EVENT: Join Chief Jim Riches, 9/11 families, rescue and recovery workers in an effort to Tell Rudy Giuliani to "Stop Politicizing 9/11". Rudy will be at a fundraiser at the Waldorf later today, and will be greeted by those who believe he's no hero. Why? They say: "He failed the FDNY & uniformed & civilian victims. He gave us incompetent commissioners ( FD,PD, OEM). No integrated command. He abandoned us on 9/11. He gave the FDNY defective radios. He lied about the toxic air -- 70% of responders and many civilians are sick." More info here. more ›

Rosie O'Donnell made an appearance at BEA this past weekend, though her involvement with the expo was toned down significantly after The View fued. Variety reports: more ›

Were you the anonymous bidder who got the model of the Starship Enterprise at the Christie's auction? It's okay - your $576,000 secret is safe with us. The auction brought in double what Christie's had expected, with certain items going for well over than what was previously estimated. For instance, Captain Jean-Luc Picard's chair sold for $52,000 (original estimate $9,000). The entire sale brought in over $7.1 million, proving that Star Trek fans still rule the sci-fi/fantasy world -- that is until Peter Jackson decides to auction off bits of the Lord of the Rings lot. more ›

No don't worry. Gothamist doesn't plan to subject you to yet another film Top 10 list. If you want a good ... uhm ... "overview" of this year's Top 10 lists, you might want to check-out The Reeler's Top 10 Top 10 lists. (Nos. 10-6 appeared yesterday. The top five went up this morning.) If you're looking for something more traditional, you should probably look at 's Take 7 film critics poll. more ›

The obvious 800-pound, 2000-pound or even 20-ton gorilla in the room is anyway. Just brave the crowds and get it over with already. more ›

It's all about Brokeback these days: This morning, Kate Beckinsale, Mark Wahlberg, and Steve Carrell announced the 63rd Annual Golden Globe nominations, and Brokeback Mountain walked away with 7 nominations, including Best Picture (Drama), Director, Actor, Supporting Actress (Michelle Williams). Match Point, the unreleased Woody Allen movie, also got nods in Picture and Director, plus Supporting Actress Scarlett Johnanssen. As for the TV nominations, the ladies of Wisteria Lane took four leading actress nominations, giving Weeds' Mary Louise Parker a good shot of winning, though Felicity Huffman and Marcia Cross were fierce this year. We do want to say this, though: Kristen Bell, you were robbed! more ›

Last night, the premiere of King Kong was held in midtown, but the PR folks also dragged out a huge King Kong model to place in Times Square, probably getting soggy from the snow (we're sure he smelled like a real ape after that). Gothamist has been watching some King Kong coverage lately since we can't escape it, and we have two observations: (1) Damn, did Peter Jackson lose a lot of weight; and (2) Charlie Rose still gives the worst interviews - his interview with Adrien Brody went nowhere in the ten minutes we watched...Antiques Roadshow is more exciting! The Mayor also proclaimed it King Kong Day - what do we do next year to celebrate? Climb the Empire State Building? more ›

The big budget spectacle, King Kong, will open in two weeks, and while most of the trailers seem to play up a fight with Godzilla and lots of jungle scenes (Naomi Watts - hot and sweaty!), part of the story does more to New York. Now, director Peter Jackson decided not to film in NYC because finding 1933 New York in today's New York is difficult. (Gothamist sorta buys that, but we actually believe that once you've created Middle Earth, then you've got a god complex.) The NY Post reports at what the King Kong New York, part model, part computer generated, includes:

Depression-era big town, Model T Fords roll through intersections of red and green streetlights (no yellow), blasting that wheezy dying-duck horn and narrowly missing a swarm of jaywalkers. more ›

Though there are festivals running and a few small ones still opening, after several weeks of festival posting Gothamist is taking a break and looking at what else is going on in theatre. First, we were glad to hear in the latest backstage news that Avenue Q is going to splash across the pond and premiere in London early next year. It would be better if it could go sooner, but in Gothamist’s mind this is sort of New York theatre’s way of showing solidarity with recently terrorized Londoners. What better rejoinder could we have than these songs sung by a cast of multicultural, goofy, slightly naughty but utterly lovable puppets? more ›

The first trailer for Peter Jackson’s King Kong finally hit the internet, featuring Adrien Brody, a digital King Kong and Naomi Watts as his love interest, a few Jurassic Park leftovers, and Jack Black (who is so hard to take seriously). We’re quite optimistic LOTR’s Jackson can pull off an updated version of Hollywood classic and so far, Jackson insists he's refrained from reinventing the storyline: “Our story follows the same structure. It starts in New York, goes to Skull Island, and there are dinosaurs on the island. Then it comes back to New York and there's the Empire State Building and the biplanes and the whole thing."
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Forget wild postings and other guerilla marketing tactics: The next barrier to break in NYC outdoor advertising will be conquering famous pieces of the NYC skyline. And in a post-H&M-ad-on-the-Flatiron world, Alien Loves Predator looks at some other possibilities for advertising on beloved New York City landmarks. Of course, Gothamist has been wondering if Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson will try to get some sort of advertising on the Empire State Building for his remake of King Kong. Plus, there is the Steichen Flatiron photo remix. [Via reader Jen] more ›

Also, doesn't it feel like Barbara Walters is scraping the bottom of the barrel with this year's special? Matt LeBlanc, Diane Keaton, Billy Crystal? Gothamist can read about Matt, who is the LEAST controversial of all Friends with Lisa Kudrow (where's the Percoset addiction? Pregnancy woes? Marriage to Brad Pitt?), in People and US and In Touch. Diane Keaton, she's cool, but we knows she's walks to the beat of her own drummer with wacky fashion sense. And Billy Crystal...wouldn't it have been more apropos to interview him while he was pimping 61*? more ›

Will third time be a charm for Peter Jackson? Jackson's work for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, along with Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation, Clint Eastwood for Mystic River, Gary Ross for Seabiscuit, and Peter Weir for Master and Commander, is nominated for the Directors' Guild Award. The DGA nominees are very similar to the Golden Globe nominees, except Anthony Minghella was nominated instead of Ross. Guess the Cold Mountain machine doesn't fly with the directors, huh, Miramax (the Daily News is shocked that Minghella was not nominated). What this year's DGA nominees tell us is that Sofia Coppola and the momentum behind Lost in Translation are no joke and that Hollywood loves a well made studio movie like Seabiscuit, even if it's 40 minutes too long. more ›

Let the games begin. The Directors' Guild has announced their nominees, and they are Stephen Daldry for "The Hours," Peter Jackson for "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," Rob Marshall for "Chicago," Martin Scorsese for "Gangs of New York," and Roman Polanski for "The Pianist." The most likely nominees for the Academy Awards' Best Picture of the bunch are "The Hours," "Chicago," and "Lord of the Rings." Photos above and an article(registration required) from Variety. "Gangs" and "The Pianist" are possibilities, but Scorsese and Polanski are polarizing figures. However, as these projects are labors of love for them, especially with Polanski's personal experience with the Holocaust and Hollywood's love of reliving the Holocaust in film (see "Schindler's List" and "Life is Beautiful"), they may be nominated for Best Picture. Good will for Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks may make "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" a Best Picture contender, but I personally am done with the big fat Greek hype. Back to the directors, the DGA awards are usually good indicators of who will win Best Director at the Oscars, but more recently, there's been discrepancy: Ang Lee winning the DGA award for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," while Steven Soderbergh won the Oscar for "Traffic"; Ron Howard winning the DGA for "Apollo 13", Mel Gibson the Oscar for "Braveheart". more ›