makes his television debut on The WB's Gilmore Girls tonight, in an episode titled, "Norman Mailer, I'm Pregnant!" Gothamist has always wanted to put the name "Norman Mailer" in the same sentence as Gilmore Girls. We were hoping that Norman would tell Lorelei that she needs to chill out a little bit or to point out that Rory is actually a pretty bad friend, but......

Whoa whoa whoa: The seminal 1979 Walter Hill film, The Warriors, about warring NYC gangs is going to be remade! Tony Scott will direct the film, based on a screenplay by Sopranos writer Terrence Winter, which makes us think there will be some flashy car chases, lots of explosions, and bodies being cut up. The Hollywood Reporter says "Scott's version will follow the outline of the first film -- in which a gang leader is......

It's all about the small pleasures in life, and Gothamist is happy to hear that Chappelle Show is renewed through 2006, which means two more 13 episode seasons. The 13 episodes include 10 original episodes, two "Best Of" episodes and one musical special per year, which isn't that different from what's happening now, but the new deal is worth $50 million because of DVD and syndication related money, according to the Hollywood Reporter (the same......

Right on the heels of the latest class of NYPD cadets graduating, it seems that Warner Bros. is bringing back the Police Academy franchise. According to the Hollywood Reporter, series creator Paul Maslansky said, "I felt it was time to start again. I saw that 'Starsky & Hutch' and a number of other revivals were doing really well. 'Police Academy' has such a great history. I thought, 'Why not?'" Gothamist isn't totally sure of the......

The Hollywood Reporter is running a series of articles about how great New York is for film and TV production. One of them, Location report: New York, gives us some interesting information: "The original "L&O" has contributed more than $650 million to the city during 672 weeks of regular production spanning nearly 15 years." Wow! And that's just ONE of the Law & Order shows. Katherine Oliver, the Film, Theatre and Broadcasting Commissioner, says......

Ooh, it looks like Owen Wilson is taking the male lead opposite Natalie Portman in The Smoker, based on David Schickler's short story that appeared in the New Yorker four years ago (read The Smoker here). The Hollywood Reporter also reports that Richard Linklater is directing the film, which seems brilliant to Gothamist, since Linklater has shown a great hand at delicate philosophy and love stories (Waking Life and Before Sunrise) as well as humor......

Former NBC president Scott Sassa is now CEO of Friendster. The Hollywood Reporter writes that his main job will be "building the online success of Friendster into a profitable business by expanding its services and user base." Yeah, like, fixing those damn servers! Sassa himself said, "The Internet and digital technology are turning the entertainment business upside down. Friendster's mass appeal, viral growth and stickiness will make it one of the brands that will redefine......

This Saturday will mark the start of the third annual Tribeca Film Festival. There's a democratic mix of high (Hector Barbenco's Carandiru) and crowdpleasing low (New York Minute with the Olsen Twins) brow (as well as the gossip-worthy, like Stage Beauty, the film that Billy Crudup and Claire Danes met on) films, and tickets are still available for many screenings. It's a great week and a half of movies, panels, and other events that energize......

New York darlings Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker will be taking roles in the Strangers with Candy movie. Of course, Broderick is still best known for playing Ferris Bueller and Parker honed her teenager-in-high school acting chops as Patty Greene on the short-lived sitcom, Square Pegs (not mentioning playing an immature-as-a-higher-schooler on Sex and the City). The Hollywood Reporter says that the couple's friendship with Strangers with Candy co-creator and star, and all-around amazing......

Details of America's Sweetheart Katie Couric's interview with journalism wayward son, Jayson Blair, from the Hollywood Reporter: • Friday, March 5 - Dateline interview - Expect some Jayson Blair on Dateline watching parties. • Monday, March 8 - Today Show, live appearance - Expect bagels, muffins, coffee and juice in the conference room. THR also notes that the Dateline "story will also include interviews with industry experts about how the scandal has affected journalism." Aha!......

The Hollywood Reporter says that Showtime has ordered a pilot for a show called, Make Me Cool: [A] squad of hip African Americans helps terminally uncool individuals -- not just Caucasians -- overcome their obstacles. Though a reality show, this sounds more like a public service, although there actually needs to be a S.W.A.T. team that stops white teenagers from copping too much hip-hop style, like Seth Green in Can't Hardly Wait. Fo' shizzle, my......

News that Jennifer Aniston has picked a post-Friends project is less interesting than the actual conceit of the project, which is written and will be directed by Ted Griffin (who wrote the remake of Ocean's Eleven and Matchstick Men). According to the Hollywood Reporter: Griffin's project will find Aniston starring as a young woman who discovers that her family's darkest secret was the inspiration for the book and the movie "The Graduate" and that she......

Answering the desperate need to see a Nora Ephron screenplay acted out live, it looks like everyone's favorite brooding bad boy (of the mid 90s), Luke Perry, and everyone's favorite lesbian witch/band camper, Alyson Hannigan, will play Harry and Sally in the London stage version of When Harry Met Sally. According to the Hollywood Reporter, previews begin Feb. 10 and the play opens officially Feb. 20 at the Theatre Royal, with a scheduled 16 week......