Spanish director Eugenio Mira, known for his outlandishly plotted films, is teaming up with equally intriguing psycho-auteur Rodrigo Cortés (Buried) to produce a movie starring Elijah Wood about a pianist who can't stop playing the piano or he'll die à la Speed.
Twitter has confirmed a report that it's testing inline video and images, just in case the microblogging service wasn't distracting enough for you already.
Did you like the part of the global economic meltdown where world governments had to step in to save the financial markets from total collapse? Then you'll love the part where they start rationing our food and oil supplies!
We haven't gotten our "next week in New York magazine email yet" that usually comes by now—but we hear David France's story on former Times and former Portfolio reporter and one-time kiddie-porn-ring investigator Kurt Eichenwald is running on Monday! (That was speedy.) Hoooo boy.
Last night, apartments in what is known locally as the ugliest building in Greenpoint were seriously papered. Were they eviction notices? Utility shut-offs? No! Just a note from Candace Bushnell and friends.
Even if you weren't invited to tonight's party for Gawker's book at our publisher's apartment (which you weren't), you'll still be able to see where the man lays his laregish head. We'll be streaming a live v-cast from a hidden camera in Nick Denton's pad starting at 7 p.m. It promises to be as fun as Kid Nation. You can start now though! We've installed the camera in our office already. We're camwhores! It is soooooo 2003 in here!
New Yorker festival! October 5! Tickets go on sale September 15! Here's the whole schedule. Now is your moment: David Denby, Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow, all within sniper range. (Just kidding, Judd, I heart you!) Diplo is DJing Sasha Frere-Jones' dance party, so, yes please on that. And here's the real crazy meat in the crazy pie: "THE NEW YORKER DEBATE. Resolved: The Ivy League Should Be Abolished With Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Gopnik. Chaired by Simon Schama." Are you people for real? Great: one-and-a-half Canadians and a Brit Columbia prof are going to tell us all about it. [Emdashes]
The film crew for "How To Lose Friends And Alienate People" has been terrorizing New York this week. Last night, they shot what people were told were the final scenes of the movie adaptation of exiled former Vanity Fair journo Toby Young's book. Is it a spoiler if, you know, the film's based on a book? Sort of?
That Cameron Diaz flick filming over in Chelsea? Actually called "What Happens In Vegas." But this iteration of the title from the parking placards around town is nice too. If possibly invasive. Or gynecological.
Last week's deluge could not have come at a better time for WABC's avuncular weather hottie Bill Evans. As you'll recall, Bill's new novel, Category 7, imagines the effects that a hurricane might have if it hit New York City. And make no mistake: A hurricane WILL hit New York City! And soon! Probably right after Labor Day! Last week was just foreshadowing. But how will it play out? Evans put together a promotional video that is so adorably amateur—and frightening—that we had to share it with you. Batten down the hatches, people: It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
Hell Square, epicenter of the blogosphere, recently lost its favorite horrendously shitty diner Loside. Happily in its stead will be Calle Catorce, which can't possibly be worse than its predecessor. The place filed for a full liquor license on April 16th, so it looks like along with the Hat, the Toilet and El Castillo De Jagua, internet losers will have yet another South of the Border place in which to gather with their "One Tequila Two Tequila Three Tequila Floor" t-shirts and Macbook Pros. For now however, such a convivium is only speculative, as, absent an opaque window frosting, nothing much is yet doing. But ! Around the corner, another Mexican place is much closer to being open. As Eat for Victory's Nina Lalli reports, Mole, "A Mexican Bar and Grill," will be arriving in mere days. Two! Trend! Hell Square is all about Mexican now!
A recent spate of Victorian sitting room-style clubs is mucking with the ironic lifestyle-recycling of eras past. The latest example—after the Bowery Hotel, Freeman's, and Beatrice Inn—is the soon-to-open Norwood, a London-style private club to open this summer. As New York magazine's Geoffrey Gray reports,
With the Chinatown Holiday Inn being converted into a "high-end cutting-edge destination" boutique hotel by the secretive monolithic enterprise Highgate Holdings, the area has begun its walkabout from slightly gritty ethnic enclave to gleaming diorama of "New York City." As the Post's Cuozzo reports, the Highgate hotel at 138 Lafayette will fully embrace the "downtown aesthetic," recruiting Edison-bulb-loving firm AvroKo and bringing in Marc Packer of Tao and Richard Wolf of AvroKo-designed Stanton Social.
Coming Soon:
With the Whole Foods Industrial Complex set to open March 29th on Houston and Bowery, a paroxysm of speculation has surrounded the area. Will it have a Fresh & Wild salad bar? (Yes) Will it have an Italian Osteria? (Yes, Rustica Minardi). Whither goest the 8 dollar yogurts of Gracefully? But perhaps most pressingly, what's the deal with the illustrations of racial stereotypes on the windows?
