Another Will Ferrell sports flick will inflate this weekend, capping off a nationwide “Funny or Die” promotional tour that brought him to Radio City Music Hall Sunday night. The movie is Semi-Pro, which stars Ferrell as Jackie Moon, owner of the 1976 Flint Michigan Tropics, a team in the maverick ABA basketball league. To keep his career alive against all odds, Moon initiates off a series of increasingly desperate publicity stunts to attract fans –......

America's Next Top Model is back in New York and in its second episode, which airs tonight, things are getting a little bit real. The episode brings the fourteen newest model wannabes to the not always fashionable streets. After the troupe mingles with the tourists at their fashion show in Times Square, it's off to their first photo shoot. For regular watchers of the show you'll know there's always a theme to the shoots, well......

Musical theater star and lounge singer extraordinaire Robert Goulet died yesterday of pulmonary fibrosis while awaiting a lung transplant in an L.A. hospital; he was 73. In the early 60s Goulet skyrocketed to fame through his performance as Lancelot in the smash Broadway hit Camelot. He soon became a seemingly timeless fixture on both the musical theater touring circuit and the Vegas strip – in 1982 he was proclaimed Vegas Entertainer of the Year –......

LOL (directed by Joe Swanberg) Half naked, hot young things gyrating on screen are just a click away in the wonderful world of the Internet. But does the proliferation of cheap video and the pervasiveness of text messaging and instant messaging actual keep us from really connecting, one human being to another? This is the intriguing premise behind LOL, a feature film directed by Joe Swanberg, one of the directors in the much-buzzed about "mumblecore"......

Playwright Adam Rapp etches elegantly bleak portraits of America’s young lost souls; his Red Light Winter was an Obie-winner and Pulitzer-prize finalist, Blackbird was recently adapted into a film which Rapp also directed. (He wrote and directed his first feature, Winter Passing, which starred Ed Harris, Zooey Deschanel and Will Ferrell.) Rapp’s published seven novels, plays in a band, and is not someone you’d want to play one-on-one basketball with to settle a bet. His......

Blades of Glory (directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon): "Will Ferrell the Serious Actor" is a good thing, but oh how we adore "Will Ferrell the Clown." The off-kilter mannerisms, the flamboyant costumes and the tendency to flash his hairy belly for cheap laughs are hallmarks of a great Will Ferrell movie and they're all there in his newest, the figure skating spoof Blades of Glory. Ferrell plays Chazz Michael Michaels, otherwise known as......

SIGNING: If there is one person we could think of that doesn't need an autobiography...it might as well be Rupert Everett. Yet, he'll be signing his new book "Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins: The Autobiography" tonight. He wasn't just in "My Best Friends Wedding", he was also friends with Warhol and has been to easter egg hunts in Elizabeth Taylor's garden. Fabulous. 7pm // Barnes & Noble [33 E 17th St] // Free SHOP:......

New York mid-December always smells vaguely of pine and peppermint, despite our recent springtime temperatures. Bring that cozy holiday feeling with you into the cineplex for a couple of new feel-good holiday movies. Will Smith will tug at your heart strings big time as the struggling dad trying to become a stockbroker in The Pursuit of Happyness. Set in the '70s in San Francisco, Smith plays Chris Gardner, a door to door medical equipment salesman......

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......

If you've been living under a pop culture free rock, you may not be aware that Sacha Baron Cohen's new movie about his Kazakhstan journalist character, Borat is out this weekend. Sadly, Gothamist wasn't able to make it to an advance screening of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan but a very reliable source on comedy assures us that "it's the funniest movie ever." While the officials from Kazakhstan......

Looking ahead to this week's movie options, there's a few indie-sized pics and one massive, Super Big Gulp-sized car racing comedy. Ordinarily Gothamist is all about championing the cinematic little guy, but when it's this goofy, yet earnest we say go for the excess. But to the small fish first: Quinceañera is a Los Angeles coming of age story centering around one Mexican-American girl, Magdalena and the traditional celebration which marks her 15th birthday. A......

Adam Rapp, Writer and Director...

- The city and firefighters have come to a contract agreement - and it's retroactive to 2003 - The Transport Workers Union wonders what its members think of the contract - The site of the recently demolished Lower East synagogue is on sale - Okay, let's say it again: Magnolia Bakery is so so so over - Senior newsman and meatloaf (the food) enthusiast Mike Wallace is retiring from 60 Minutes but gets the......

With the vice president shooting people in the face and everyone still getting over their chocolate hang over from Valentine's Day, this week it's hard not to feel a general malaise and slight discomfort about the new releases line up. However as always, New York's repertory film scene comes through in the clinch keeping Gothamist inspired when it comes to movie viewing. The bad news first, ie new wide releases out this week: Our former......

Remakes and sequels and genre formula, oh my! February is a great month for releasing exactly what the studios think the people will pay to see and this week's release schedule is a textbook example of this development by marketing focus group strategy. Oh well, doesn't mean Gothamist is ready to give up on moviegoing quite yet. Here's a few suggestions to guide your weekend viewing. Of the offerings that are new in wide release......

Though it was the Washington Post's biggest story, the NY media suckerpunched the Post by running the revelation that former FBI No. 2 man, Mark Felt, was Deep Throat, the shadowy informant who helped reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reveal the Watergate scandal. Felt, now 91, confessed after the urging of his family, catching Woodward and Bernstein off-guard (Woodstein probably were probably planning a book to be published as soon at Felt died). Gothamist,......

Music fans might consider buying tickets for Wednesday's “Yo La Tengo: The Sounds of Science”, where the indie rock favorite will perform their songs to eight short films from oceanographer-documentarian Jean Painleve, the famous Surrealist filmmaker who portrayed sea horses, vampire bats, and fanworms with comic and erotic human traits. It might just be aquamarine rock-cinema at its best. Wednesday, May 18th at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall Theatre, (212) 721-6500, $40 As for this......

A few weeks ago, the NY Times Magazine ran a great excerpt of Steven Berlin Johnson's new book, Everything Bad is Good For You, which proposes that society has not been dumbed down by TV recently; in fact, if anything, TV watchers have become more skilled at juggling multiple storylines and ideas while watching shows like The Sopranos, Lost, Alias, E.R. or Twin Peaks, offering up the suggestion that a lot of TV drama has......

Woody Allen's fictional vision of New York has become so highly developed and self-referential over the years that for Gothamist, who has seen nearly every film Allen has made, most scenes in his newer features evoke similar scenes from previous works. Characters almost always fall into stereotypes of different kinds of New Yorkers, and the city they live in exists largely in the same recurring locations, even as Allen tries to throw in seemingly-new touches......

More details on yesterday's incident where 50 children and adults tumbled down an escalator at the Loews Lincoln Square theater (photo from Newsday). They were travelling up an escalator to see The Polar Express on IMAX, and someone, possibly a teacher, accidentally pressed an emergency button, which then caused the escalator to start moving down. Fire officials think a child's clothing became ensnared ("baggy-pants leg became ensnared by a protruding screw"), causing everyone to fall......

Everyone is talking or writing about Dan Rather and CBS's News' questionable judgement over the National Guard documents, even going so far as to attach "-gate" to "Rather" just in case people out there couldn't figure out this was a bit scandalous. One caption on a Dan Rather photograph from Reuters read:Internet bloggers have drawn blood and American journalism may never be the same. To hear some press experts tell it, CBS's admission on September......

Gothamist attempted to real-time blog last night's 56th Annual Emmys. We survived, but we would like to say this: It was pretty boring. Sure, Garry Shandling can be funny, but we weren't that into it. Gothamist is certainly happy that Arrested Development made sure a great showing, as well as Angels in America, but it was also pretty boring - like the nominations themselves. But since we're a sucker for awards shows, we bring you......

...and we're out $35! Damn you, Conan O'Brien. Your mock-infomercial last night worked all too well and Gothamist ended up ordering both your 10th Anniversary Special and The Best of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog - when you have Will Ferrell dressed as the hot-pants-ed leprauchan in rubbing against you or Triumph humping other dogs, how can we resist? Damn you for having Bruce Jenner on with you, because he's had so much plastic......

After a semi-hysterical article this past weekend about how New Yorkers are fleeing town during the Republican Convention, the NY Times looks a New York Region > A Guide to the Convention, but Not Just for Republicans" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/09/nyregion/09guide.html">new map of NYC to help out convention goers and protestors alike - complete with information about hotels where delegations are staying as well as bail bondsmen. Designed by Paul Chan, Nadxieli Mannello, and Joshua Breitbart (friend of......

The other night, when Bill Clinton went on Late Show with David Letterman to shill his heavy book, Gothamist was thinking about rumors that Clinton was weighing an offer to host Saturday Night Live. While Darrell Hammond's Clinton impression was great, the memory of Phil Hartman, playing a McDonald's eating, smooth talking Secret Service nightmare is burned in our memory. Whether it's stuffing a Sausage McMuffin in his mouth and almost choking (luckily Rob Schneider......

It's no secret that Gothamist is excited about Anchorman, considering that we lurve Will Ferrell. But we must say, regular non-costumed Will Ferrell is just as awesome, as proven by this clip of Will Ferrell ambushing the CNBC anchors during Power Lunch. Will seems to have been taping an episode of John McEnroe's new show, but he got loose and went to bother the anchors. It's amazing, especially with Will asking Sue Herera if they......

The wise minds behind Anchorman, the Will Ferrell comedy about TV news during the 70s, decided to release a video of Ferrell and the rest of the Anchorman cast singing Afternoon Delight, (from Starland Vocal Band) knowing full well that the Ferrell demograhic will eat up anything that has Ferrell in it. MTV has the video, as well what the video directors, The Malloys, wanted to do with the video: We want to play off......

Gothamist took a look at the "controversial" Rheingold beer campaign - the one that challenges Mayor Bloomberg's quality of life initiatives - and we have a mixed reaction. The campaign, "Don't Sleep," has a great style, with shots of the people dancing, walking, sitting, or carrying an ashtray around the city, an MC imploring that New Yorkers "can't sleep till we take it back [from Bloomberg, The Man, whomever is getting in the way......

David Rees, Cartoonist...

In time for the Oscars this Sunday, greg.org has a great interview with Errol Morris about making The Fog of War, one of the best movies Gothamist has seen this year. greg.org captures the cadence of Morris, one of the most influential filmmakers today, in the way he spaces the interview. For example, when greg.org asks how Morris made the film and he responds: Very, very few people ever ask me about the film as......