Spike Lee, New York sports fan, premiered his new feature film, Red Hook Summer (his not-a-sequel to Do the Right Thing), at Sundance last night and he was his usual, straight-talking self during a Q&A. So much so that he apologized to the audience, "Sorry for that mother----ing tirade." more ›

Tracy Morgan, the 30 Rock star with a history of controversy, collapsed at a Sundance Film Festival event and was taken to a hospital last night. According to TMZ, he was "being honored at the Creative Coalition Spotlight Awards in Park City, Utah -- and sources tell TMZ, he appeared extremely intoxicated during his award acceptance speech." more ›

Picture Kevin Bacon in a black suit, white v-neck tee underneath, walking in slow motion down an overgrown High Line. It just seems fitting, doesn't it? That must be what the folks at Sundance thought, too, because here is that exact scene as part of the channel's High Line Stories series (which is online only and premiered today). more ›

Next week some of the best films from this year's Sundance Festival will unspool at BAM during their third annual Sundance Institute takeover. The ten day mini-fest features 10 dramatic features, 12 documentaries and 36 shorts. Most of these selections screen just once or twice, and not all of them have distribution, so you've got to stay on your toes if there's something you want to see. more ›

The construction worker who killed Adrienne Shelly in her West Village office pleaded guilty to manslaughter - and gave new details about why he killed the actress-director. Diego Pillco will receive 25 years in prison; as an illegal immigrant from Ecuador, the Post says his sentence will be "almost certainly followed by deportation." more ›

Director of the legendary hip-hop documentary Style Wars, Tony Silver, died last weekend after battling an irreversible brain condition for several years. more ›

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Gothamist. more ›

more ›

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Gothamist. more ›

At just 24, Noah Baumbach made his mark on the indie film world with Kicking and Screaming, his hilarious and finely observed study of post-collegiate ennui. His Mr. Jealousy followed but the picture’s lukewarm response meant a long five years before he obtained funding for The Squid and the Whale. Happily for Baumbach, the superb film was a major critical and commercial success. Two years later, he’s back with Margot at the Wedding, another character-driven... more ›

more ›

(directed by Jeffrey Blitz) more ›

Since the only truly green event is the one that doesn't happen, Live Earth is certainly being met with some criticism - but either way it's going to cast some green over the world tomorrow. If you aren't heading over to the "New York" event yourself, NBC Universal will be bringing the concert to the world with a three-hour primetime special Saturday night on NBC, 18 hours of live coverage on Bravo, seven hours on CNBC and lot more over at the Sundance Channel, Universal HD, Telemundo and Mun2. More on how they prepped for the event, and how they learned from Live 8, here. more ›

When the son of famed televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jay Bakker, made the decision to be a “gay affirming” pastor, his life was almost ruined for the second time. Financial backers dropped him, he had to let go of some of his staff, and churches he was scheduled to speak at pulled out. more ›

Brooklyn Academy of Music more ›

(directed by Julian Goldberger) more ›

more ›

Yankees fans can now rejoice, because Roger Clemens is returning to the New York Yankees. The 44-year old right-hander, who last pitched for the Houston Astros last season, announced his plans to the crowd during the 7th inning stretch of today's Yankees-Mariners game (audio from WCBS), "Well, they came and got me out of Texas. I can tell you, it's a privilege to be back. I'll be talking to y'all soon." How surprising was the announcement? When Clemens left his house this morning, his wife knew, but not his children. Clemens, who has come out of retirement several times, last pitched for the Yankees in 2003. While with the Yankees, Clemens won two World Series rings, in 1999 and 2000. Last season, he was 7-6 with a 2.30 ERA in 19 starts with the Astros. more ›

will surely make even the most jaded Manhattanite want to pack their beret for a Parisian getaway tout de suite. more ›

This was the first film to shut down West 32nd and use it as a backdrop. I think it was very exciting for them to see something like this happening. It was a bit of a mad house at one point when we had Jun Ho Jeong (who is a big star in Korea and has a cameo in this film) show up. That was probably the biggest problem with crowd control we had. I think there were a lot of non-Koreans who came by and saw what was going on and had no idea why everyone was flocking this one Korean guy and then it exploded even more once those people realized John Cho () were there. We really energized three under represented parts of society – Koreans, stoners and sci-fi geeks. more ›

Adrienne Shelly, who was murdered in her New York apartment last year, will have the film she directed, wrote and co-starred in out in theaters soon (the official release date is tomorrow). The film, Waitress, made its Sundance appearance earlier this year. NYMag recently reviewed the film, saying: more ›

Are Robert DeNiro and David Bowie battling it out in a sort of festival turf war? Though both turned up at the Vanity Fair party thrown in honor of New York's Tribeca Film Festival - it seems there's some animosity in the air...or at least in the press. Bowie's High Line Festival begins on May 9th, just three days after DeNiro's Tribeca Film Festival ends. NY Mag describes the difference between the two: more ›

"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. I'm stupid about executions. The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that's all there was to read about in the papers - goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-smelling mouth of every subway. It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn't help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves. more ›

This Sunday, the Mayor will formally unveil more PlaNYC details (though the website has been up for a while now). He'll give the speech at the American Museum of Natural History, to which New York Mag says, "while we're excited to see the plan, we confess the museum's symbolism is making us nervous: dinosaurs … carcasses … oy." more ›

THEATER: The Jaded Assassin, an original “fightsical” which prompted the Times to gush, “Take that, ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’!”, was a hit at last year’s Ice Factory Festival with its daring mix of martial arts and visceral storytelling. “In a mythical world, in brutal times, a curse has plagued the land ever since the chosen ones infuriated the gods. It is up to one non-pureblood to end the curse and end the misery that has wrought her land. Even if that means killing everyone in her path to do it.” Enjoy a kick-ass YouTube preview from The Jaded Assassin website: more ›

As the world holds it's breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Superbowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning. more ›

If things have seemed quiet at the usual New York haunts of movie folks like Film Forum or Grey Dog Coffee this last week, it's because practically the whole community is in Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival. The annual launching pad of many subsequently huge independent features (see this year's Best Picture Oscar nom and last year's festival break out, ), Sundance is a crazy week. Parties, swag, deal-making and oh yeah, some screenings are jam packed into the proceedings. more ›

Portland, Oregon resident M. Ward (or "Matt", as his friends call him) is an enigmatic good 'ol fashioned singer/songwriter. Appearing detached and independent from the world he connects to through music, he seems to come to us from another time and place. Without pretense he delivers songs with a voice that hangs in the air, enchanting an audience of listeners who are always left wanting more. An old soul with a guitar and the ability to tell a story through song, his live show is not one to be missed. Tomorrow night he plays Town Hall for the first time. more ›

At the Sundance Film Festival, the film Waitress will premiere this afternoon. Written and directed by Adrienne Shelly. Last November, Shelly had been waiting to hear whether her film was going to be accepted by the Sundance Film Festival when she was found dead in a the Greenwich Village apartment building she had an office in. Initially, police suspected Shelly killed herself, since her body was found hanging from shower rod, but her family and friends couldn't believe she would commit suicide with so much happening in her life. It turned out she had been killed and her body was staged to look like suicide; the suspect, a construction worker who admitted he got into a fight with Shelly when she complained about the noise he was making. more ›