Entertainment Weekly’s #1 “smartest” Hollywood player, Judd Apatow, says “it doesn’t look good” for an end to the writers’ strike any time soon. The well-connected catalyst behind hits like Knocked Up has told the Toronto Star that the studios and producers are prepared to dig in and crush the union’s demand for payment for Internet downloads and movie streaming, “which are expected to become a big part of the industry in the coming years.”It would......

DJ Star, who was fired from Power 105 after some remarks about a rival's child, will be coming back to radio stations. While publicists for the DJ, born Troi Torain, would not disclose where he'll be headed (not before tomorrow press conference, at least), the Daily News reports that it will probably be WNYZ, which is 87.7FM: "Its current format is Russian popular music, but with the hiring of Star, it will reportedly switch to......

You may or may not have noticed that it's Fashion Week -- either way, style is saturating the city right now more than ever, and we've asked Faran Krentcil to help us figure the whole thing out. She who holds down the fort at Fashionista.com fills us in on The Tents, the trends and the tricks. Oh, and she also recently poked fun at the hipster-chic in her short parody film: I Wanna Be A......

This week in the Times, Bruni one-stars “freestyle” Latin restaurant Rayuela on the LES. Says, “it’s a beautiful, fascinating, frustrating place, its cosmetic showiness echoed by dishes that are also all over the map, in terms of their appeal as well as their geographic and ethnic tethers.” He loves the tuna relleno, the arraz con pollo, and the lobster ceviche, and also the cocktails and the house-made bread. Also in the Times, Peter Meehan goes......

NYC Noir Film Forum Every now and then living in this teeming modern city, we get a glimpse down a side street or inside a dilapidated old joint and can see "what was." Starting tonight a five week series devoted to New York City Noir at Film Forum is also looking backward through New York's movie history to a time when women were dames, men were gumshoes and everything on the mean streets just seemed......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a carjacking on 130th St. and 15th Ave. in Queens, an overturned auto on Spring St. and West Broadway in Manhattan, and a stabbing on Caton Ave. in Brooklyn. Remember when Paris Hilton forgot that she'd left her Tinkerbell with her grandma and papered her neighborhood with Lost Dog flyers? New Yorkers hire private detectives and publicists to get the job done right. A tiny dauchsund is missing. New......

Has the Tribeca Film Festival been using 9/11 as way to garner publicity and interest in their event? NYMag reports that an anonymous emailer sent out a press release today "accusing the Tribeca Film Festival of lying when they claim that Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro, and Craig Hatkoff founded the festival in response to the 9/11 attacks." It's clear that the vision for the festival was imagined some time before the attacks, as the......

To accompany an Oscar-themed story about celebrities' publicists working to make sure their clients don't run into exes, there's a NY Times Styles section about real people's strategies not to run into exes. Certainly the prospect of running into an ex can make the heart race and forehead sweat, but it can happen, especially if you date people in your neighborhood. One broken-up couple decided to literally divide Manhattan at Fifth Avenue. Christian Shraga......

The official Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes wedding photograph has been released. First thoughts: - Tom Cruise is either standing on an apple box or Katie Holmes is crouching. Or she's standing in a well. Or he has some crazy lifts in his shoes. Or did the shoes Giogio Armani make for Katie magically erase some of her height? Is she just slouching uncontrollably (she's never had good posture)? It's such a mystery. - The......

A girl was shot after a community center Halloween party on Saturday - and there may be a link to the Chicken Noodle rappers From Upper East Side mansion to 7 World Trade Center: The Academy of the Sciences have moves downtown Fun fact: 73% of the city's registered domestic partnerships are for straight couples Alan Hevesi is persona-non-grata the Democrats' Election Day party... politics is so like high school! Buy your own CBGB's......

Different types of people are drawn to different types of restaurant and in a perfect world everyone has a place that feeds them as they like, in a room in which they are comfortable. The truth is that the price of a dish of food in a restaurant includes all the costs involved in running the restaurant. At the base level there is the electricity, gas, rent, insurance and so on, and at another level......

Good ol' P.S.1 has been showing works from NY area artists in its Greater New York 2005 show. However, one artist, Mike Bouchet, causing been making a stink. Literally: His work, "Celebrity Hot Tub for Kofi Annan," has been making visitors ill, according to the NY Post. (For your NY Post conspiracy theorists, Rupert hates modern art!) How does Bouchet achieve this powerful audience reaction? The sculpture has a "rotting sausage stewing in a [Jacuzzi]......

So maybe the Oscars aren’t actually watched by a “billion” people each year. The audience is still ginormous compared to the Tonys. Even so, the Tonys are as big as it gets for American theater, and this morning the mostly predictable nominations were handed out at the Times Square Marriott Marquis. For play, you’ve got Democracy, Doubt, The Pillowman, and Gem of the Ocean. Musical: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Light in the Piazza, The 25th Annual......

Jerry Seinfeld and his wife are being sued by a real estate broker who claims she's owed over $100,000 in commission for helping them purchase a brownstone. Celebrity Justice got a statement from the Seinfelds' publicists: Tamara Cohen did not fulfill the basic broker duties required by law. However, the Seinfelds offered her a very generous fee for her time, but not for the sale, because she was not entitled to it. She declined the......

So, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are dating. Or "dating." They are "something." Surely, this is an upgrade for Katie, whose former fiance was Chris "Rollerball" Klein and whose alleged recent NYC street smooching partner was Josh "Bedhead" Hartnett, but how much an upgrade, we're not so sure. And who knew that former stars of The WB could travel in such lofty circles? For Cruise, it's almost like he's veering into yucky old man territory:......

Tonight Coolfer (our old weekly music poster) and Repellent join forces to bring you the first Under The Roundtable Happy Hour, for underground media and cultural producers. Everybody's invited, especially writers, publicists, record label folks, musicians, designers, photographers and, of course, bloggers. It's at Hi Fi [ 169 Ave. A], starting around 6:30ish and going for many hours. Until 8pm the drinks are two-for-one, and after that beers for $3 and $2 off well drinks......

Regina Schrambling, Food Writer...

Michael Musto, Village Voice...

So MTV is planning more celebrity-hosted reality programs, in an effort to keep basic cable viewers from the bread and butter of MTV - music videos. Two shows Gothamist was intrigued by:"Power Girls" features press maven [Lizzie] Grubman and her team of publicists as they run the nightlife in Manhattan, the Hamptons and Miami. "Borrow My Crew," hosted by Fonzworth Bentley, rents out entourages-to-the-stars to viewers in need. In the first episode, MTV hires Jennifer......

Roger Ebert captured this photograph of New York Times chief film critic A.O. Scott in his Cannes Photo Album. The caption reads: New York Times film critic A.O. Scott awoke to find a thief had filched his money, passport and computer. "The hotel loaned me a laptop," he said, "but it has a French keyboard, with the keys in different places."Poor, poor, Tony. The Encyclopedia Brown/Lennie Briscoe in us suspects not some Riviera thief looking......

There's an article in the Post today that's both sweet and scary: How people obsessed with certain big ticket items (well big ticket for twentysomethings) have great friends who will chip in to buy them as gifts. Some of the presents mentioned included Manolo Blahniks shoes, jewelry, and a Marc Jacobs bag. The Marc Jacobs bag was purchased by a groups of publicists for their boss who would talk about the Stella bag every day.......

Whatever one says about Courtney Love, Gothamist must say she makes good copy. After her antics Wednesday night in New York, the local papers have fun. The Times' Sheila K. Dewan gives great dimension to the story: The drama began during the day on Wednesday when Ms. Love invited the paparazzi to photograph her in the window of her SoHo apartment, where she strummed the guitar like a tranquilized Rapunzel.Dewan also wrote that the whole......

While Law & Order effectively killed off Courtney Love in a Kurt-and-Courtney inspired episode from 2002 (TV Tome description: "Investigating the death of a rock band singer who had large amounts of cocaine and heroin in her system, the detectives question a former boyfriend who was a disgruntled band mate of her late husband"), Gothamist can only hope that another Love-incarnation will arise after her nutty antics last night and early this morning. Our logline......

News that New York playwright Neil Simon received a kidney from his publicist made Gothamist wonder how much do publicists, agents, and managers charge for organ donation? On the downside, it's not the easiest of procedure, but the upside is that you have a kidney left and it is free publicity.. But it's great that Simon's publicist, and good friend, Bill Evans, was able to do this - organ donation is too little utilized. And......

TMFTML...

Clyde Haberman's Times column earlier this week looked at a few reality show ideas for NY, what with The Restaurant and tonight's premiere of The Apprentice. Some are very apt: "The Drug Store" would send contestants into Duane Reade outlets in a search for a clerk who is both pleasant and knowledgeable. "Death Wish": New Yorkers step off the curb with the light but without looking in both directions. Their goal is to cross the......

The Sun's Victoria Newton grades the various outfits Christina Aguilera wore when hosting the MTV Europe Awards. One of her favorites is when XTina donned a nun's habit and robe. Newton also gives the skinny on the feud between XTina and Pink which put MTV producers and their publicists' nerves to the test, as Pink was overheard saying, �If that bitch mentions my name once I�m not going on stage � and I�m not kidding.�......

Author Jonathan Lethem gets the work up: A profile AND Michiko review in the Times today. The reason? His new book, Fortress of Solitude, his first since his National Book Critics Circle-winning, Motherless Brooklyn. Ah, the Doubleday publicists are earning their keep. The profile examines Lethem's Brooklyn roots, in the pre-gentrified days of Smith Street, when blacks and Puerto Ricans were the dominants groups and whites were a small minority - made up of socially-minded......

CNN has a pretty good piece about annoying movie blurbs from unknown critics being used relentlessly by movie studios. There are some mainstream ones as well (Peter Travers, Gothamist is talking about you) and the biggest conundrum of them all, Roger Ebert who is simultaneously smart and stupid. Variety's Timothy Gray tells CNN, ""It's always 'a roller coaster ride' or 'the feel-good movie of the summer.' Sometimes I think, not only have I never heard......

While Gawker will most likely have more intense coverage, check out pictures of arrivals to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Party of the Year" - the Costume Institute gala - at WireImage, like these of Best Acting Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Adrien Brody. Got love synergistic publicists. The Times on Goddess, the theme of the Party of the Year. The article also has a picture of Anna Wintour in a Dior gown. Mainly she......