The Simpsons Movie (directed by David Silverman) This weekend marks the move of America's favorite dysfunctional family the Simpsons from the suburbs of television to the urban center of the big screen. After all of the viral marketing of Simpson-ified magazine editors, real life Kwik-E-Marts and ticket giveaways, is it too much to hope that there's still fresh material to be mined from the long-running animated sitcom? According to the critics, the movie is just......

It's inevitable in a summer season of blockbuster highs and lows that we'd have a weekend filled with new releases none of which look good enough to recommend. Glancing ahead to the rest of the month there's stuff like Ratatouille, Sicko, Evening, A Mighty Heart and Evan Almighty to look forward to seeing. But this week? Nada. Don't believe that could possibly be the case? Check out what other early reviews of this week's releases......

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA......

EVENT: An evening with David LaChapelle is sure to be a fabulous one. He'll be signing his new coffee table art book, Heaven to Hell, tonight. Wear your Sunday best. 6 to 8pm // Taschen [107 Greene St] // Free THEATER: Coinciding with Black History Month, The Dance – which is not a dance piece – delves into the history of American minstrelsy from the perspective of two African-American performers in blackface makeup. Performed as......

Celebrate Ben Franklin's 300th birthday with the Bikini Bandits and Phillyist! (NSFW). Speaking of Mr. Franklin, send in a picture of Ben (or Ed Rendell) with a red tongue and win a free t-shirt. And they might have the next YearlyKos in Philly. You know who's going to be upset about those Bikini Bandits? The Houston school system. Houstonist also reports on some redevelopment shenanigans over a landmark theater. LAist's sex advice column on......

The weeks starts out right when a sucker punch on the field lands Chicagoist in the middle of a Sox/Cubs throwdown and the fists continue to fly in the comments. Despite suburban resident Ms. Pinney's best little try no books will be banned anytime soon and the El is really really gross. Houstonist is there to start compiling the punditry when when the guilty, guilty Enron verdict comes down. This guy seems to be able......

On Sundays, Gothamist puts its own opinions aside, and asks friends and strangers to write Op-Ed pieces for us. If you want to submit one, email Jake. Here's a review of Ian Frazier's new book, by Ben Cosgrove-- sounds like a winner to us: Has anyone ever written a single, great, quintessentially New York novel? Or a single, great, quintessential history of the city? If anything, the books that feel most "New York" are those......

Wow, you put Mayor Bloomberg, resplendent in cash money, on the cover of your alternative weekly and the next thing you know, you're sold to a bigger company! Village Voice Media, which represents the Voice and five other alt weeklies (including LA Weekly), is announcing its sale to the New Times today. New Times is the largest alt weekly publisher with eleven papers (Dallas Observer, Miami New Times, SF Weekly, Cleveland Scene), which would mean......

Kurt Cobain died ten years ago, and a decade gives people enough time (and evidence) to consider his legacy and think that Courtney Love really killed him. There's a Dateline segment transcript of authors Max Wallace and Ian Halperin contending Courtney Love had more to do with Cobain's death, with an excerpt of their new book, "Love & Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain." The excerpt os of a private investigator who Love hired to......

According to the paper of record, USA Today, viewers of ABC "comedies" will suffer stupid Oscars-related plots to get people excited about the Oscars; the producers of the Oscars telecast think, for this year, the war is out and frivolity is in; and Bruce Vilanch will be writing a lot of crap for presenters to read off the Tele-Prompter. Can't wait! And, sure, Gothamist gets excited about the Oscars and the nominations and glitz......

Is it just me, or do features like this make it seem like Los Angeles has a big case of attack envy? Trust me, L.A.- it's not something you want to be fantasizing about. LA Weekly: Features: If It Happened Here [Jen]: Contact Mayor Bloomberg about getting the next attack diverted to Los Angeles.......