Artist and David Byrne collaborator Danielle Spencer (not to be confused with the Danielle Spencer who played Dee in What’s Happening!! or the Australian actress/singer Danielle Spencer married to Russell Crowe) has some pretty creative friends. Every November this Danielle Spencer hosts a pre-Thanksgiving dinner party in which guests make a fake turkey out of various eccentric ingredients. Some of them, like the Quiche turkey (pictured) or the sushi turkey look to be even......

Two movies set in New York are coming out today, and both are getting a lot of press, promo and opined upon. American Gangster is set in 1960-70s New York and stars Russell Crowe as a detective working to take down a real-life heroin kingpin, Frank Lucas (played by Denzel Washington). Lucas claimed to gross $1M a day on 116th Street dealing drugs, which he got to the States by smuggling in the coffins of......

I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With (directed by Jeff Garlin) While there's quite a few new releases coming out that are worth checking out this weekend (like the western and the spacemen documentary), we wanted to reserve our pick for a charming little movie you might have otherwise ignored. Written, directed and starring comedian Jeff Garlin (who we interviewed earlier this week), it's the kind of modest, looking-for-love-in-all-the-wrong-places story you don't often see these......

The French Connection (directed by William Friedkin) Film Forum through September 6th A New York City procedural cop movie classic and the winner of five Academy Awards, a new 35 mm print of The French Connection gets a one-week run at Film Forum starting this weekend. Starring Gene Hackman as the porkpie wearing detective Popeye Doyle in a career defining role, the movie follows the attempt of a French criminal (Fernando Rey) to smuggle heroin......

La Vie En Rose (directed by Olivier Dahan and Sebastien Caudron) At the end of her life Edith Piaf sang that she didn't regret anything and after you see her story played out in La Vie En Rose, you realize that's really saying something. An icon of French music whose voice instantly evokes the good life in sun-dappled Parisian street cafes, Piaf came from extreme poverty and with her immense talent became a huge international......

This week at the movies, two actors known for their intensity on (and off) screen have new flicks coming out. The Oscar-winning over-reactor Russell Crowe goes the romantic comedy route with A Good Year about an English businessman softened by life in Provence. With a script by Peter Mayle, a novelist well versed in the French countryside, and direction by Ridley Scott, Crowe as Max Skinner actually comes across as incredibly charming. He's sure to......

New York city's streets are a favorite location for filmmakers. Anyone who's ever turned the corner in their neighborhood only to be confronted by a giant trailer or cherry picker rig, knows this. Even as it gets colder, there's still lots of movie being filmed in the city. For instance, the last week or so 2nd Avenue in the East Village has been home to one of the many local film or TV productions. Earlier......

Brother. Russell Crowe complains about the fallout from his June 2005 phone throwing incident at the Mercer Hotel. Crowe pleaded guilty to third degree assault, paid a $160 fine, and had to settle with the hotel employee, Nestor Estrada. (And it wasn't just a phone handset or cordless phone thrown at Estrada - apparently Crowe had taken the whole phone out of the wall and thrown it at him, causing minor injuries to Estrada's face.)......

Foodies attack the silver screen! In today's Times Arts & Leisure section, the long history and current feast of food in film is given another look. Would there have even been a Big Night if not for the food? In the coming months, Russell Crowe, the first person we think of when the phrase "good taste" coming up, will star as a man who inherits a vineyard and Nora Ephron is working on an adaptation......

- Charlie Rose had heart surgery in Paris-- get better, Charlie! - Surprise, surprise: another problem with the WTC Memorial-- this one's about the order of names, oh, and they want to charge admission to get in. - StayFree interviews Jonah Peretti from Chelsea's Eyebeam Atelier. - Naomi Campbell goes craaaaazy Russell Crowe style: assault with a deadly cellphone! - W00t! Rent-stabilization extended for three more years! - Here's a video of the Ramones......

The craziness at Ground Zero continues as the Port Authority tries to take over the 9/11 memorial.Yesterday was a day for celebrity pseudo-justice. Russell Crowe plead guilty of being a phone thrower while DMX was further humbled by the courts.Bloomberg might be our Mayor on normal days, but for this weekend that job is most probably being filled by Marc V. Shaw.Maybe that wasn't really Braunstein in Cobble Hill after-all.December 1st may become Rosa......

Oh, dear. While Gothamist admits to being bemused by rapper DMX's various run-ins with the law and antics at the Queens court house where he's facing charges of violating a previous sentence (when he crashed through a gate at JFK Airport), this is too much. He was almost three hours late for his latest sentencing hearing yesterday, so the judge issued an arrest warrant for him. When he finally showed up, he was asked to......

Reports say that Russell Crowe will be settling his June telphone attack on a Mercer Hotel concierge by settling for $11 million. Nestor Estrada, who lives in Greenpoint, suffered injuries to his face in the exchange where Crowe, angry over being unable to dial Australia, went beserk. By settling the incident out of court with Estrada, Crowe probably would not face criminal charges (assault and weapons possession charges) from the Manhattan DA's office; have criminal......

It was too quiet on the Russell Crowe front, and perhaps after seeing the spades of publicity given to his Cinderella Man co-star get and another wannabe tough guy actor for maybe groping a lady's butt, Crowe decided to break into the tabloids. He was arrested at the Mercer Hotel after allegedly throwing a phone at a hotel employee. Reports say the actor was frustrated after not being able to phone home (Australia?), and the......

Oh, my God, this sounds just like "The Next Karate Kid" - just replacing the karate with boxing and Mr. Miyagi with Dirty Harry, and Oscarizing Hillary Swank. The trades report that Clint Eastwood will direct and star in "Million Dollar Baby," "a tragic and platonic love story involving a fighter turned-trainer and a woman in her early 30s who is determined to begin a boxing career." Okay, so maybe it's a little classier, but......

The other Times Talk panel I went to was "Films that Deserve a Second Look" - films that New York Times film critics Stephen Holden, Elvis Mitchell, and A.O. Scott felt audiences missed the first time around. Many of the films they mentioned were victim to just being dumped by their distributors because they were not easily marketable as a teen comedy or date movie. Another problem is that films live and die in one......