Playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, whose hilarious play The Motherfucker With the Hat you should definitely go see, tells Vulture he just got slapped with a $330 ticket for blowing through a red light on his bicycle on 72nd Street. As if that wasn't infuriating enough, the officer who wrote him the ticket offered an apologetic explanation—as they tend to do—for giving Guirgis the ticket. As in all things, the blame can be placed on Robin Williams. Just in case Old Dogs wasn't enough of an outrage, Guirgis gives us this: more ›

As you may have read, Robin Williams was on The View yesterday, where he again rolled out his anecdote about getting pulled over by the NYPD for biking on the sidewalk. "I wasn't dressed, like, in bike clothing," Williams explained. "I had a single-speed track bike, and I had on a bal aclava, which basically makes me look like a terrorist or a crack dealer. No one was on the sidewalk, and all of a sudden woop-woop!" The View co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck wasn't amused, telling Wiliams, "I got hit by a bike on a sidewalk!" Williams replied, "Well, it's the law because of her." And because of every other inconsiderate jerk who bikes on the sidewalk—these people should be ticketed, to be sure. more ›

Williams has performed at the theater before at the ASSSSCAT 3000 show alongside more high-profile regulars like Poehler and other stars of SNL and 30 Rock who improvise every Sunday. But when he showed up last night at the theater, members of Bangs really had to improvise when they learned just before going on that he wished to join them on stage. The audience ate up what sounds like the sort of wildcard performance you'd expect from Williams and word from the team is that the star was nothing but friendly and gracious to them. more ›

It may be hard to believe, but tonight’s episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (10:00 p.m., WNBC 4) is the 200th episode for the first of the Law & Order spin-offs. more ›

Last week everyone from writers on the picket line to bored couch potatoes were abuzz with news that the late night heavyweights would be returning with all new shows. Last night was the big night (Letterman, O'Brien, Kimmel, Ferguson and Leno all returned), and both Conan O'Brien and David Letterman took the stage showing solidarity with strike beards intact. Letterman threatened to shave his later on Conan's show, saying that he'd probably be helping his New York late night pal out since he's returned sans writers. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on 20th Ave. and 37th St. in Queens, a hate crime on East 9th St. and Ave. H in Brooklyn, and a missing child on Decatur Ave. in the Bronx.
• Hyperactive performer Robin Williams is David Letterman's guest tonight, in his first new show in weeks. Letterman, as well as Craig Ferguson, have worked out pacts with the Writers Guild of America, allowing writers to come back. Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien are crossing picket lines to come back. Riffing on Robin Williams' routines are not as funny when hard to distinguish from KKK impersonations in the deep south.
• A Port Authority policeman in the department's K-9 unit was involved in an auto accident that killed the woman driving the other vehicle. The officer was hospitalized and his partner was taken to a veterinarian for treatment.
• A man with a hunting knife was arrested after entering and then exiting Hillary Clinton's Iowa campaign headquarters. There was no overt violent action, but local police described him as a local unpredictable character.

Members of the Writers Guild of America have been striking in Los Angeles and New York this past week over details of a basic contract between writers and producers - one of the biggest sticking points is the amount of residuals writers get from DVD and new media distribution. The NY Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd asked Seth Meyers (who we spoke to on Tuesday) to give her a weekend update about the strike:... more ›

You may recognize Jon Glaser from his appearances on Conan, Wonder Showzen, or Cheap Seats. You may have even heard his track on the Invite Them Up CD compilation, where he reads a series of letters written by his recently deceased father to the band ZZ Top. By the track's end, one thing is certain: Jon Glaser is a comedic genius. more ›

This week, Sarah Michelle Gellar is back for more creepy girls hiding in her hair in the new sequel, out this weekend in the hopes that it will bolster rumors of a Stewart/Colbert ticket in '08. more ›

Looking ahead to this week's movie options, there's a few indie-sized pics and one massive, Super Big Gulp-sized car racing comedy. Ordinarily Gothamist is all about championing the cinematic little guy, but when it's this goofy, yet earnest we say go for the excess. more ›

This week, the film festival that Bobby De Niro and Jane Rosenthal built after September 11th has taken over most of downtown New York and some of uptown with its eclectic programming line-up. But there's more to do in town, movie-watching wise than just at Tribeca. So get out your TFF schedules, some snacks and some comfortable shoes to walk between screening spaces, there's movies to be seen this weekend. more ›

In this heartily American week some of the most appealing things to see are foreign, at least in part. For a more delicate food-related experience than Thanksgiving usually turns turn out to be, consider Lao She’s Teahouse, set in a Beijing establishment over the course of some fifty years that encompass three important moments in modern Chinese history, beginning in 1898. Sixty-plus characters that embody the vast changes in China come to life via the Beijing People’s Art Theatre, in NYC for the first time. Performances are in Mandarin, but there will be both subtitles and simultaneous translation with headphones in case you’re feeling a bit rusty on the language. more ›

Day 2 was significantly busier than Day 1. All in all, we made it to 12 different shows between 10:00am and 2am, we'll highlight the highlights here. more ›

Gothamist once had big dreams of being a surfer and/or skateboarder (...seriously). Alas, we live too far away from a beach to wake up at 5am and check the local surf report (please note: taking the F train to surf was not a part of the dream)...so the closest we ever got was watching Kate Bosworth's breakout film Blue Crush. more ›

Yes, we've seen trailers for it. Yes, we've read about it in magazines. Yes, we've seen David Duchovny do the talk show rounds. But Gothamist always knew we were never going to see his writing-and-directorial debut, The House of D, because, well, the idea of seeing Robin Williams play a mentally disabled janitor felt masochistic unless we were seriously medicated. And we think many people would agree with us - the people who cringe when we see Williams approach an awards show podium, when we are watching Access Hollywood, when somehow it's Jakob the Liar on cable. And today, A.O. Scott echoes everyone's fears with the first two lines of his review in the NY Times:

The reasons to avoid David Duchovny's unwatchable coming-of-age drama can best be summarized in a simple declarative sentence. Robin Williams plays a retarded janitor.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association awards their 62nd annual Golden Globes this Sunday, a sure sign that the season of gowns, the buzz and the surprise upset is upon us. Unlike the Oscars though, the Golden Globes covers television and film, so we get to see the disjointed mingling of the stars on the red carpet from both genres. more ›

As seen in the video, part of Ferrell's appeal is, as David Edelstein writes in Slate, the fact that he's "not afraid to take a joke to the next level." It's his fearlessness in being silly and goofy - it's totally focused, but still approachable (not scary and manic the way Robin Williams is). A.O. Scott describes the recent Ferrell oeuvre thusly, "'Anchorman,' by indulging Mr. Ferrell's gift for inventive lunacy, is more amusing than annoying. It is not as maniacally uninhibited as 'Old School' or as dementedly lovable as 'Elf,' but its cheerful dumbness is hard to resist." Lunacy, maniacal, demented - that's Ferrell. And the Village Voice (via Chicagoist) language of Ferrell in Anchorman. more ›

Jeffrey Abramson, Gen Art more ›