Indie animator Bill Plympton has just finished his sixth animated feature, for which he hand drew every cell. Called Idiots and Angels, it tells the haunting and humorous story of a dyspeptic working stiff who wakes up one morning and finds, to his horror, angel's wings sprouting out of his back. Try as he may to rid himself of the grotesque mutation, they inevitably take over his life and soon become the wings of desire......

Keanu Reeves in Street Kings, Richard Jenkins, left, and Haaz Sleiman in The Visitor Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker play bad cop/badder cop in Street Kings, an adaptation of James Ellroy's (L.A. Confidential) novel about a brutal gang of LAPD cops. Though directed by David Ayer, who wrote the solid Training Day, the Washington Post says the “big-name casting brings no honor, or even fun, to the hackneyed roles.” And the movie’s “moral relativity...seems like......

The 2008 Tribeca Film Festival begins April 23rd and runs through May 4th, with over 200 feature length narrative films, documentaries and shorts from around the world. This year also features discussions with filmmakers, music events, a family film series, an ESPN Sports Film Festival and other special presentations. (Peruse the entire selection of films.) American Express cardholders will be able to buy tickets starting this Saturday April 12th. On Friday April 18th, tickets will......

Drawing on his roots in the fecund 1970s East Village avant-garde film scene, critic J. Hoberman has spent his three decades at the Village Voice introducing readers to the more adventurous cinematic worlds awaiting beyond the realm of Hollywood. He is the author of nine books, most recently The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties, which was described by Slate as "an extraordinary publishing event." To commemorate his thirty years at......

brooklyn bridge traffic, by Idle Type at flickrToday on the Gothamist Newsmap: a crime scene/hanging at East 13th St. and Shore Parkway in Brooklyn, a child mauled by a dog in the area of 91-43 Gold Rd. in Queens, and a possible escaped prisoner on Wards Island across from Manhattan. Asbestos removal at the Carroll St. F and G line station appears to be a non-issue. Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn received a note......

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 –......

Photograph by Joe Holmes on Flickr Documenting the city in the snow apparently has its limits. Gowanus Lounge noticed this photograph of the Gowanus Canal, taken yesterday, by photoblogger Joe Holmes. Holmes wrote on his Flickr page it was "taken seconds before I was told that photography is prohibited on the 9th Street bridge because of 9-11 concerns." Oh, man, that should be a problem for the Toll Bros. marketing department. And what if......

MOVIE: As the Oscars approach, take a look back at one of the past films to be granted a golden statue. Tonight Agatha Christie's classic mystery Murder on the Orient Express leaps from the page to the big screen when the 1974 movie is shown at Film Forum. Starring Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall and Anthony Perkins, the movie will help you hone your crime-solving skills (and possibly make you think twice about taking Amtrak).......

The construction worker who killed Adrienne Shelly in her West Village office pleaded guilty to manslaughter - and gave new details about why he killed the actress-director. Diego Pillco will receive 25 years in prison; as an illegal immigrant from Ecuador, the Post says his sentence will be "almost certainly followed by deportation." Originally, Pillco had told the police he killed Shelly in November of 2006, he was in a "bad mood" and picked a......

Actor Roy Scheider died yesterday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, after battling multiple myeloma for several years and suffering complications from a staph infection. He was 75 and had been living in Sag Harbor, New York (after moving out his house in Sagaponack that Billy Joel purchased). Scheider may be best known for his role as Police Chief Martin Brody in Jaws. One of his lines from the movie,......

Director of the legendary hip-hop documentary Style Wars, Tony Silver, died last weekend after battling an irreversible brain condition for several years. Shot in New York City in the early '80s and originally airing on PBS in 1983, his documentary is considered to be the first film about hip-hop culture. While the 70 minutes covers rap and breakdancing, its main focus is on graffiti, which at the time was viewed by some as a groundbreaking......

The Hollywood Reporter has news that Beastie Boy Adam Yauch will be expanding his music and film production operation, Oscilloscope Laboratories, into indie film distribution. Under the nom de plume Nathanial Hörnblowér, Yauch has orchestrated many of the Beastie Boys videos, as well as the hip hop group’s inventive full-length concert doc Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That! Oscilloscope also shot and produced live concert videos for Beck and Ryan Adams. Former ThinkFilm vice president David......

Multiple news outlets are reporting that the WGA strike could be over with professional writers back to work as early as next week. Unnamed sources are saying that a tentative deal between the guild and Hollywood studios and producers has been reached. At issue was revenue sharing between writers and producers over content distributed over the Internet. Alternative distribution methods, like downloading and web-streaming, were leaving writers out in the cold and on the short......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Gothamist. Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, with its new season starting Monday at 10 PM on the Travel Channel. The Sundance Film Festival, where you can experience the 2008 festival, which ends this Sunday. New York Dish, offering a chance to win $400 and a seat at Babbo for writing a creative ode. Busted Tees, where they're in the middle of their winter......

Two years ago Michel Gondry brought his film The Science of Sleep off-screen and to the three-dimensional world of Deitch Projects. Good news Gondry fans, he's coming back for an exhibit based around his upcoming film, Be Kind Rewind. The film follows two childhood friends living in Pasaic, New Jersey, trying to make ends meet. A magnetized brain, a ruined video store inventory and a D.I.Y. idea later and you've got the latest brainchild of......

MOVIE: Delve into the mind and life of H.L. “Doc” Humes (pictured) in a documentary by his daughter. Titled Doc, the 96-minute film focuses in on the counterculture icon. "In the 1950s and early '60s, Doc co-founded The Paris Review, wrote two acclaimed novels, and was a gregarious fixture of the cultural scene in Paris, London and New York. Doc was a 1950s NYC intellectual, a 60s free speech militant, and a 70s visionary crazy......

Photograph of Kathy Bates and AMPAS President Sid Ganis announcing the nominations by Chris Pizzello/AP While the writers' strike continues and prospects of an awards ceremony are unclear, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences went ahead and announced the contenders for their 80th annual back-slapping ceremony. Oscar-winning friend of the academy Kathy Bates was on hand to announce this year's golden picks. From Bob Dylan to Michael Clayton, many of the nominations......

Photograph "Emerging from Penn Station" by boogaloo66 on Flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery at West 56th St. and Broadway in Manhattan, a pedestrian struck at Marathon Parkway and Northern Blvd. in Queens, and a shooting on Gleason Ave. and White Plains Rd. in the the Bronx. If you live in NJ and recently obtained a machine gun from local cops, they need it back. A court ruling made the market......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Gothamist. Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, with its new season starting Monday at 10 PM on the Travel Channel. The Sundance Film Festival, where you can experience the 2008 festival online. New York Dish, offering a chance to win $400 and a seat at ‘Cesca for writing about your favorite Italian dish. Busted Tees, where they're offering free shipping with the purchase of......

FOOD: Trestle on Tenth, the “homey joins hearty” Swiss-inflected restaurant that takes its name from its proximity to the High Line and the avenue where it’s found, kicks off a special five-night series called “metzgete.” The Swiss tradition loosely translates to “butchers affair” and arises from the practice of salvaging every scrap of pig after the winter slaughter – “especially those parts that would or could not be dried, smoked or pickled for later consumption.”......

Due to the Writer's Guild of America strike, Hollywood's party, the Golden Globes Awards were transformed from a boozy, fun dinner party to a press conference where presenters from entertainment programs like Extra! and E! News got to announce the winners. Yes, it was as painful as it sounded (Giuliana Rancic, it's not about you); many said they couldn't believe they were announcing the winners but said they would prefer it with the stars.......

We almost thought that the NY Post website was offering a game of "Which one of these things is not like the other?" But it turns out that celebrities Christina Aguilera, Nicole Richie, Courtney Thorne-Smith and David Alan Grier all had babies. The four babies - two boys (from Aguilera and Thorne-Smith) and two girls (Richie's and Grier's) - were born at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai, the hospital where Britney Spears was recently hospitalized and......

If you are as big a fan of reality shows as we are, Fox’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., WNYW 5) is very welcome. Thanks to the WGA strike, there will be only eight episodes, but still this looks like an action packed romp based on the popular film series. Despite being based on the space time continuum bending robot filled movies, this has an all new cast with Lena Headley and......

THEATER: Under the Radar, arguably New York’s most exciting theater festival, begins today at The Public Theater and a few other odd locations like the Whitehall Ferry terminal. (There are also a few shows at the Classic Theatre of Harlem, P.S. 122 and The Kitchen.) One of the most buzzed about site-specific shows is Etiquette by the London company Rotozaza. It was a surprise hit at last year’s Edinburgh Festival; here the experience takes place......

Last year two biopics about John Lennon's assassination made the festival rounds, and are now poised to hit theaters in 2008. One, titled Chapter 27, stars Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman and an actor named Mark Lindsay Chapman portraying John Lennon. While it may be an accurate casting to have Leto playing someone who kills music, his involvement in the film will likely have us choosing the second biopic, The Killing of John Lennon......

Salt & Samovar are a Brooklyn band that sound more like they're just visiting here from Upstate...or a Coen brothers film. Their live shows are described as "pentecostal revival-like performances that evoke the musical and spiritual heirlooms of a cherished American past." A simpler and simply transporting sound that'll have you pining for the past. Come check out their revival-rock this Friday at Mercury Lounge -- get your tickets here. Where did your band name......

Did anyone go see destructo-porn blockbuster, I Am Legend, this weekend? Apparently New Yorkers who saw the movie up close and personal when it was being filmed gave it two thumbs down, or rather -- one middle finger up! amNewYork reports on Will Smith's run-ins with disgruntled locals."I would say, percentage-wise, it's the most amount of middle fingers I have received in my career. I'm used to people liking me… [all those] middle fingers, I......

Two years ago the famed Saturday Night Fever dance floor was sold at auction for $188,000 when the Brooklyn club where the movie was filmed, Odyssey 2001 (later called Spectrum), was closed. Just yesterday the legendary movie turned 30 and amNewYork got nostalgic looking back at the Bay Ridge kid, Tony Manero, who sought refuge on that dance floor.Thirty years ago this weekend, a tough young kid from Bay Ridge strutted across America's movie screens......

In November, Charlie Rose sat down with rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z. The musician is originally from Brooklyn and late in the interview Rose queries about the expected success of the Nets once they move to Kings County. Jay-Z is very enthusiastic about the potential of the team and the virtues of the borough, as he prefaces every statement about Brooklyn with the words "we" and "ours." It is unintentionally comedic then when Rose immediately......

It’s not Tracy Letts’s fault that his play, August: Osage County, has been breathlessly overhyped by the critics, from the Times’s Charles Isherwood on down. It’s also not his fault that compared to many other Broadway spectacles the play stands out as a polestar of humor and intelligence. Still, it’s difficult to disassociate the play from the deafening buzz; August: Osage County is being heralded as an Important Theatrical Event, when it’s really just a......