Because opening ceremonies for the Olympics are on Friday, most of the big studio movies are opening today. At the top of the heap is Pineapple Express, the new stoner comedy from Seth Rogen and southern art-house director David Gordon Green (friend of Gothamist). The action-packed romp, replete with an eponymous theme song by Huey Lewis, follows a stoner and his dealer on the run from some murderous thugs. Reviews are very mixed, with......

For the second year running, the Food Bank for New York City and the Lunchbox Fund of South Africa have enlisted over 100 celebrities in their holiday fundraiser. Boldface names like Kanye West, Elton John, Cameron Diaz, Mike Meyers, William Wegman and, um, Urban Outfitters, have created personalized, autographed lunchboxes that are now onsale via online auction. At Thursday night's kick-off event at Saatchi & Saatchi, a lunchbox by Michael Stipe was snatched up......

MOVIE: In the unlikeliest of scenarios, rapper (and jeweler) Paul Wall, his grills, Reggaetón king Tego Calderón and Wu-Tang's Raekwon traveled to Sierra Leone. The outcome is an informative documentary called Bling: A Planet Rock which focuses on "the flashy world of commercial hip-hop jewelry played a significant role in the ten-year civil war" in West Africa. 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm // BAM Rose Cinemas [30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn] // $12 ART: Photographs by Lisette Model,......

Last night Bowery Presents new Brooklyn venue, the Music Hall of Williamsburg, was supposed to open with 'ol New York rocker Patti Smith. Perhaps it's fitting that the opening night didn't go as planned, and instead the new New York rock regime (Brooklynites Matt & Kim) will now christen the new stage tonight. At least...that's what they're saying. As of right now the venue will be opening in about 6 hours. But as of......

TIP: Starting today and running through the 16th you can see some of Off-Broadway's best for only $20! Go here for more details about the 20at20 deal. READING: Clintons + book stores = long lines, so start heading to Union Square now for tonight's reading. Our former president will be giving everyone a glimpse from his new book "Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World." Read more about the book, which is out......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: An unstable building on Jewlett Avenue in Staten Island, a jumper down in Brooklyn and a double bank robbery (Commerce and Bank of NY) at 80 Broadway in Manhattan. Four winning MegaMillions tickets were sold, but in NJ, Maryland, Texas and Virginia. The numbers were 8-18-22-40-44 (with MegaBall 11), and a lump sum payment would be about $48 million. The fugitive businessman who donated thousands to politicians, including Senator......

Last month Reverend Billy was locked up for reciting the First Amendment in Union Square. Tonight he returns with a troupe of others to speak out against the outrageous new law that would limit public photography and filming in New York. Currently there are 2,285,188 photos tagged "New York" on Flickr, and that's just one photo sharing site, imagine if the number stopped there and we lost future images of the city. A new group......

North 6th Street has been quiet with music venue Northsix shutting its door in January, and with Galapagos pretty much closing its doors this summer. However, after murmurings of the upcoming Music Hall of Williamsburg opening, not opening, having problems opening...for months, there's finally a date to mark on the calendar for the venue, which has been slowly taking over the Northsix space (and thensome?). The Music Hall of Williamsburg will be run by the......

NY Mag made note of The Strand Bookstore's birthday over the weekend. The shop, which boasts 18 miles of books, turned 80 on June 2nd, proving it's a mainstay even amongst the Barnes and Noble and Borders book stores popping up around town. The store was founded by Ben Bass on what was known as Book Row, which at the time housed 48 bookstores. Today it's run by Fred and Nancy Bass. When asked......

Last night, recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Patti Smith played an intimate show at the new Star Lounge in (her old residence) the Hotel Chelsea. The low-ceilinged bar was packed, hot and filled with old fans, friends and major label folk. Patti Smith got up on a small stage with her old band members and her son to play a few songs from her new release 12. The album is a......

Last night at the Waldorf Astoria, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - the first hip-hop act to receive the honor! The South Bronx group pioneered the genre, being the first to incorporate deejaying and emceeing. Melle Mel told AllHipHop.com: “We are going in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to represent exactly who we are and what we did. Nas saying that......

Tibet Rocks Last Monday at Carnegie Hall there was a Hall of Fame reunion of sorts to support The Tibet House New York. Rock icons such as Ray Davies, Debbie Harry, Lou Reed, Patti Smith and Michael Stipe teamed up with more of-the-moment stars Sigur Ros and Ben Harper to celebrate Tibetan culture. The show was a great success, from all reports, including some duets and surprise arrangements from the legends on hand. Them aside,......

One of the first Carnegie Hall shows we went to, years ago, was the Tibet House Benefit. The President of Tibet House is none other then Uma's dad, Robert A.F. Thurman. The annual show he has help put on is now in its 17th year, and this time around will take place on February 26th. The lineup has been confirmed (why the press release is giving Ben Harper top billing is beyond us) and some......

THEATER: According to industry rag Variety, playwright Kristine Thatcher “has been deservedly attracting international attention. [Her] latest, Among Friends, is a whimsical and provocative deconstruction of hetero male bonding." The story goes like this: “Three old friends gather as often as possible to play poker. Matt is a struggling Sears appliance salesman; Will, a public school teacher; and Dan, a real-estate developer and award-winning humanitarian. But when Will discovers the lionized Dan cheating at cards,......

THEATER: The Pearl Theatre Company, known for their deft handling of classic plays, has revived Molière's satire School for Wives. The play deliciously skewers the aristocrat Arnolphe, who so fears he’ll marry an unfaithful woman that he locks a little girl in a convent for 13 years, keeping her utterly isolated until she comes of age. The hi-jinks begin when he’s finally ready to fulfill his master marriage plan and finds himself outmaneuvered by a......

A whole bunch of bands just came together to pay tribute to Bob Dylan. Here's some video from that tribute show, of Phil Lesh and Warren Haynes singing "Thunder on the Mountain". Also on hand were Patti Smith, Ryan Adams, Philip Glass, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Cat Power, and many more. Next up on the list: Bruce Springsteen. Maybe Twyla Tharp will make The Boss her next project, too. This show will be the......

The above is from a set of panoramas taken at CBGB. If you ever feel the need to revisit the sticker wallpapered room again, now you can! While you gaze at the visually stimulating shots of the bathroom, maybe you want to listen to the October 15th Patti Smith set. Sirius is broadcasting the last show ever at CBGB for free, so tune in to channel 24 tomorrow at 2pm EST to listen.......

Last night was the final one at CBGB, the (now even more) legendary venue shut it's doors for good sometime after 1am. For a ton of coverage on the last couple of nights there, check out Brooklyn Vegan. Bad Brains was one of the last bands to take the stage, a short video of that is below, and we expect a lot more video (of the last nights with Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, et al)......

After what seems like decades of dragging its feet, it really is going to happen. After tonight's performance by Patti Smith, CBGB's will close its doors on the Bowery for the last time. CBGB's & OMFUG (Country, BlueGrass, Blues & Other Music for Urban Gormandizers) opened its doors to the Bowery back when the Bowery was the last place on earth most people would go voluntarily. Since then it helped usher in some truly......

Saturday Night Live came through this weekend with some "New York City Stories", shorts of the city (a contiuous joke in all of them being how things used to be, ie: "We used to live in this mailbox for $2 a day!"). These were pretty much the only entertaining parts of the show, however. Our favorite was the CBGB short featuring "Lou Reed" and "Patti Smith", but since that isn't up on YouTube yet,......

A Benefit for Music for Youth will bring us The Music of Bob Dylan this fall. Will Bob be there? We're hoping so. Those who are on the bill to play a song by Dylan include: Philip Glass, Rosanne Cash, Ryan Adams, Jay Farrar, Bob Mould, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Patti Smith, Phil Lesh, Cat Power, Seal, Lee Ranaldo Project, Medeski Martin & Wood and plenty of others. Including Sandra Bernhard, we hear she......

We hear about a lot of events each week and we can't write one post about each of them, because then you'd be here all day. So we're going to sift through and pick out some gems for the weekdays, here are some of the highlights for this week... FILM SCREENINGS: IFC Films will hold two free screenings this week for CSA: The Confederate States of America. The new mockumentary that asks: What would have......

What? No New Year's plans? Leaving it a bit late, no? Forget the overcrowded bars, the swarms of amateurs, the lame-o house parties. There are a ridiculous number of shows happening around town, some of which are worth your time and some of which not so much. Many of them are sold out, but it's highly possible you could score with the scalpers. Let's have a little look-see, shall we? 2005 was a big year......

It's that time of year again. The time of year we spend entirely too much money on going to a bar or party or club that any other night would cost nothing to enter. But we go, we pay and we fight the Bridge & Tunnel crowd for a spot at the bar. Why? We don't know. It's just part of NYE in NYC. This year we're fleeing the country, but for those of you......

If there's one week that folks might be at a loss for things to do in the city, this is the week. You might think not a creature was stirring, but how many times do we have to tell you? This is New York. The kids are definitely not nestled all snug in their beds. What to your wondering eyes should appear this week? Take a look.... You may be done with Christmas, but Yo......

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......

NYC is the fourth largest safe city, according to some report, but we count it as the top safe city, because can you really put NYC in the same league as San Jose, El Paso, and Honolulu?New York magazine looks at Tiffany as the brass ring of cheating spouses' girlfriends during Christmas.A CPA was found stabbed to death on a Queens sidewalk near his home; he owned a few Forest Hills co-ops and a neighbor......

This week is full of shows by some of our favorite new artists. On the high-profile end of the spectrum, The Hold Steady are back at Bowery Ballroom for a two night run Friday and Saturday. We're especially interested in checking out the openers on Friday. It's the Pitchfork-approved, Coldplay-tour-opening, Village Voice weird album of the week winning band called Black Mountain. On Sunday, M.I.A. plays her biggest and freeest NYC show yet at......

There are some great shows coming up that will get you from Valentine's Day to St. Patricks Day, but you're going to want to buy tickets SOON, before they sell out. Gothamist is particularly looking forward to the Thermals [pictured, reading Nabokov - hott!] @ Knitting Factory, as well as our own Movable Hype 2 at the same venue. And if you don't know who the Kaiser Chiefs are, you will, so just buy tickets......

Maria Raha, Cinderella's Big Score author...