Thieves, beware: don't mess with Mehrtash Mandana. The NY Post reports Mandana was standing at East 95th Street and typing e-mails on her BlackBerry when a teenaged bandit grabbed the 32-year-old real estate agent's smartphone right out of her hands. Mandana, unfazed and pissed, took off after the pint-sized pickpocket. She tells the Post: "He was a little runt. I went up to him and punched him in the shoulder. The cops had to pull me off him." The vigilante real estate agent—who apparently has better luck with this sort of thing than some movie stars—was ultimately able to retrieve her BlackBerry after a nearby security guard tackled the 14-year-old snatch-thief. more ›

Celebrity couple Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick are among the more famous victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, and tabloids, naturally, wondered what their exposure might have been. During a press conference for her TNT show The Closer, Sedgwick broached the topic, "It wasn't the truth that we were destroyed...It's been really unpleasant and makes you feel really vulnerable. But the fact of the matter is that we did not lose everything. We lost hard-earned money that we worked very hard for that was what we thought in a safe place. It's painful but a lot of people lost a lot more. And we have a lot of things to be grateful for in our life, and we never ever forget that." Then she moved onto less grim things: Apparently Bacon is excited that Chace Crawford is cast in the Footloose remake, and she's happy, too, "I think it's great. I think he's adorable." more ›

Picture Kevin Bacon in a black suit, white v-neck tee underneath, walking in slow motion down an overgrown High Line. It just seems fitting, doesn't it? That must be what the folks at Sundance thought, too, because here is that exact scene as part of the channel's High Line Stories series (which is online only and premiered today). more ›

Welcome to the underground, Kevin Bacon. Fresh off of being swindled out of money invested in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, actor Kevin Bacon is apparently now riding the subways and discovering the criminal air down there. The Post reports that Bacon had his Blackberry stolen Thursday at the 7th Avenue and 53rd Street B, D, and E station in Manhattan. Sources tell the paper that Bacon raced after the thief, but "lost track of him as he ran through the station's crowd." The Post seems hard up for details—certainly not made any easier when the NYPD would not confirm the robbery—but the paper makes sure to rally a team of three punsters who really bring home the Bacon reporting that the star was "smoked," "not footloose enough" and "is a lot less than six degrees of separation away from a coveted cache of A-list celebrities and boldface names likely programmed into Bacon's 'Berry." While they can only speculate that the device includes the number of the "boo 'berry" belonging to wife Kyra Sedgwick "possibly along with dozens of other box office stars who have graced the big screen with Bacon," they do confirm that over one-third of subway robberies target mobile devices. more ›

Earlier today the Bacon Brothers asked students at LaGuardia School of Music & Art: “Do You ‘Wanna Play Music?’” The event was for NAMM and their annual National Wanna Play Music Week. The non-profit draws attention to benefits brought on by musical instruments, and there was also a John Lennon Educational Bus on hand. Yoko Ono was scheduled to participate, performing for and with the kids, but since she clearly hates children she was a no-show. more ›

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The laptop as guest - and sometimes the centerpiece - at dinner parties gets the Observer treatment today. We're all too familiar with friends staring at their Blackberry/iPhone/ Sidekick devices during social situations, but some might tell those toting a Macbook to a dinner party to just stay at home...or not? After all, they do come in handy when a debate is being settled (say, how many degrees of Kevin Bacon is Alan Thicke?). As long as everyone can get back in to real person-on-person conversation and re-enter the real world, the temporary tech guest shouldn't be too imposing. more ›

Have you taken Time Out New York's Essential New Yorker? It's a mammoth, challenging exercise that tests people's knowledge of the city and its people. Naturally, there was a Law & Order question (page 5 of the quiz) that challenged whether you could sift through, oh, about 100 names or so to find the needle in the haystack: "Which one of the following actors has never appeared on New York’s quintessential cop show?" more ›

Well, the big day has come and gone, but not without leaving us with some impressive stats (feel free to help us out in the comments with better stats and info!): more ›

Even though construction has been quietly progressing for the last month, today was the official groundbreaking for the High Line Park. Just about every local politician was there to make a little speech about the revitalization of the area, including Senators Clinton and Schumer, Mayor Bloomberg, and City Council Speaker Quinn. A requisite smatter of celebrities also showed up-- Barry Diller and his wife Diane Von Furstenberg, Kevin Bacon, and Ed Norton all stood on the dais during the speeches. Everyone was wearing green commemorative hard hats with the Michael Defeo flower on the front. The big moment was a ceremonial "rail lifting"-- although to tell the truth, the machine seemed to be doing most of the work while the politicos stood around for the cameras. more ›

Sundance definitely hit its stride in the last day or so and now the exodus has begun. The scene is getting quiet. More film goers and less partyers are trolling around and those that have been here from the beginning are slowing down. more ›

If it's fall, it must be time for the New York Film Festival. This year, the opening night film is Mystic River, the ensemble drama directed by Clint Eastwood. The cast is ridiculously loaded with great actors: Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Tim Robbins, Laura Linney, Marcia Gay Harden, and Laurence Fishburne. The story is dark, eliciting comparisons to Eastwood's tour de force western, Unforgiven, but its present day setting makes it more wrenching. Sean Penn also stands a good chance of being nominated come Oscar time, based on the buzz of his performance as a father whose daughter is murdered. more ›

Someday, Gothamist will go to the Cannes Film Festival. But until then, we will continue to get excited about films that premiere there and eagerly await for them to come Stateside. Like Mystic River, Clint Eastwood's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's bestselling novel. Gothamist had heard how wonderful a book Mystic River was ("Don't mind the 'New York Times Bestseller' and mass-market paperback size, Jen."), both in terms of the thrill and emotional story telling. It is a solidly written, haunting book about three friends whose "lives change forever" when one is kidnapped but returned a few days later; the friends reunite when one's daughter is found murdered. more ›

- L.A. Times reports: "Designer Tara Subkoff's Hollywood connections must rival Kevin Bacon's. Reese Witherspoon came out to support the designer who was once her roommate. And Wes Anderson, Subkoff's current beau, was able to reel in pals Anjelica Huston, Jason Schwartzman, Sheryl Crow and Owen Wilson." more ›

Page Six mentions that CPW is Sheryl Crow's favorite jeans store. I've shopped at CPW, as it's in the Upper West Side, my neighborhood. It's now moved to 84th Street and Amsterdam, but when it was next to the Beacon Theatre on Broadway and West 75th, it was convenient to go there before heading to the best grocery store ever, Fairway. I've never seen Sheryl Crow at CPW, but have bumped into Kyra Sedgwick and actor-slash-musician Kevin Bacon there. more ›