A man, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity after he beat his roommate and the man's 4-year-old son to death with a billy club in 1974, left the Ancora Psychiatric Hospital Sunday afternoon when he went on an unescorted stroll around the hospital's grounds. Sixty-four-year-old retired Marine William Enman admitted the killings in 1975, but was spared prison when it was determined that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Enman left the......

THEATER: It’s “go time” for The Butane’s Group’s Operation Ajax, which ingenuously sets the CIA’s 1953 overthrow of Iran’s first democratically-elected government in the context of a casino. “Constructed from no less than 25 text sources (memoirs, documentaries, plays, poetry, novels, films, reality tv shows), the densely-layered performance explores how the addiction to risk and gambling has become a potent metaphor for U.S. foreign policy.” (For an enhanced theater experience, explore the show’s thorough bibliography,......

Just in time for Valentine's Day, The Daily News has created, what they call, a list of NYC's 100 Most Romantic Movies. Movies that capture what it is like to "live and love here". One problem: the list needs to be edited. It appears they have just listed every movie they could think of that took place in New York and somehow involved love (or lust). For example: Coyote Ugly should not be on a......

DISCUSSION: Noam Chomsky will be taking questions on US foreign policy tonight, following a screening of Harold Pinter's 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech. Get your questions ready, smartypants. You can watch the video of Pinter's speech here, too. 6pm // Columbia University, Miller Theater [Broadway @ 116th St] // $5 THEATER: Isabella Rossellini with be playing Lotte Lenya in a one-night only performance at the New-York Historical Society called Kurt and Lenya: Two Great Artists......

On Sundays, Gothamist runs opinion pieces on issues relevant to life in New York. The views expressed below belong entirely to the author. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to put Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, The Royal Tennenbaums, and Darwin’s Origin of the Species into a Petri dish to see happens. We can be grateful to Galt Niederhoffer for doing just that with her debut novel, A Taxonomy of Barnacles. The novel is set......

Topping Gothamist's short list of things we can't get enough of are a nice cold Hoegarten, sample sales and the priceless humor of Flight of the Conchords. Though billed as a folk-parody duo, their songs have little to do with the typical issues addressed in folk music...unless you count their story of Albi, a racist dragon who cries jellybean tears and teaches us all a real life lesson. The rest of their songs tackle more......

As everyone gets their bracket on and settles in for March Madness, the new Wes Anderson-directed Dasani commercials will start to air. Ernest Lupinacci, a partner in Anomaly, the upstart advertising agency that won the Dasani business from red cell/Berlin Cameron, spoke to the Observer about the ads that feature humans dressed up as animals:"The idea behind the spots was that if you found someone who only drank water, and if they drank this water,......

Our friends at Reel to Reel Records, the indie internet-only record label, is having their Winter Party tomorrow night at the The Delancey. The line up features Laneview, Dangaru, The Royal Wylds, Electric Engine, Christopher Sullivan, Hayday, plus special guest The Shalitas. The show starts at 8PM, and Gothamist will be there to enjoy the rock. And it's free. And there's a special for the month of February at Reel to Reel: You can download......

A Talk With Wes Anderson...

The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced the lineup for the New York Film Festival 2004, and it looks like NY will again benefit from being, arguably, the world's last major film festival by getting films that have played at other festivals by the time the NYFF starts October 1. Opening the festival will be Agnes Jaoui's Look At Me (premiered at Cannes); Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education (also at Cannes) is the centerpiece, as......

With the upcoming release of the Tom Hanks-Steven Spielberg collaboration, The Terminal, coming out soon, it was inevitable that local newspapers would try to take up the challenge of living in an airport, much like movie main character Viktor Navorski does at JFK. The NY Times has Andy Newman experience JFK for 24 hours, complete with slideshow of photos taken from his cameraphone, but the Post is more imaginative, sending reporter Philip Recchia to live......

Lauren Antler, Comedian...

One of Gothamist's favorite actors AND Park Slope residents, John Turturro, (who else can play Hispanic, Italian, Jewish, crazy, etc) will be appearing on the amusing USA Networks comedy, Monk. Turturro will play the brother of main character Adrian Monk, who is brilliantly played by Tony Shalhoub. The Post reports that the brother, Ambrose Monk, will be an agoraphobe, to Adrian's OCD detective. Gothamist doesn't know if it's making light of neuroses or the police......

Acting on a hot tip from Mindy, Gothamist went to check out former Devo musician-turned-composer for film and TV Mark Mothersbaugh's newest venture at the Fuse Gallery/Lit Lounge on Second Avenue and East 5th Street. Mothersbaugh's pieces, "Homefront Invasion," can be seen in the Fuse Gallery, and quite a few are available for sale. In fact, Gothamist's friend was so taken with one piece (at right) that he decided to buy it. Gothamist wonders if......

According to Yahoo! News, "Sai Mai, a 26-month-old female tiger, plays with baby pigs at a zoo in Chonburi province, 50 miles east of Bangkok, May 7, 2003. The Royal Bengali tigress was born in captivity and breast-fed by a female pig for four months after her birth." Gothamist loves the idea of tigers and piglets playing together, but is concerned because it seems Sai Mai is licking her lips.......

Movies at Alice Tully Hall Alice Tully Hall is where many New York Film Festival films are screened, and for the first year, where New Directors/New Films is taking place. My fondness of Alice Tully Hall also stems from the fact that by now, I know the optimal seats for movie viewing as well as talk participation....

I'm pretty much over Jimmy Fallon, like many others. He's funny, but not funnier than, say, Rachel Dratch. He's been riding the cute coattails a little too long in my book. Anyway, it doesn't mean I didn't know he was dating Tara Subkoff, sometime actress, designer of Imitation of Christ which is "Original of Crap" in my book. So I was intrigued when the Observer implied she's dating Wes Anderson(second item) and dissing Jimmy. Then......