Murder Ink, the "the world's oldest mystery bookstore" that offered everything from Tom Clancy to 50s pulp fiction, has closed. Current owner Jay Pearsall "said he was paying $18,000 a month in rent for Murder Ink and another store, Ivy's Books & Curiosities, and couldn't afford a 5 percent increase expected in March. Competition from huge bookstore chains and online sellers didn't help." The author of a novel titled "Murder Ink", Dilys Winn, founded......

Arguably the most important film festival in the world, even after last year's unspectacular showing, the Cannes Film Festival starts again, with movie screenings around the clock, preening stars, and deals being made furiously. Why is Cannes important? In a nutshell, it helps films get launched, whether they're American films looking for a bigger audience (think Pulp Fiction and Mulholland Drive) or foreign films looking for American distribution. Films Gothamist is interested in that are......

Pico Iyer's essay about how Hollywood has been slowly steering away from Hollywood endings mentions recent films like Cold Mountain, Lost in Translation, House of Sand and Fog, and Mystic River as having darker or less resolved endings. But, as Iyer acknowledges, the tradition can be seen with Gone with the Wind or Casablanca. Which made Gothamist wonder what are the endings that linger more: Seeing Vincent Vega walk end Pulp Fiction alive (versus......

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......

Only in the nutty world of Italian family–run businesses can a once high flying billion dollar long–life milk operation suddenly be on the brink of bankruptcy, needing to get rid of the family and bring in a turnaround specialist whose nickname is from a Quentin Tarantino film. Enrico Bondi, the new chairman of stricken Italian corporation, Parmalat, is nicknamed "Mr. Wolf" by the Italian media for his ability to "clean up" after problematic Italian businesses.......

A very cool exhibition of pulp art opens tomorrow at the Brooklyn Museum, called Pulp Art: Vamp, Villains, and Victors. The collection is of paintings from the 1920s to 1940s that mostly served as covers for various pulp fiction magazines. The Times had a feature about the only living artist in the collection, Ernest Chiriacka, the "Rembrandt of Third Avenue" who now lives in Great Neck and has a cat named Willow. More about Vamps,......