Last year movie piracy became a misdemeanor in New York, making it that much harder to watch a shaky-cam version of a summer blockbuster before it even closes out its opening weekend in theaters. Bloomberg has been cracking down on counterfeiters city-wide, and while he's brought equal attention to the fake purse racket, The NY Times focuses in on the blurry bootlegs. Shari Hyman is the director of the mayor’s office of special enforcement, and......

CBS and NBC Boldly Go On Line With Classic TV CBS has started streaming some of its back catalog of programs on its website, or to me more accurate the back catalog of programs the companies that now comprise CBS. The biggest highlight is that all three seasons of Star Trek in original form are available. Also offered are two seasons of The Twilight Zone, and the first seasons of Hawaii Five-O, MacGyver, and Melrose......

After news that a Green Bay Fox affiliate would not be showing Seinfeld because it's Giants quarterback Eli Manning's favorite show (the Giants are heading to the land of Cheeseheads to play the Packers in the NFC Championship), it was up to Jerry Seinfeld to rise to the occasion. The Mets fan told the Post, "I'm going to send Eli a complete collection of 'Seinfeld' DVDs and a partial collection of 'Hogan's Heroes' for inspiration!"......

Reader Stephen wrote us with a holiday-related request: I don't know how else to handle this. I called the police and they told me to keep them, and that if I turned them in to the police they'd just auction them off. Anyway, I found about $200 worth of DVDs at the Citibank ATM [below 23rd Street in Manhattan]. They were new, unopened in a Virgin Megastore bag. I left my number there but who......

Last night, we did a double take while watching WNBC News at 11 because reporter John Noel was interviewing a man who made a DVD of supposed actual crimes, like robberies, carjackings, and possibly a murder, in progress (here's the WNBC video). Of course, it's called Criminals Gone Wild, and DVDs are $26.98. Noel asked the Brooklyn resident behind the DVD, Ousala Aleem, if he actually did film a murder. Aleem says, "Well, the......

Earlier this year the law started cracking down on illegal bootleggers of all kinds, so those looking for more inexpensive gifts like Prada bags or not-yet-released DVDs on the city sidewalks may be barking up the wrong Christmas tree. The NY Post reports that cops are paying extra-special attention to the counterfeiters this year, leading to a big decline in sales for the sidewalk entrepreneurs and aiming the consumers to (gasp!) legit storefronts.That's great news......

A Mighty Heart (directed by Michael Winterbottom) Being a journalist doesn't sound like a very dangerous profession, but for Daniel Pearl, his investigations while reporting on the situation in Karachi for the Wall Street Journal lead to his untimely end. Michael Winterbottom's most recent film starring Angelina Jolie offers a brief snapshot of Pearl, as played by Dan Futterman, and his stoic widow Mariane who used her own investigating skills to try to track down......

Man Push Cart (directed by Ramin Bahrani) You might grab a coffee and a bagel from the corner coffee cart every morning for years, but still never know much about the guy working inside. In director Ramin Bahrani's first feature film he tells the story of one push cart vendor, a Pakastani named Ahmad who's struggling with his past as well as his cart. Shot in Queens and midtown, Man Push Cart puts a flawed......

How I Met Your Mother: Season Two More and more people seem to be jumping on the bandwagon to promote CBS's hilarious program How I Met Your Mother but as long as that network's popular sitcom Two and Half Men gets nearly double the viewers, it can't be reiterated enough. Maybe the release of the second season on DVD today will bring over more converts to the show's charming characters, witty dialog and creative storytelling......

Black Book (directed by Paul Verhoeven) Growing up in Holland during their occupation by the Nazis, it's no surprise that Dutch director Paul Verhoeven would want to revisit that chapter of his country's history on film. But seeing as it is Verhoeven, director of such hilariously trashy and provocative films as Showgirls and Basic Instinct, he's not going to make a tame, reverent movie about the heroic Resistance. Black Book is a sexy, in-your-face Resistance......

Death Proof (directed by Quentin Tarantino) A Quentin Tarantino movie is 20 percent celluloid and 80 percent bravado, and the PR whirlwind surrounding the release of his recent double feature Grindhouse with Robert Rodriquez was a prime example. However even though the directors talked up the movie geek factor and the ultra violence factor, the project bombed at the box office. There's probably lots of reasons barely anyone went to see it, but choosing to......

The Graduate (directed by Mike Nichols) If you're looking for a cultural touchstone for the '60s, or even one of the first great uses of pop music on a movie soundtrack, you don't need to search much further than The Graduate, Mike Nichols' dark comedy from 1967. A coming-of-age story that's spawned a Broadway adaptation and a poorly conceived movie continuation, The Graduate turns 40 this year (just like the Summer of Love) and in......

The Wind That Shakes The Barley (directed by Ken Loach) Nominated for BAFTAs, beloved at Cannes and ignored by the Oscars, Ken Loach's movies get great treatment overseas but are barely a blip on the radar of American movie audiences. It's a crying shame too because Loach has the ability to elicit almost documentary-like, naturalistic performances from his actors and his working class, social justice narratives are always provocative. His most recent movie, The Wind......

Earlier this year bootleg DVDs became even more illegal in New York, and now there's a new way "the man" is cracking down on the bootleggers: with puppies! Metro reports that: “Dogs are used to sniff out bodies, bombs and drugs,” said Malcolm, who’s now the chief of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association of America. “We just needed to see if they could be trained to smell the unique chemicals in DVDs.......

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"......

Broken English (directed by Zoe Cassavetes) The pressure on a first time director is steep enough as it is, but if you're the daughter of celebrated '70s auteur John Cassavetes it's got to be extra tough. Unfortunately for the naysayers, Cassavetes delivered an intriguing character study wrapped inside a fluffy romantic comedy for her first feature film, Broken English, which comes out on DVD this week. Long time indie muse Parker Posey stars as Nora,......

The Dark Crystal: 25th Anniversary Edition Labyrinth: Anniversary Edition (directed by Jim Henson) Mention either one of these children's fantasy films from the '80s to a certain kind of movie fan of a certain age bracket and you're guaranteed a nostalgic homage. Heck, even breathe that hallowed name "Jim Henson" and you're bound to get some fan love. Now, home viewers of the geek persuasion can gush over two new special edition versions of two......

Did you excel at yo-yo and rock, scissor, paper as a kid? Well, this past weekend was the 1st ever New York State Yo-Yo Contest at the South Street Seaport. From what we hear, excelling in yo-yo is the way to get all the ladies (they dig the finger dexterity and creativity with the yo-yo). It's not just the kids that are throwing the yo-yo around either. Downtown Express tells us that Riad Nasr, the......

Rome: Season 2 As another season of Emmy nominations show, those folks over at HBO original programming know what they're doing. Complex shows filled with meaty characters, lavish spectacle and quite a few racy scenes make those premium cable fees seem well worth the expense. However, if you missed out on the two seasons of Rome, the epic struggle of life during the time of Julius Caesar that's a bit of The Sopranos in togas,......

300 (directed by Zack Snyder) As digital technologies get more savvy, it seems as though the line between video game and movie gets even more blurry. A prime example is the adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.E. 300, which is out on DVD this week. Everything about this movie is overblown and over-the-top from the "brave few against the demonic many" plot line to the actors' chiseled......

Extras: Season 2 On British television an average series may run only six or so episodes, but for the program's fans on this side of the super-sized pond that can seem piddly indeed. Fortunately for followers of all things Ricky Gervais, the new DVD version of his HBO series Extras, which is out this week, contains over 100 minutes of additional material to enjoy. If you missed the initial airing, the second season of Extras......

The MTA has embraced Internet technology once again to offer the public streaming webcasts of public meetings at its midtown Manhattan headquarters. Thanks to Governor Spitzer's "Executive Order 3," which requires all public agencies to broadcast meetings by July 1, the MTA is investing just over a hundred thousand dollars to set up and maintain the technology. MTA executive director and CEO Elliot Sander said, "The MTA shares Governor Spitzer’s focus on transparency and access,......

Work on the 2nd Avenue Subway line has barely started and costs are already getting out of control. The much publicized groundbreaking, which was at least the 4th one for the perpetually-delayed line, cost the MTA $89,000. While an $89,000 groundbreaking may not make the most fiscal sense, wait until you hear what the agency actually spent the money on. $61,000 - hiring a contractor to clean, renovate and build a stage $16,000 -......

SoHo, Lower East Side, Nolita, and other residents and workers, you'll want to make sure you have your library card, because today at 3PM, the New York Public Library opens its 87th branch in SoHo. The Mulberry Street library, located at Mulberry and Jersey Streets just south of Houston Street, is 12,000 square feet of books, DVDs, computers, WiFi access and more. We visited the branch last Friday when NYPL staffers were getting ready......

Army of Shadows (directed by Jean Pierre Melville) Only in New York: one of the best reviewed movies last year by local critics was a little drama about the French Resistance originally made in 1969 called Army of Shadows. Loads of screenings over multiple limited runs during the course of 2006 at Film Forum sold out, as flocks of New York film geeks rushed to see this flick which had never been released before in......

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (directed by Steven Shainberg): Certain movies while not deserving the monetary investment in a theater viewing are worth catching on DVD, and Steven Shainberg's fictional portrait of artist Diane Arbus is one of them. Arbus's life story--upper middle class '60s housewife takes up photography and an interest in subcultures--is such a fascinating one, it practically demands a biopic. Add to that the importance of Arbus's work on the......

Al Franken: God Spoke (directed by Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus): In terms of liberal armchair quarterbacking, it doesn't get more intriguing and cringe-inducing than unpacking the 2004 Presidential election. Watching the documentary Al Franken: God Spoke, you can't help but be fascinated and yet saddened by the look of idealism in comedian-turned-political pundit Al Franken's eyes. He's so sure he can make a difference, it's heart-breaking. Compounding that "we know how the Titanic sank"......

Volver (directed by Pedro Almodóvar): Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar has a thing for lushness. He saturates his movies with rich colors, explosive patterns, larger-than-life characters and don't get us started on his fascination with star Penélope Cruz's bosom. For an openly gay filmmaker, Almodóvar really does relish that contemplative over-head down-the-shirt shot. While women and their relationships has often been a central theme in Almodóvar's previous work (in All About My Mother and Women On......

Children of Men (directed by Alfonso Cuarón): Seeing movies in the theater is a wonderful viewing experience—big image, big audio, big popcorn—but there's no rewind button. To really enjoy a film like Alfonso Cuarón's futuristic drama Children of Men, the ability to rewind the really masterful sequences for an immediate second or third viewing almost seems necessary. As you watch Clive Owen's Theo makes his way through the chaotic English countryside in 2027 trying to......

There may be some crappy post offices in Brooklyn, but the Brooklyn Public Library is trying to expand its offerings for members. The Post reports that the library has been talking to Netflix to allow library members to rent DVDs - for free - as well as home delivery. So you could check out books and movies from the comfort of your own home - never leave your apartment again! Dionne Mack-Harvin was appointed as......