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......

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......

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......

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......

Rocket Science (directed by Jeffrey Blitz) You know what they say about master debaters—they really know their way around an argument. A hit at this year's Sundance Film Festival, Rocket Science is a Rushmore-esque comedy about a New Jersey high school debate team and their secret weapon, stuttering Hal (Reece Thompson). The film's director knows his way around a quirky suburban overachiever, Blitz previously directed the very charming documentary about the National Spelling Bee competition,......

The Hawk Is Dying (directed by Julian Goldberger) Paul Giamatti may not look like a movie star but he uses his Ordinary Dude looks to inhabit some pretty compelling shlubs, and his role in the buzzed about flick from the '06 Sundance Film Festival, The Hawk Is Dying, is perhaps his saddest sack to date. Florida auto upholsterer George Gattling's obsessive hobby is to trap and then train red-tail hawks in an attempt to mimic......

Once (directed by John Carney) Have you ever had a certain beloved record so often on repeat that you start to think of it as the soundtrack to your life? That magical connection between music, emotion and experience is at the heart of the new musical Once and it makes for a truly unique movie. A vacuum cleaner repairman by day and a Dublin street busker by night, "The Guy" (Glen Hansard) is obviously nursing......

Yankees fans can now rejoice, because Roger Clemens is returning to the New York Yankees. The 44-year old right-hander, who last pitched for the Houston Astros last season, announced his plans to the crowd during the 7th inning stretch of today's Yankees-Mariners game (audio from WCBS), "Well, they came and got me out of Texas. I can tell you, it's a privilege to be back. I'll be talking to y'all soon." How surprising was the......

If things have seemed quiet at the usual New York haunts of movie folks like Film Forum or Grey Dog Coffee this last week, it's because practically the whole community is in Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival. The annual launching pad of many subsequently huge independent features (see this year's Best Picture Oscar nom and last year's festival break out, Little Miss Sunshine), Sundance is a crazy week. Parties, swag, deal-making and......

At the Sundance Film Festival, the film Waitress will premiere this afternoon. Written and directed by Adrienne Shelly. Last November, Shelly had been waiting to hear whether her film was going to be accepted by the Sundance Film Festival when she was found dead in a the Greenwich Village apartment building she had an office in. Initially, police suspected Shelly killed herself, since her body was found hanging from shower rod, but her family......

It's finally cold outside (sort of), so warm up this weekend at the movies. The new "in danger in the jungle" horror film Primeval has a vaguely ominous trailer, but only because it never tells the audience what exactly is hiding out there in the grass. Okay, it's not human but then what? Anaconda already did the giant snake and The Ghost and the Darkness dispatched a massive lion, what else could be out there......

Diego Pillco, the 19 year old construction worker whose fight with actress Adrienne Shelly over construction noise turned fatal, pleaded not guilty during his indictment yesterday. Pillco had confessed to striking Shelly unconscious and, thinking she was dead, staging her body to look like she hanged herself in a suicide because in order to cover it up. The prosecutors entered Pillco's confession, which had many details about the confrontation. According to the Post, Pillco had......

It's not often that the person opening the door to let you in to a press screening is the distinctive screen personality Crispin Glover but when it happened, Gothamist knew we were in for a unique afternoon. Best known for his creep-tastic roles in Back to the Future, Charlie's Angels and Willard, Glover will be in town to host his directorial debut, What Is It? which begins a three day run at Anthology Film Archives......

This week at the movies, two actors known for their intensity on (and off) screen have new flicks coming out. The Oscar-winning over-reactor Russell Crowe goes the romantic comedy route with A Good Year about an English businessman softened by life in Provence. With a script by Peter Mayle, a novelist well versed in the French countryside, and direction by Ridley Scott, Crowe as Max Skinner actually comes across as incredibly charming. He's sure to......

As the summer season winds down over this Labor Day weekend, there's a few more big budget blockbusters vying for your attention. Nicolas Cage travels to a creepy island where a young girl has gone missing in Neil Labute's The Wicker Man. If you've ever seen the kitschy '70s original, you know this seems like an odd horror movie for a remake but maybe provocative Labute will make it more interesting than horrific. Playing a......

Just after their premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Gothamist interviewed local filmmakers and brothers, Jay and Mark Duplass. Now their hilarious, sweet little indie movie, about a road trip to deliver a purple barcalounger, The Puffy Chair is finally getting a theatrical release in New York at the Angelika. Gothamist sat down to chat again with director and co-writer Jay about DIY movie marketing, getting the perfect indie soundtrack and how to do a......

For New York moviegoers, this is a good week for those who worship at the cult of the director. In both the theatrical releases and the repertory columns, film fans of various established and up in coming auteurs will surely get their fill. Brooklyn’s own Spike Lee takes on the action thriller genre in his newest, Inside Man starring Clive Owen as a bank robber, Denzel Washington as the hostage negotiator on the case and......

The Zoom In Awards take over the Puck Building tonight. Inside the room will be buzzing with a who's who crowd of the indie (and not so indie) scene - including Christine Vachon, President of Killer Films and Executive Producer of Kids and I Shot Andy Warhol - two of our favorite films that use NYC as a backdrop. Geoff Gilmore, Director of the Sundance Film Festival will be receiving a Lifetime Achievement award from......

It's been a busy week out in Park City, Utah as the 2006 Sundance Film Festival draws to a close this weekend. Most New Yorkers are uninterested in the daily screenings and sales at Sundance unless you're in the "industry," but Gothamist finds the whole spectacle sort of fascinating because the festival is such a great prognosticator of what will be hot in indie cinema in the coming year. A few premieres we've been excited......

You may know Vincent Gallo best from his amazing movie Buffalo66, or his excretable movie Brown Bunny, or from his 1980s career as a musician and famous painter, or from leaning against that wall opposite Cafe Havana on Elizabeth Street, staring moodily into space. Now, courtesy of his website, you can take some of that magic and put it where you've always wanted it: in your womb! Funny parts in bold: Price includes all costs......

For a little while now, Barbès in Park Slope has been Brooklyn's equivalent to Cinema Classics/Riffifi: a bar with a back room performance space showing different kinds of classic and interesting cinema once a week on a 16 mm projector. Oh yeah .. and it's free. The technology might not be as good as the more standard repertory houses around town, but the programming is usually fairly interesting. Cinema Classics/Riffifi has turned their Monday screenings......

The holiday movie season is officially upon us. In fact, it started yesterday. We already spent more than enough time mentioning some little musical that will likely see its box office hopes dashed by the continuing dominance of Harry Potter. Nevertheless, several other big releases also appeared yesterday (at least in New York) in an attempt to grab a piece of the five-day weekend holiday marketplace. The big Oscar hopeful is Syriana from Oscar-winning Traffic......

The Duplass Brothers, Filmmakers...

Eugene Hernandez, Editor-in-Chief, indieWIRE...

Another documentary that features Michael Moore, The Corporation, opens today at the Film Forum for a two week run. Gothamist hasn't had a chance to check it out yet, but the reviews have been positive and it walked away with an audience award at the Sundance Film Festival. Based on Joel Bakan�s The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, the film examines how corporations control the world. Joel Bakan and directors Mark......

Another documentary that will be exploding on to big screens this summer is Riding Giants. A visually captivating look at big wave surfing, Riding Giants had the honor of being the first documentary ever selected to open the Sundance Film Festival. Directed by former skateboard punk Stacy Peralta (Dogtown & Z-Boys), the film is narrated by Sean Penn and features surfing legends Laird Hamilton, Greg Noll and Jeff Clark. Gothamist had the pleasure of......

The upcoming release of Better Luck Tomorrow has critics and cultural scholars buzzing. A drama wealthy, Ivy League-poised Asian American teenagers who descend into crime, the film is sparking debate about how Asian Americans are supposed to be perceived. Some feel it's great, finally a way to get people seeing Asians as something else besides the model minority, while others are offended that Asians are being shown in an unflattering matter. At 2002's Sundance Film......