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......

On what would have been his wedding day, Sean Bell's friends and family, as well as other activists, politicians, and members of the community, held a vigil/protest/rally for Bell, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield. Bell was killed during a confrontation with the police after his bachelor party at the Queens strip club Kalua Lounge on Saturday morning. Guzman and Benefield were injured and remain in the hospital. The police fired 50 shots in less......

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......

The former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, former deputy secretary of state under Reagan, and Pataki contributor John C. Whitehead will resign from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the World Trade Center rebuilding organization, today. Whitehead was placed in the role of LMDC chairman by Pataki four years ago, and has had a lot of troubles, given the issues with WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein, government officials, government agencies and victims' families all squabbling. Whitehead said, "This......

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......

There's a NY Times article about how Technology > Circuits > Oft-Scorned Segway Finds Friends Among the Disabled" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/14/technology/circuits/14segw.html?pagewanted=2">Segways are being used by the disabled to get around - though the FDA and other healthy agencies haven't officially called it a device for the disabled - Gothamist noticed an interesting quote about Segways in NYC:In New York City, the Segway falls into a gray area, said Councilman John C. Liu, a Queens Democrat who is......