THEATER: Over the summer the Belarusian Free Theater was arrested, along with their audience, during a performance of their play Being Harold Pinter, which uses Pinter’s magnificent Nobel Prize acceptance speech as a springboard for theatrical dissent, something the Belarus police state isn't really so into. (For that reason, the company’s performances are normally held secretly in alternating private apartments.) Unable to bring the entire production to New York for his Under the Radar festival,......

MOVIE: Nessie's taking off from the Marine Park salt marsh in Brooklyn, but you can catch the creature on the big screen. The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep stars Emily Watson and Ben Chaplin and traces a boy's discovery of a mysterious egg that hatches into the sea creature of the Scottish legend. Way better than finding a sea monkey. Various times and theaters, details here MUSIC: If for some reason you just couldn't......

At just 24, Noah Baumbach made his mark on the indie film world with Kicking and Screaming, his hilarious and finely observed study of post-collegiate ennui. His Mr. Jealousy followed but the picture’s lukewarm response meant a long five years before he obtained funding for The Squid and the Whale. Happily for Baumbach, the superb film was a major critical and commercial success. Two years later, he’s back with Margot at the Wedding, another character-driven......

We've made it through 10 days of this year's New York Film Festival, and it's been a great run so far. As usual, the selection committee has picked stellar films and we've sat in on some star-studded Q&A sessions at Lincoln Center. Here are a few thoughts at the midpoint. Local boy Noah Baumbach presented the follow up to his Oscar-nominated and former NYFF favorite The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding at......

Over the past quarter-century They Might Be Giants have become such a consistent presence in the indie rock solar system that it’s quite possible to take them for granted. Because they were there at the ignition of "alternative" rock and never took their feet off the gas, one assumes they'll keep rocking all the way to the end, with "Don't Let's Start" providing the dance music for cockroaches' post-apocalyptic revelries. But despite their expansive musical......

Two quite controversial and buzzed about movies hit New York theaters this weekend. So far the critical opinion of raving lunatic Mel Gibson's new foreign language feature, Apocalypto, seems to be pretty favorable. The movie about a Mayan family man and the invading nearby tribe, sounds like it is painstakingly composed but has quite a bit of gratuitous, sadistic violence. Lisa Schwartzbaum in EW even calls it "the weirdest, most violent movie of the year,"......

Doesn't it seem like you no sooner put down the fork at the Thanksgiving table and the Christmas themed movies have flooded the theaters? If you're ready to start ho ho hoing your way to the cineplex, the new slapstick family comedy Deck The Halls starring Danny DeVito, Matthew Broderick and Kristen Davis is out this weekend. Hopefully all of these jokes about covering your house in light effects makes more sense in the suburbs.......

READING: Head to the New School to join the New York Times and their moderator, critic William Grimes, as Carl Hiaasen reads from his latest crime caper, Nature Girl, which chronicles the exploits of volatile Honey Santana who meets a wild cast of characters while en route to the Ten Thousand Islands. Show up early for a good seat - Hiaasen is a popular draw. - Krissa Corbett Cavouras 6:30pm // The New School [Tishman......

This weekend Hollywood says what moviegoers liked once, they'll sure love twice as the sequels The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties hit theaters. Now you may be asking yourselves, did we really need another movie about bad boys in fast cars or another flick about a fat, talking cat? Apparently, we did and they both needed to be set in an exotic international local, Japan and England,......

- The father of Christopher Rose, the 15 year old boy fatally stabbed for his iPod last year, testified in court, and told reporters, "Day by day, I hurt, I cry. I can't get over it. I still can't believe it." - NYC school kids may be telling the City Council why they need their cellphones in school, but they can be dangerous - a NJ teen died when trying to retrieve hers (she......

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......

Camera phone looky-loos, this one's for you. We're talking about the biggest band to hit small to medium sized NYC venues since Sufjan Stevens, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and The Arcade Fire. We're talking about Montreal's latest buzz band Wolf Parade. You've got three chances to see them this week. That's three chances to see them before they come back to play Webster Hall. If you can't find a ticket to the sold......

- A man was shot dead near Bowery and Rivington early this morning; it may have been the result of some dispute at a club - iPod Subway Maps have been cease-and-desisted in NYC and San Fran! - Hell almost freezes over: Mark Green will campaign for Fernando Ferrer! - A downtown apartment co-op is reprimanding workers for speaking Spanish on the job; way to embrace the melting pot of New York - Will......

The first trailer for Peter Jackson’s King Kong finally hit the internet, featuring Adrien Brody, a digital King Kong and Naomi Watts as his love interest, a few Jurassic Park leftovers, and Jack Black (who is so hard to take seriously). We’re quite optimistic LOTR’s Jackson can pull off an updated version of Hollywood classic and so far, Jackson insists he's refrained from reinventing the storyline: “Our story follows the same structure. It starts in......

In L.A., Un-Cabaret has been a fixture of the alternative comedy scene for over a decade. Founder Beth Lapides started it after growing tired of what mainstream stand-up comedy was offering, and brought in friends over the years like David Cross and Bob Odenkirk, Michael Patrick King, Scott Thompson and Patton Oswalt to break new ground and showcase their material. Today it has grown into a tiny empire with live shows, writing classes and contests......

Gothamist can appreciate a publicity stunt, and when it comes to the silly and bizarre, NYC doesn't disappoint. Really, who needs to hire birthday or bachelor party entertainment when you can just walk outside and catch a stormtrooper, cow, or scantily painted model? We wonder if anyone else saw those near-naked promoters, airbrushed with suits to resemble their favorite Reservoir Dog characters, running around Union Square yesterday. They were supposedly “spreading the PULP” in Lincoln......

Ben Lyons, MTV Co-host...

My best friend is coming in from out of town. He's staying at a midtown hotel, seeing some theater and wants to do some only-in-New-York things. Only problem is that he's not too adventurous and I can't imagine him wanting to explore neighborhoods like the Village or the outer boroughs. His culinary tastes are limited to fast food: burgers, fries and a coke. Where can I take my friend? John, Chelsea Without question you......

Music critic Sasha Frere–Jones gives a rounduop of the best music DVDs and box sets for Slate. He mentioned Talking Heads' Once in a Lifetime, Tenacious D's The Complete Masterworks, a DVD from German band Can, a Sun Ra film called "Space is The Place," and the Coldplay Live DVD, but the DVDs we're most interested in are the Directors Label collections of music videos from Chris Cunningham, Spike Jonze, and Michel Gondry. Michel Gondry's......

One of the upsides of going to school in NY (aside from the obvious one of living in the best city in the whole wide world) is being able to intern for hip companies, and the Times' Sarah Schmidt investigates the world of the hipster intern. Internships (or "fanternships") of choices include ones for the Strokes, various music PR agencies, and Vice magazine, where interns can revel in their plus ones and the proximity of......

A Plexiglass box. A hunger strike. A sort of mock band. Add a DVD release, and you've got a concept for a press conference. Tenacious D announced on Monday their 45 day hunger strike for rock. However, Jack Black told reporters the strike would end early if on the following happened: "The Complete Masterworks" - their new DVD of videos - goes platinum, if "hunger is solved" or if there is peace in Middle......

Richard Linklater. Good. Jack Black. Hee hee. A movie about Jack Black playing a fifth grade teacher in a movie directed by Richard Linklater? Awesome. Official School of Rock site. See the trailer. Our favorite Richard Linklater movie: Dazed & Confused. Our favorite Jack Black movie: High Fidelity. (We do feel he's better as a character actor, versus a lead, but may School of Rock prove us wrong.......

Now, the world is left with Dave Grohl as the only remaining performing member of Nirvana: Krist Noveselic is leaving the music business. He writes on the website of his current band, Eyes Adrift: I can't read the magazines, listen to the radio or watch music television without feeling like I've just come in from outer space. I just don't get it and I probably never did. My lot in life is that every band......

The Foo Fighters' new video, Low, will not be shown on MTV, because it depicts some very disturbing scenes with frontman Dave Grohl and funny man Jack Black, which NME summarizes well: In the clip, the two can be seen checking into a motel where they film themselves consuming vast amounts of alcohol and smashing up their room, before dressing up in women's underwear and wigs. They then engage in sexual acts, resulting in Black......

Dateline: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 approximately 7:15 PM EST. I'm sitting in the Burritoville on Chambers Street waiting for my Fogged in in Oregon burrito to be made. All of a sudden, I am face-to-face with celebrity actor and musician Jack Black. Because of his perpetually disheveled look, I was unable to place him immediately as a celebrity. I knew I recognized his face, but initially thought he might have been some loser I knew......