Known for her smoky voice and role as Bob Newhart's no-nonsense wife in The Bob Newhart Show, Suzanne Pleshette died at age 70 last night. Pleshette had suffered from lung cancer in recent years. Pleshette was born in NYC and attended LaGuardia High School, aka the High School for the Performing Arts. She started on Broadway in 1957, eventually replacing Anne Bancroft in The MIracle Worker, and started to star in some TV series around......

Tonight marks the beginning of the Film Society at Lincoln Center's 45th annual New York Film Festival and oh what a jam-packed fest it is. A panel of film critics chose 30 of the best new international movies to show to New York's discerning audiences and they picked hometown director Wes Anderson's newest, The Darjeeling Limited (which also comes out in theaters this weekend) to open the festival. Gothamist was pleasantly surprised at how much......

MOVIES: Don't forget, the Bryant Park movies start tonight! The movie won't begin until sunset - which is about the same time the rain and thunder are scheduled to begin. Tonights features in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, The Birds. Be an early bird (heh) and get there at 5 for a good spot on the lawn! 5pm // Bryant Park // Free ART: Like Sculpture? Like to hear people talk about it? Then attend MoMA's On......

This weekend Hollywood says what moviegoers liked once, they'll sure love twice as the sequels The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties hit theaters. Now you may be asking yourselves, did we really need another movie about bad boys in fast cars or another flick about a fat, talking cat? Apparently, we did and they both needed to be set in an exotic international local, Japan and England,......

Hopewell was one of the most impressive bands we saw at CMJ last year. Their live show is an absolutely engrossing experience. We're glad to see that they're heading back into the studio soon to work on the follow-up to their critically acclaimed last album, The Birds of Appetite. Before they go, however, they're playing a couple shows at Pianos to test-drive some of the new material. Expect more Rock-grounded psychedelic gems to come.......

The Bryant Park Summer Film Festival has been announced. Starting off on June 19th and runing through August 21st, there will be a handful of movies we've never seen, which is just as fun as seeing our old faves. We'll definitely be there opening night for The Birds - that movie scared us good when were little. Here's the full lineup: June 19th The Birds June 26th To Have and Have Not July 3rd M*A*S*H......

If you liked the bird blogs from last week, you're going to love this Google Maps mashup. The authors of The Birds of Central Park have mapped all their bird sightings to a map, and you can click through and see little thumbnails of all the birds. Hours of fun! After you're done with that, you might want to check out their bird gallery, or buy their book.......

There is a whole underworld of NYC pigeon theft that Gothamist did not know about: Apparently people have been poaching pigeons in order to be taken as targets for shooting events and the like! The Times describes the M.O.:The reports are the same: around dawn, near a city park or plaza, two men jump out of a van, the license plate often concealed with tape. They toss a handful of seeds, and when pigeons descend,......

Bridgette Francis...

Yes, today is Alfred Hitchcock's birthday. Gothamist finds the Google tribute funny, especially since we all know the bird will poop on Hitch's head, which is a nod for Hitch's fondness for poop humor. Google's Alfred Hitchcock search. Our favorite Hitchcock movies are Vertigo, Notorious, Rear Window, Marnie, North by Northwest, The Birds, Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train...hell, we'll take the whole canon. But top three: Notorious, Rear Window, and North......