Gentlemen, don your finest Adidas sweatsuits and ladies, start drawing on that black eyeliner, because Wes Anderson's charming film The Royal Tenenbaums is turning 10 this year, and you can celebrate (or mourn how old you suddenly feel) with the cast this fall at the New York Film Festival. more ›

Today the Times’s Frank Bruni marvels at Manhattan’s new wave of high tone restaurant openings during a recession, and pins the trend not on entrepreneurial bravado but on the fact that it takes years to get a fancy eatery open, and most of these new places were envisioned in flusher economic times. It is true that in 2005, the top fifth of earners in Manhattan made 52 times what the lowest fifth make – $365,826 compared with $7,047 – comparable to the income disparity in Namibia. Yet thanks to tax cuts and stagflation, the income gap has only widened in the past three years. Dinner at Per Se is as unattainable as ever for New York’s lower orders, but even with Wall Street turbulence it’s unlikely the ranks of the well-heeled will thin to the point where a fashionable restaurant can’t manage. Of course, chefs like Ken Friedman (The Spotted Pig) are artists and don’t chain their muse to the vagaries of the economy: “I’m certainly not the kind who would look at the Dow. Does a writer write or not write a book based on the economic climate? Does a songwriter write songs that way?” more ›

Frank Bruni, the Times’s top restaurant critic, awards the new 2nd Avenue Deli one star today, which isn’t bad considering it is, despite all the history, still a deli. We popped in there for food and photos just before it reopened at its East 33rd Street location and found the sandwiches (pictured) as monumental as ever; a second visit turned up no sign of the free bowl of gribenes (chicken skin fried in chicken fat) that the owner Jeremy Lebewohl had promised free at every table. more ›

Brian Cox is widely admired for commanding performances in films like The Bourne Identity, Rushmore and the original Hannibal Lecter in Michael Mann’s Manhunter. But like most actors from across the pond, the Scottish Cox originally built his reputation on decades of tireless stage work in theaters around the word. Until the stagehands’ strike shut down Broadway, he could be seen in the role of Max, a diehard British Marxist and Cambridge professor in Tom... more ›

EVENTS: Both Open House NY and The New Yorker Festival are upon us. You can check out more of OHNY's event here, and The New Yorker Festival here. Some picks: more ›

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, (which also comes out in theaters this weekend) to open the festival. more ›

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THEATER: The National Asian American Theatre Company is known for creating adventurous theater with an all-Asian American performing plays that often have little to do with Asian Americans. Their newest production is Blind Mouth Singing by Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas; it uses a watery set and live music to tell a story of an “overly strict matriarch; her young son Reiderico who sneaks out of the house to visit his best friend who lives at the bottom of a well; her sister who treats syphilis patients in the open-air market; and her older son who bullies everything within his reach.” Martin Denton writes: “Authentic magic happens only rarely in the theatre… I'm talking about those rare wonderful moments when we see one thing on stage with our eyes, but our hearts tell us we're seeing something entirely different. Blind Mouth Singing is filled with such moments of magic.” John Del Signore more ›

SummerScreen (you know, like sunscreen) is The L Magazine's addition to the already successful summer of McCarren Park Pool events. more ›

Noah Baumbach,
The Squid and the Whale more ›

He's an Orthodox Jewish Reggae singer that got his start performing in the parking lot at Phish shows, but don't call him a gimmick. Matisyahu's recent accomplishments include a co-headlining spot at the recent Reggae Carifest on Randall's Island and a sold-out show at Irving Plaza. Thursday night he'll pack Webster Hall. Phish fans who can't get a ticket should consider Benevento Russo Duo at Bowery Ballroom instead. 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, it would be so much better. It dawned on me: My dog only drinks water. Animals are the perfect spokespersons for bottle water. Playfully, it’s like the classic testimonials. We liked the idea of being in your face. Except if we just had a person talking about the product, that would be a drag."

Gothamist's interview with Wes Anderson. more ›

Sundance is definitely in full swing - you can tell by all the blurry-eyed revelers wandering up and down Main Street. We're trying to make all the rounds, but it's difficult because we actually have paying work to do at the festival. more ›

— we did find out a few fun factoids about the stars and their movie. more ›

- First date advice and what happens when non-Jews use JDate more ›

A Talk With Wes Anderson more ›

Gothamist has loved Wes Anderson and his films even since we saw Dignan's Five Year Plan in Bottle Rocket, so we're happy to announce that Touchstone Films has given us twenty-five tickets to a screening of Wes Anderson's new film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, starring Bill Murray. And we're holding a contest to give them away!! more ›

Since this one usually sells out quick, we wanted to give you a heads up that tickets for The New Yorker Festival went on sale today. more ›

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 well there being a Pedro retrospective (Viva Pedro!); and Alexander Payne's Sideways will close the festival. Indiewire has a good article about the festival's lineup, and we've taken their lineup list and reproduced it here (after the jump). more ›

Gothamist agrees with many (but not Moulin Rouge - meh), but would have to consider many others, like Almost Famous, A Star is Born, Amadeus, Hard Day's Night, A Mighty Wind, The School of Rock, plus the genre of movie musicals (Annie, The Muppet Movie, Kiss Me Kate, The Sound of Music) if we came up with our own list. And then there are the movies and filmmakers that aren't about music but their soundtracks change that: Anything by Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, Cameron Crowe, John Hughes, Woody Allen, Spike Lee, and Quentin Tarantino, plus Trainspotting, Brown Sugar, Dazed and Confused, Ocean's Eleven (the remake)...what are we missing? more ›

- Turning a city into a big game more ›

Cate Blanchett and Willem Dafoe are joining the cast of Wes Anderson's next movie, The Life Aquatic. Bill Murray stars as an oceanographer, who will be the center of the film, as he and his crew go on "a series of wild deep-sea adventures, including the search for a shark" (Hollywood Reporter). The rest of the cast includes Anjelica Huston, Owen Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, Peter Stormare, and Gothamist's favorite Anderson regular, Kumar Pallana ("Man, I blew it. I blew it, man."). more ›

The Post looks at what it's like to have your home co-opted by a film or TV show. With daily rates of $2000 (for posh locations), loads of equipment will be loaded in, your and your neighbors' peace of mind distressed, and strangers will tramp around your place. (Hey, it's almost like a couch surfer - just not the getting money part.) The Post has tips for how you can get your place on screen, with the Mayor's Office of Film & TV Production as the first thing to check out - they have a page on how to make your home a "star." One of Gothamist's all time favorite NYC home locations is the house at Archer Avenue where the Tenenbaums live; the Observer looked at Wes Anderson's and his crew's fastidious attention to the house's detail. more ›

Famed Italian movie studio Cinecitta is profiled by the New York Times today, as it tries to make itself a compelling option for Hollywood's filmmakers. Directors like Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti made Cinecitta the place to be in the 50s and 60s, but up until recently had not been successful. Wes Anderson's next movie, The Life Aquatic, is filming there, and most famously, Gangs of New York, was filmed there which had Martin Scorsese and Dante Ferretti replicate the Five Points in Rome. more ›

- L.A. Times reports: "Designer Tara Subkoff's Hollywood connections must rival Kevin Bacon's. Reese Witherspoon came out to support the designer who was once her roommate. And Wes Anderson, Subkoff's current beau, was able to reel in pals Anjelica Huston, Jason Schwartzman, Sheryl Crow and Owen Wilson." more ›

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 I focused on Wes Anderson, wunderkind director. I thought he was dating Jennifer Wachtell, an executive at Miramax. She even played Rachel Tenenbaum, the deceased wife of Ben Stiller's Chas Tenenbaum, in The Royal Tenenbaums. Hmm, stay tuned. It could just be people's publicists baiting their clients' exes in public. If that's the case, bait on! more ›