Results tagged “movies”

Before the movie industry moved West, and before tax credits lured it back here from time to time — two of the most successful production companies resided right in New York City, according to the Bowery Boys. The American Vitagraph Company (at 140 Nassau Street, and later in Midwood), and Edison Studios (41 East 21st St, and later the Bronx) both thrived in the city in the early 1900s. more ›

The mad scientists at the New York Times multimedia department have cooked up another insane mashup: heat maps for the top rentals in each zipcode in a dozen US cities. Some movies, like "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" seem to be popular just about everywhere (because let's be honest, who doesn't like Brad Pitt?) while others, like Mad Men and Tyler Perry's Madea Goes To Jail seem to be popular in specific neighborhoods (hint: Tyler Perry is not among the top 50 movies anywhere in Manhattan below 110th Street.) Biggest surprise: Twilight is astoundingly popular in the Bronx and Staten Island! Do you notice any other odd patterns? more ›

After the heady rush of opening presents—or not, depending on your faith, views on material gift giving, etc.—Americans are expected to go to the movies today and this weekend, thanks to Christmas Day releases like Sherlock Holmes and It's Complicated and recent releases Avatar and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel. more ›

Up in the Air is up on top of the Golden Globe award contenders (full list after the jump), receiving six nominations, including props for best drama and nominations for George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. The tense Iraq war drama, The Hurt Locker, which just scored with the critics' awards in New York and LA, was also nominated for best drama, and Kathryn Bigelow was nominated for best director. James Cameron (Avatar), Clint Eastwood (Invictus), Jason Rietman (Up in the Air), and Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds) were also nominated for best director. more ›

In the battle between the West and East Coast cities, Los Angeles may just beat New York... at least on film. Remember when they blew up the Brooklyn Bridge? New Yorkers did not like that. more ›

The public will no longer be able to visit the Mayor's Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting to parse through a weekly stack of film shoot permits. Instead, those interested in leafing through the pile of city paperwork (i.e. the paparazzi) will be forced to file for the data under the Freedom of Information Law. more ›

Click on the film stills above for more on this week's releases, including This Is It, Gentlemen Broncos, the Boondock Saints sequel, Labor Day, Skin and more. more ›

If you haven't taken the time to revisit all the Ghostbusters landmarks, and we're guessing that even with this handy map, you haven't—then head over here. The Scout has a side by side comparison of movie stills and the locations in their current state. The best part, this is all part of a new series called “New York, You’ve Changed." more ›

Click through the gallery for movies playing this weekend, including new releases Taking Woodstock, The Final Destination, The September Issue, Big Fan, Halloween II, Still Walking, and more. more ›

Can anyone really fill the seats of Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel? At the Movies has tried time and again, and their latest effort ousts both Ben Lyons (son of movie critic Jeffrey Lyons) and Ben Mankiewicz as hosts. And look who's finally getting their close-ups: co-chief film critic of The New York Times, A.O. Scott, alongside the Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips. Scott previously wrote about Ebert in the Times, saying, “Though they may not have intended as much, they turned what had been lonely, literary pursuit into a collaborative, antagonistic venture and a spectator sport.” The duo will make their debut on September 7th, and the show's producers believes the move "will take the series back to its roots of one-on-one film debate that was established when the show first began" in 1986. We give this move two thumbs up. And don't feel bad for Lyons, in spite of being part of what EW's Popwatch calls the "Ben-and-Ben fiasco": Back in 2004, he told us, besides sharing stories about Ivanka Trump calling him collect and Angelina Jolie flirting with him, "In five years I see myself living in Bondi Beach, Australia." more ›

TMZ is reporting that writer and director John Hughes has died at age 59 while in town. The website says he was taking a morning walk during a trip to visit family. Hughes is best known as the writer and director who defined the teen genre and led to the "Brat Pack" phenomenon throughout the 1980s, creating films such as Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science and Some Kind of Wonderful. Hughes had a background in comedy, getting his start at National Lampoon and continuing to write screenplays for contemporary comedies up until last year's . A majority of the teen films that Hughes shaped a generation with took place in the greater Chicago area in which he grew up, but several of his screenplays were set in Gotham, including Home Alone 2, Maid in Mahattan, and the remake of Miracle on 34th Street. He is survived by his wife of 39 years, Nancy, two sons, John and James, and four grandchildren. more ›

Click on the film stills above for more details and reviews on this week's new releases and repertory screenings, which also include Adam, Fragments, Flame & Citron, You the Living, Lorna's Silence, Ghosted, Thirst, Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story Of OZploitation!, Gotta Dance, Raising Arizona, True Romance, and a retrospective of Ang Lee's films. more ›

Fans of the Quay Brothers will be pleased to know that Parsons The New School for Design is currently hosting a traveling exhibit of 11 rarely seen miniature décors from some of the Quays' most prominent works. Since 1979, the famously reclusive brothers (born and raised in Norristown, Pennsylvania) have produced over 30 enthralling animated works, including the critically acclaimed Street of Crocodiles, an adaptation of the Bruno Schulz novel by the same name, which Terry Gilliam deems one of the top ten best animated films of all time. more ›

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. more ›

Click on the film stills above for more on this weekend's new releases and repertory screenings, which also include Ice People, The Limits of Control, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Revanche, The Merry Gentleman, Battle for Terra, I Can See You, Eldorado, and 200 Motels. And this is also the last weekend for The Tribeca Film Festival, which just announced this year's winners. more ›

Click on the film stills above for more reviews and details on this week's new releases and repertory screenings, which, besides The Soloist, include Tyson, The Informers, Il Divo, Treeless Mountain, Fighting, Earth, Viridiana, Throw Down Your Heart, Trainspotting, Eraserhead. And, of course, the Tribeca Film Festival is now in full swing; check out our narrative feature and documentary highlights. more ›

The festival continues through May 3rd, and while this year boasts less films than usual (approximately 150, down from roughly 200 last year), that also means it's a slightly more manageable festival. Last week Executive Director Nancy Schafer talked us through some of the fun events happening during the festival, which include free stuff like the drive-in movies and the fair street fair, the post-screening Q&A;'s with directors such as Spike Lee and Steven Soderbergh, and a "work in progress" premiere screening of the documentary, Bon Jovi: When We Were Beautiful. more ›

Click on the film stills above more on this weekend's new releases and repertory screenings, which include Sugar, Gigantic, In Bart Got a Room, Paris 36, Tulpan, The Song of Sparrows, Forbidden Lie$, Fast and Furious, Enlighten Up, The Escapist, Rififi, Naked Lunch, and A Hard Day's Night . more ›

The Hollywood lights have been shining down on South Williamsburg a lot lately, so much so that the neighborhood is being given a three-month reprieve from the action by city officials. Several projects got the greenlight to finish up filming before being tossed out of the new no-film zone, after which they'll certainly be able to find that "gritty urban look" Williamsburg offers in other areas of New York City. more ›

It's the final day of New York Comic-Con, and there are still tickets left for today! The fans have been flocking to the Javits Center since Friday to get their fill of their favorite comics, graphic novels, anime—you name it! The hungry Watchmen fans got to see a never-before-seen 30 second clip of the very anticipated film (more details here). And Pixar devotees certainly got their money's worth with Disney screening four clips of Up (totaling 46 minutes!) of their next summer blockbuster. more ›

Click on the images above for more details and reviews of this weekend's movies. more ›

To kick off the weekend, Richard Simmons visited the team of folks participating in the movie-watching marathon (check out Crazy Legs Conti!). Simmons served up some "heart-healthy energy foods" and taught them how to do exercises while seated in their lounge chairs. Since Thursday the eight contestants have been slackin' off and watching flicks in an attempt to break a world record, and take home some cash. more ›

Today in Times Square the world's laziest competition began: the Movie-Watching World Championship. For five days, 'round the clock, these eight folks will be in a world of celluloid. Each competitor is attempting to spend the full five days in the arena "where they’ll watch movie after movie in the hopes of breaking the movie watching world record of 120 hours and 23 minutes. The event champion will win a $10,000 cash prize, a lifetime membership to Netflix and the coveted Netflix Popcorn Bowl trophy." Mmm...popcorn bowl trophy. more ›

Samuel L. Jackson—who, as Anthony Lane at the New Yorker notes, is about to turn 60—stars in Lakeview Terrace, a suburban noir featuring Jackson as an L.A. cop and single dad who cannot stand the liberal mixed-race couple next door. It's directed but not written by Neil LaBute, though Lane thinks "it sounds a lot like him, in the lethal simmer of its conversation...It’s a shame, then, that the later stages of Lakeview Terrace should overheat and spill into silliness... The first hour of the film, however, with Jackson in command, feels dangerous, necessary, and rife with comic disturbance. Just like the man himself." A.O. Scott at the Times hates the movie, calling it "glib...Bernie Mac did more with the topic in a few throwaway moments of the lamebrain comedy Guess Who than Mr. Jackson manages in all of Lakeview Terrace." more ›

Sukiyaki Western Django opens in New York today; A.O. Scott at the Times calls it "a feast for genre fetishists, a loving and lurid pastiche of the spaghetti westerns that were themselves lurid pastiches of classic Hollywood cowboy pictures." The movie features a Japanese cast portraying a stylized version of the Old West, and pastiche-master himself Quentin Tarantino disemboweling a snake in the opening scene. It's also, sprach Scott, "a grindingly violent film. That the violence is often treated as sanguinary slapstick is not a problem in itself; turning mayhem into a joke is an expected feature of the self-conscious genre-blending formula." more ›

Speaking of Moonstruck, this week the Central Park Film Festival is screening movies highlighting the different boroughs of the city. Tomorrow night's kickoff film is Working Girl, starring Melanie Griffith as a plucky secretary from Staten Island trying to make it in the business world. The rest of the films: 8/20, The French Connection (a Bronx candy store under surveillance); 8/21, Strangers on a Train (the Alfred Hitchcock thriller); 8/22, Moonstruck (with an introduction by Academy Award winner screenwriter John Patrick Shanley); and 8/23, August Rush (with a performance by the film's Academy Award nominated choir, IMPACT) more ›

Nope, still not July 18th; will Space Chimps never open? Well, let’s put on a brave face and make the best of it. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is looking pretty interesting, actually. Based on the graphic novel about a demon from hell who ends up sympathizing with the enemy (us), this sequel from talented Pan’s Labyrinth and Hobbit director Guillermo del Toro is “capable of delighting even the most jaded, comic-book-weary summer-blockbuster conscript,” according to the Times’s A.O. Scott. “This director is a compulsive and prodigious maker of creatures, and for this movie he seems to have opened up his notebooks and let his imagination run free.” more ›

This weekend Time magazine looked at the return of the Drive-in movie theater. A classic viewing option that's currently only available at 400 places in the U.S., and was invented by Camden, NJ resident Richard M. Hollingshead, Jr. (his first theater was in Pennsauken). more ›

June 30th, Hud more ›

If "butter" flavored popcorn and Sour Patch Kids aren’t your ideal movie snack food, then you'll probably find the New York City Food Film Festival much more palatable. Starting Saturday at Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City, Queens, the festival will pair 18 movies with relevant munchies under the night sky. George Motz, who started the festival last year with chef Harry Hawk, says he wanted to create “a cinematic scratch 'n sniff where you can not only watch a food film but eat the food being shown in that film.” Which explains why Sweeney Todd isn't being screened. more ›