A man posing as Heath Ledger's father managed to get free hotel rooms and talk to Tom Cruise and John Travolta after the actor's death last week. The Post reports the "twisted impostor" got Tom Cruise to console him on the phone and almost "got John Travolta to buy him a plane ticket to the United States." Why does this sound like a radio shock jock prank? With Ledger's father Kim (pictured) rumored to arrive......

Flags of Our Fathers Letters From Iwo Jima (directed by Clint Eastwood) To tell just one side of an armed conflict isn't telling the whole story, and Clint Eastwood's companion movies released last winter in time for Oscar season expertly uses that idea to illuminate the capture during World War II of the Japanese island Iwo Jima. Even more thrilling than the movies' exploding bombs or CGI parade of tanks is the deft and sensitive......

The Aura (directed by Fabián Beilinsky): When a talented director passes away after making just a few really great movies, it's tempting to wonder "what if." The Argentinian filmmaker Fabián Beilinsky only had the opportunity to make the serpentine thrillers Nine Queens in 2000 and then The Aura in 2005 before suffering from a heart attack in 2006. However, let's focus on the positive--now that The Aura is out on DVD, you can rent both......

The New York Times looks at the ascendance of the heckler as self-appointed critic at large. Voicing one's displeasure in the here and now has apparently taken on enough significance that it is being called a societal trend. Hecklers who boo politicians at public addresses are crusaders for peace. The woman who Mel Gibson dismissed as a heckler at an event for his movie Apocalypto described herself as a dutiful academic. And some sports......

The NY Times has a good article about the second trial of Steven Johnson, who unleashed his anger by shooting people and taking others hostage in an East Village bar almost five years ago. Johnson, who has AIDS, was unemployed at the time and was allegedly looking for "happy people" to "avenge the oppression of black people like himself," according the Times. We remember the incident very clearly. It was a nice June night and......

Comedian Doug Benson of Best Week Ever, Last Comic Standing Season 3, and Comedy Central Present's fame is in town to perform as part of the The Marijuana-Logues at Comix on January 18th, 19th, and 20th. In this interview, he discusses his love of movies, his film in progress Super High Me, and his new podcast, Doug Benson's I Love Movies. When did you start smoking pot? 27. The story goes something like this: I......

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,"......

Oy. As the debate about Michael Richards, aka Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld, and his racist rant at comedy club hecklers continues, it now turns out that he may have had a run-in with comedy club patrons - and went off in an anti-Semitic rant at that time! TMZ.com spoke to a couple who says Richards went berserk while, yes,being heckled at LA's The Improv. Carol Oschin said, "Michael Richards said, 'You're a f---ing Jew.'......

In anticipation of tomorrow night's Law & Order episode about a the meltdown of a Mel Gibson-esque celebrity (Chevy Chase says sugartits!), we present you the video of chirpy Elisabeth Hasselback's complaint about a Law & Order SVU episode, via Best Week Ever. In the episode, a character named Elizabeth Hassenback was raped twice and murdered. So Elisabeth took time to call the executive producer of L&O SVU Neal Baer and relayed the conversation......

After last year's mess of an awards show and this year's joke of nominations (where is love for Lauren Graham, Academy of Television Arts & Sciences?), we were going to swear off this year's Emmys. But then we realized Conan O'Brien was hosting, so we must watch and liveblog. And there's the hope of a good Steve Carrell bit, not to mention awkward reaction shots of Candy and Tori Spelling during the Aaron Spelling tribute.......

Breaking the law, breaking the law We -ist folks love us some crime, and no misdemeanor is too petty for a post on any of our sites. This week, join us for a rogues' gallery of miscreants major, minor, and alleged. Gothamist gets us started with "Law & Order", muppet style. Oh, you know what isn't a crime? Taking pictures on the MTA. So, why are cops stopping photographers? In other Gotham crime, a......

In The Forward, Ed Koch and Rafael Medoff have an article, Will Mel Gibson Get Away With His Antisemitic Tirade? And it's like a greatest hits of famous figures (mostly political) getting their slur on. For instance: - Jesse Jackson called New York City "Hymietown" - James Baker saying, "F— the Jews, they don't vote for us anyway." - Marge Schott's Hitler love and her remarks about blacks - Maybe everything Pat Buchanan has said......

Oh, yes, we did it! New York City broke another peak electricity demand record, with 13,141 megawatts served yesterday, breaking Monday's record. Still, a bunch of areas in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and upper Manhattan experienced blackouts - and there have been many manhole fires as well. It was around 112 on the heat index in some parts, yet it was still not hot enough to fry an egg on a Brooklyn manhole. This......

MUSIC: The Upper Crust are playing a proletarian downtown venue tonight! These four young nobleman will Rocque and Roll you with a polished AC/DC-esque sound. Do check them out, seriously. That is them to the right. We don't think we really need say anymore. Friday // 11:30pm // Knitting Factory [74 Leonard St] // $10 ART: Removal Satisfies the Condition is the latest PublicAdCampaign exhibit, and it's opening tonight. This city's public environment is filled......

It's Oscar Night and Gothamist is here. Tonight, it'll be a joint effort, from our resident film guru Karen Wilson and our resident Oscar freak Jen Chung. We hope you weigh in with what you think! KW: I have my popcorn, my diet coke -- I am ready for the spectacle and the excess. JC: ALL RIGHT! I just took extra Vitamin C - I'm waiting for some food delivery. 6:36PM Isaac Mizrahi has NOT......

For the last five years or so, we've been passing by this sushi place on Thompson Street north of Bleecker and admiring their set of Mel Gibson portraits taped in the window. We love that they haven't bothered to repair the pictures as they've slowly faded to a wonderful shade of blue-- and we love the expression on Mel Gibson's face. It's like "hey, I'm just trying to eat some sushi, don't make me......

Here we go: it's a huge weekend for year-end Oscar-bait and questions abound. Will audiences flock to see the "forbidden" love of Brokeback Mountain? (And was anybody else as disturbed at Focus Features' obvious attempts to downplay the male love story as much as possible and feature the relationships with the respective wives in every trailer?) Will fans who made worshipped the bestselling novel approve of Chicago director Rob Marshall's retelling of Memoirs of a......

While we know you’re probably anxiously waiting for Mel Gibson’s Pope: The Movie or for your Mr. Skin’s Skinclylopedia to arrive, you might want to check out some great new and revived movies this weekend: Though not as fun as spoonerisms (“chipping the flannel”), they're words or phrases which read the same in both directions (like “nun”). Even just pronouncing it is mildly amusing. Pa-lin-dromes. Todd Solondz'’s latest film follows a young Jersey teen who......

Eugene Hernandez, Editor-in-Chief, indieWIRE...

The BBC reports that Warburtons graciously asked 2,000 filmgoers what the cheesiest movie lines were, and their answers are this: 1. "I'm the king of the world!" - Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) in Titanic 2. "Nobody puts Baby in the corner" - Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze) in Dirty Dancing 3. "Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed." - Carrie (Andie MacDowell) while standing in a downpour in Four Weddings in a Funeral 4. "Ditto" -......

Gothamist's favorite unwitting chicken owner and the NY Times's former chief restaurant critic, William Grimes, has been book reviewer for the paper. Now, the triumvirate of reviewers will be Grimes, Janet Maslin (former chief film critic), and Chief Michiko Kakutani. We can just imagine the publishing houses combing through his old restaurant reviews and editors suggesting to writers they incorporate dining scenes, restaurants, and heady descriptions of preparing food. Grimes goes into Nicolai Ouroussoff's and......

The Passion of the Christ has been out for a while now and most of the people I know have seen it. I've been reluctant to see what I feel will be a virulently anti-Semitic film and have no interest in giving Mel Gibson my money. For the sake of discussing it with my , but in the interest of keeping my money from a man I think is an anti-Semite, can I sneak into......

Today at noon, Air America, the liberal radio network, will go on the air, with Al Franken's daily show, "The O'Franken Factor." The Times looks at how the ambitions to bring a liberal voice to radio have outpaced the realities (Air America hasn't bought any stations yet - it's just bought time on five stations) as well as how the network's personalities have to remain enterataining as it competes with conservative voices Rush "Oxy-Contin" Limbaugh......

Jenny Oh, Documentary Filmmaker...

The Post comes up with a few ideas for Oscar drinking games during the ceremony: • An award winner forgets to thank his or her significant other. • An award winner says the words "blessed," "humbling" or "my agent." • The orchestra cuts off an acceptance speech. • Host Billy Crystal makes a Mel Gibson joke. • A camera cuts to Jack Nicholson. Gothamist would like to add someone saying "Oh my God" (we want......

If you're not going to see The Passion of the Christ, at least read Times' A.O. Scott's review of it, because Scott begins by referring to the Simpsons episode with Mel Gibson: There is a prophetic episode of "The Simpsons" in which the celebrity guest star Mel Gibson, directing and starring in a remake of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," enlists the help of Homer Simpson, who represents the public taste (or lack of it).......

– Grammy shammy – Hiring frenzy: The mob – Movie endings: Happy or real – Jayson Blair's book arrives next month – Should cabbies be allowed to talk on their cellphones? – The fine line between PC and too much PC – Woman is killed by a subway when trying to retrieve cellphone from tracks – New York in the 70s – Mel Gibson channels Seinfeld – Gubernatorious, a documentary in progress about the nutty......

Uber Catholic Mel Gibson told the Herald Sun of Australia that he believes his wife, an Episcopalian, will be going to hell: "There is no salvation for those outside the Church. I believe it...Put it this way. My wife is a saint. She�s a much better person than I am. Honestly. She�s, like, Episcopalian, Church of England. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it�s just not......

We successfully moved to a new server last weekend, thanks for Jake, so we hope that loading Gothamist has been faster and easier than ever. There may still be a few bugs, so please let us know if there's anything you think we need to address. - City Hall shooting: The chaos during, trying to understand, and the detective who got a promotion - Dirty thirty - Mel Gibson and his Jesus Christ - Brooklyn......

The Washington Post's Beltway gossip Lloyd Grove gets ready for his new gig at the Daily News by going heavy on the D.C. screening circuit today. First, he leads with a screening of The Passion, with director Mel Gibson present, for insiders to quell rumors. The invitees skewed to the conservative: Matt Drudge, Peggy Noonan, Cal Thomas and Kate O'Beirne; conservative essayist Michael Novak; President Bush's abortive nominee for labor secretary, Linda Chavez; staff director......