Results tagged “woodyallen”

Now that the American Apparel mess is behind him, Woody Allen can get back to talking about what he loves: movies and New York City. USA Today and Tribeca Film have interviews with the director, who says he's getting priced out of Manhattan! He told them, "I wish I could afford to be here all the time, but it's a very expensive city to work in. It's gotten worse for me. It's gotten better in that they give you tax breaks. But everything (else) has gone up. I work on a very limited budget." He noted that it would cost about an extra $3 million to film in New York in comparison to overseas.

Following yesterday's announcement that American Apparel settled the lawsuit Woody Allen filed against them for $5 million, the director now speaks out about Dov Charney & Co. Upon leaving the courthouse yesterday he said, "It's, of course, possible by going through the trial a jury might have awarded me more money, but this is not how I make my living" (the NY Post points out it is, however, more money than Vicky Cristina Barcelona made during it's opening weekend, by about $1.5 million more). He's hoping the big payout will discourage other companies from illegally using his image, even though Charney has insisted he wasn't using him to sell product. While American Apparel's head honcho would like to meet the director on friendlier terms, it's unlikely Allen would ever allow it. He told the press yesterday, "Threats and press leaks by American Apparel designed to smear me did not work, and a scheme to call a long list of witnesses who had absolutely nothing to do with the case was also disallowed by the court. I suspect this dose of legal reality led to their 11th-hour settlement." Aaaaand scene.

Sadly, the world won't see Woody Allen face off with Dov Charney in a courtroom. Not today, at least. American Apparel has posted the following statement on their website: "Today the lawsuit filed against American Apparel by Woody Allen will settle whereby he will receive a $5M payment. The vast majority of this payment will be paid by our insurance carrier who is responsible for the decision to settle this case and has controlled the defense of this case since its inception. Naturally there is some relief of not having to go through a trial but I also harbor a sense of remorse and sadness for not arguing an important issue regarding the First Amendment, particularly the ability of an individual or corporation to invoke the likeness of a public figure in a satiric and social statement."

In Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, The Supreme Court of the United States unanimously proclaimed: "At the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. The freedom to speak one's mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty - and thus a good unto itself - but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole. We have therefore been particularly vigilant to ensure that individual expressions of ideas remain free from governmentally imposed sanctions."Of course, using Hustler as an example when you're trying to prove you aren't a barely legal loving perv isn't exactly the way to go (nor is flooding the internet with images like the above), but we do agree with this whole First Amendment thing. However, is it really possible that Mr. Charney was using Woody Allen as a way to draw parallels to his own public image, and not to, like, sell things? It's sort of an outdated comparison, and Charney's mesh tanks aren't exactly on par with cinematic classics like Annie Hall. What do you think?

Chalk one up for Woody Allen, a judge ruled that he doesn't have to justify his opinion that American Apparel ads are "sleazy," the NY Post reports. The company had wanted the director to back up his accusations by identifying specific ads he found distasteful, and as much as we'd love to picture a scenario in which Woody Allen brings in stacks of past Micro-Mesh campaigns into a courtroom, that request was ridiculous. (American Apparel, need we remind you of the 40-foot beaver shot or the giant rape ad?) As such, Manhattan federal Judge Thomas Griesa ruled that Allen has clearly shown "he would not have voluntarily agreed to endorse" the company's products. The case goes to court on May 18th, and last week we received an internal memo from an employee at American Apparel that attempted to express the company's point of view on all this.

Yesterday more court papers were filed for the upcoming American Apparel/Woody Allen showdown, and the NY Post's Cindy Adams thinks it's going to get uglier than a Nylon Spandex Micro-Mesh Bodysuit.

Woody Allen, Dov Charney and young women go together like legwarmers, metallic spandex tights and a deep v-neck tee, yet the battle between Woody Allen and American Apparel continues! After the company used the director's image (without permission) on one of their billboard campaigns, he filed a $10 million lawsuit saying it damaged his reputation. He called the company "sleazy" amongst other things, and the company retaliated noting that he already tarnished his image when he married his young stepdaughter, Soon-Yi Previn. WCBS now reports that "Lawyers for American Apparel have complained that Allen has refused to turn over much of the information they have demanded to prepare for trial. Among their demands were documents concerning any endorsement requests that were withdrawn after the sex scandal with Farrow and Previn became public." The request included nude photos Allen allegedly took of Soon-Yi Previn—but don't get your hopes up Charney, his lawyers say that request is not relevant to the case.

Last year Woody Allen filed a $10 million suit against American Apparel after they used his image (taken from Annie Hall) on their billboards in 2007, explaining at the time that he doesn't promote products in the U.S. This has now pit creepy underage-girl-loving Dov Charney against Allen, who clearly cannot relate to anything remotely, um, unconventional. He is calling the company, amongst other things, "sleazy, adolescent, and infantile," according to the NY Post. The tabloid also reports that yesterday American Apparel verbally retaliated "by demanding records showing whether his 'highly publicized sex scandal and custody battle' involving ex-girlfriend Mia Farrow and her adopted daughter Soon-Yi—Woody's current wife—had affected his earnings." Can there even be any winners in this case? (Besides Rupert Murdoch, of course.)

Watchmen hasn't been getting the best reviews, but Slate thinks it could be worse. What if Woody Allen directed it! Allen's would be set on the UWS, of course, and the site imagines a romantic comedy "where wealthy dermatologist Dr. Herbert Manhattan (Allen) suffers a freak accident with his dermabrasion machine. How will his blue skin and omnipotence affect his relationship with beautiful but scatterbrained silk importer Laurie Juspeczyk (Scarlett Johansson)?" Other what-if scenarios include the bromance-obsessed Judd Apatow, Quentin Tarantino, Tyler Perry, Sofia Coppola and Pedro Almodóvar—but who else would(n't) you like to see reinterpret it? How about a Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan directed Bollywood take on the comic? A Dr. Mumbai dance number may be just what this movie needs.

MOVIE: Woody Allen's '77 classic, Annie Hall, makes a week long appearance at the Film Forum. Catch a screening of the anxiety-ridden romance that "defined New York" sometime before the end of the run next Tuesday. More details on times, here.

If more NYU kids were like John Waters, the university’s downtown super-saturation would at least be a bit more colorful. In a recent interview with Details, Waters took a nostalgia trip back to his NYU days, when he, uh, did a lot of tripping:

Back then you weren’t very interested in school. Who lasted at NYU longer, you or Woody Allen? I bet Woody went longer, because I think I was there from September to October. I only went to one class. I went to the movies on 42nd Street. It wasn’t NYU’s fault, I don’t blame them. I was out of my mind. I never went to class. Back then I was on LSD. Speed. Diet pills. I was up a lot. I had to see four movies a day; I couldn’t be going to class except to steal textbooks and then go sell them back so I had money to go to the movies.

Staring down the barrel of a $10 million lawsuit, American Apparel has spoken out about their billboard displaying Woody Allen's image (circa Annie Hall). Chances are the law will find them about as innocent as their barely-dressed teen models.

Last year Woody Allen kicked off the scantily clad teen models usually draped over American Apparel billboards, and seemingly made himself the new face of Dov Charney's clothing empire. In both LA and NYC, his image (taken from Annie Hall) hung above city streets along with Yiddish writing paired up with their logo.

With Mayor Bloomberg up in Albany deriding Gov. Spitzer for bilking the city out of $500 million in promised funding, it's no wonder that the perennial call for secession has arisen.

The Brooklyn Paper isn't the only one who has missed Woody Allen's "quirky, oh-so-New-York films." On the verge of releasing his latest movie, Cassandra's Dream (in theaters Friday), Allen talked to The Daily News about when he might bring his New York to celluloid again.

On Friday Gothamist visited the set of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead, a bizarre little indie shooting in the East Village. The movie is a sequel of sorts to Tom Stoppard’s hilarious existential comedy Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, but with “sexy vampires, the Holy Grail and Hamlet.” Jake Hoffman (son of Dustin), who appeared on some Arrested Development episodes, is a broke, frustrated ladies man who jumps at the chance to direct an off-Broadway play written by a pale, mysterious Romanian, played by John Ventimiglia, best known as Artie Bucco in the Sopranos. (Pictured above.)

The holiday-time movie releases are starting to pile up with their usual feverish frequency. Some have Christmas themes, like the widely reviled Vince Vaughn vehicle Fred Claus that’s already roadkill on the lost highway of cinema history; others, like Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, are timed to make an impression as close to Academy Award-voting season as possible. Here are some of the biggest gorillas set to dominate New York’s screens in the next six...

A look at some noteworthy television this week:

Bebel Gilberto was born in New York City to legendary musicians João Gilberto and Miúcha. Raised in Brazil, she made frequent trips back to her hometown -- even performing at Carnegie Hall before her age was in the double digits. 13 years ago she made the move back here and has continued to create music on her own and with other musicians. Her latest album, Momento, is her first in three years and tomorrow night she'll be playing some of those new tunes at Webster Hall.

THEATER: We like our comedy like we like our women: black and absurd. So it’s promising that the press release for a new play by Kevin Mandel uses those two irresistible words to describe A New Television Arrives, Finally. The strange story concerns “an American couple visited by a charismatic man presenting himself as a television set. Is the handsome stranger a charlatan or a guru?” Emmy award-winning actor Tom Pelphrey [Guiding Light] leads the cast at tonight’s premiere performance. - John Del Signore

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person struck by a police car at Canal St. and Broadway in Manhattan, an escaped prisoner at West 110th St. and 7th Ave. in Manhattan, and an amputation on Brewer Blvd. in Queens.
• A downturn in the markets will hurt more than those that work on Wall St. Mayor Bloomberg warns that a bear market will hurt the whole city as reduced tax revenues necessitate spending cuts.
• Woody Allen remembers filmmaker Ingmar Bergman in a Q&A with Time magazine.
• The Florida woman charged with abusing 11 adopted New York children managed to adopt eight of them in a four-month period in 1994, never once using her own name.
• The Gowanus Lounge looks at the feral dogs that used to reside in Red Hook, until they were rescued and spayed or neutered by an animal welfare organization.
• The Brooklyn Cyclones won the first politically-correct called baseball game in history against the home team Lowell Spinners in Massachusetts. Infielders were base persons and a vertically challenged stop. Errors weren't announced to spare the feelings of poor fielders.
• A Queens resident got in Mayor Bloomberg's face while on camera, telling him he can't take the borough for granted.
• Streetsblog clarifies the DOT's plan for bike traffic on 91st between 2nd and 3rd Aves., correcting misreporting by other media outlets that are getting the street's residents riled up -basically the DOT has no intention of painting or striping a bike lane on the street.

Only 2 weeks after his 89th birthday, Swedish film and theater director Ingmar Bergman passed away at his home on Fårö Island this morning, the Associated Press reports. "Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, confirmed the death, and Swedish journalist Marie Nyreröd said the director died peacefully during his sleep. Bergman never fully recovered after a hip surgery in October last year, Nyreröd told Swedish broadcaster SVT."

Staten Island needs some cheerleaders every once in a while, especially after their ice cream flavor was named after their landfill. The NY Times has a piece on the borough's historian, "Brooklyn has Walt Whitman to sing praises of its 'ample hills.' Manhattan has Woody Allen to capture its outsize style and neuroses. And Staten Island? Well, Staten Island has Thomas W. Matteo for a borough historian to chronicle its glories, its goofs and, yes, its landfill."

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a water rescue at Emmons Ave. and Knapp St. in Brooklyn, a serious assault on West 37th St. and 11th Ave. in Manhattan, and a bank robbery on Flatlands Ave. in Queens.
• The body of the Ecuadorian man who was killed in a bar fight earlier this week will be returned home at the expense of a businessman, also from Ecuador, who appreciated the man's abbreviated attempt to support his family from abroad.
• The woman thought to have been trying to throw herself from the Staten Island Ferry in a suicide attempt was actually just drunk.
• Showing up subway-riding Mayor Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff commutes to work on his bike. How is it again, with bike-riding DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, that NYC remains a bike-unfriendly city?
• Woody Allen is trying his hand at opera, from the safe distance of LA. He'll be staging one act of Puccini's three-part "Il Trittico" for the Los Angeles Opera company.
• A jury found that the author who published under the name JT Leroy did defraud a film company and she's been ordered to pay damages.
• The Snapple Theater Center has renamed the space currently hosting a revival of "The Fantasticks" The Jerry Orbach Theater.
• Politics reach a new level of childishness as Giuliani says of Bloomberg: He's copying me.

MOVIE: By now you've all seen, memorized and lived your own version of neurotic New York love story Annie Hall, the classic Woody Allen film that's stood the test of time. But have you seen it under the open night sky? Didn't think so. Get there early for a seat. Get there even earlier for knitting lessons!

BBQ: Close out Popfest (and the long weekend) today with a BBQ at Union Pool. Served up with your burgers and beer are some bands, of course: The Orange Peels, Finish School, the Gazetteers, the Lil Hopsital, Surefire Broadcast and Titans of Filth.

You may be familiar with James Sanders' book Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies, which celebrated New York City's role in movies and is a must for any fan of New York, architecture, or film. But even if you haven't, you get a chance to experience it in beyond the pages: Starting tomorrow, Grand Central Terminal's Vanderbilt Hall will be the setting for a Celluloid Skyline exhibit. There will be huge "scenic backing" paintings from old films, film footage, artifacts, displays and more that will show NYC's role in production and as a "mythic city" of the movies. Here's a description:

[The exhibit] will also carry visitors into the dream city of the movies, through “immersive” elements that allow visitors to feel as if they are actually inhabiting the various environments of the filmic city – streets, skyscrapers, rooftops, theaters, waterfronts, interiors – allowing viewers to come away with a greater understanding not only of the moviemaking process, but of the urban character, texture and significance of the real city.

Continue reading "Celluloid Skyline at Grand Central Tomrorow"

MUSIC: Tickets are still available for Daniel Johnston tonight. If you aren't familiar with the music of this Austinite, check out a little of what he has to offer from a recent appearance on the Henry Rollins Show (video here), or in the documentary "The Devil and Daniel Johnston," trailer below:

also involves a filmmaker, this time on vacation in a sleepy seaside town where he's trying to finish his newest film script and pick up women. Many of Hong's most memorable scenes involve something simple like a couple getting drunk and their ensuing sexual tension, but the way he crafts the quiet exchanges is both subtle and electrifying. Like the work of Woody Allen or Ingmar Bergman, Hong's movies celebrate the impact of a glance and the fascination in human drama. Some of Hong's films are available on DVD, but if you can take this great opportunity to see them projected on the big screen.