Today the Times’s Frank Bruni marvels at Manhattan’s new wave of high tone restaurant openings during a recession, and pins the trend not on entrepreneurial bravado but on the fact that it takes years to get a fancy eatery open, and most of these new places were envisioned in flusher economic times. It is true that in 2005, the top fifth of earners in Manhattan made 52 times what the lowest fifth make – $365,826......

Frank Bruni, the Times’s top restaurant critic, awards the new 2nd Avenue Deli one star today, which isn’t bad considering it is, despite all the history, still a deli. We popped in there for food and photos just before it reopened at its East 33rd Street location and found the sandwiches (pictured) as monumental as ever; a second visit turned up no sign of the free bowl of gribenes (chicken skin fried in chicken fat)......

Brian Cox is widely admired for commanding performances in films like The Bourne Identity, Rushmore and the original Hannibal Lecter in Michael Mann’s Manhunter. But like most actors from across the pond, the Scottish Cox originally built his reputation on decades of tireless stage work in theaters around the word. Until the stagehands’ strike shut down Broadway, he could be seen in the role of Max, a diehard British Marxist and Cambridge professor in Tom......

EVENTS: Both Open House NY and The New Yorker Festival are upon us. You can check out more of OHNY's event here, and The New Yorker Festival here. Some picks: The New Yorker Festival hosts a conversation with Errol Morris tonight. He'll be talking with staff writer Philip Gourevitch about Abu Ghraib, with clips shown from Standard Operating Procedure -- his new film is a study of the prison-abuse scandal. Friday // 8pm // Directors......

Tonight marks the beginning of the Film Society at Lincoln Center's 45th annual New York Film Festival and oh what a jam-packed fest it is. A panel of film critics chose 30 of the best new international movies to show to New York's discerning audiences and they picked hometown director Wes Anderson's newest, The Darjeeling Limited (which also comes out in theaters this weekend) to open the festival. Gothamist was pleasantly surprised at how much......

Lust, Caution (directed by Ang Lee) For fans of Hong Kong cinema, it's a bit of a surprise that a wonderfully expressive and nuanced actor like Tony Leung hadn't worked before with the Oscar-winning, Taiwanese turned New Yorker director Ang Lee. But the two artists have been united now in Lee's new thriller set in World War II Shanghai, Lust, Caution which comes out this weekend. An erotically charged film with such explicit scenes that......

The New York Film Festival doesn't begin until Friday but you can get your first taste of what will be unspooling on screens at Lincoln Center tonight at the Soho Apple Store. Director Wes Anderson and stars Natalie Portman and Jason Schwartzman will be on hand for a screening of Anderson's new 12 minute short film Hotel Chevalier at 9 pm. The short was shot entirely in a Paris hotel room and serves as a......

THEATER: The National Asian American Theatre Company is known for creating adventurous theater with an all-Asian American performing plays that often have little to do with Asian Americans. Their newest production is Blind Mouth Singing by Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas; it uses a watery set and live music to tell a story of an “overly strict matriarch; her young son Reiderico who sneaks out of the house to visit his best friend who lives at the......

SummerScreen (you know, like sunscreen) is The L Magazine's addition to the already successful summer of McCarren Park Pool events. The outdoor film series will take place every Tuesday (starting next week) through the end of August. The films start at sundown, and before that...there are bands! Oh, and it's free. Here's the schedule: July 25: Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989) with the Cold Hands Collective August 1: Bottle Rocket (Wes Anderson, 1996)......

Noah Baumbach,
The Squid and the Whale...

He's an Orthodox Jewish Reggae singer that got his start performing in the parking lot at Phish shows, but don't call him a gimmick. Matisyahu's recent accomplishments include a co-headlining spot at the recent Reggae Carifest on Randall's Island and a sold-out show at Irving Plaza. Thursday night he'll pack Webster Hall. Phish fans who can't get a ticket should consider Benevento Russo Duo at Bowery Ballroom instead. "Alligator, the second album from The......

As everyone gets their bracket on and settles in for March Madness, the new Wes Anderson-directed Dasani commercials will start to air. Ernest Lupinacci, a partner in Anomaly, the upstart advertising agency that won the Dasani business from red cell/Berlin Cameron, spoke to the Observer about the ads that feature humans dressed up as animals:"The idea behind the spots was that if you found someone who only drank water, and if they drank this water,......

Last week, it was a two-star review of Eleven Madison Park. A few weeks before, the new restaurant at the new MoMA was appraised. And today, another Danny Meyer restaurant is in the news, but not for the food or decor: The bookkeeper at Gramercy Tavern was arrested for pocketing $250,000. Newsday reports that 26 year-old Sandrene Austin was charged with felonies - second degree grand larceny and falsifying business records. Austin was supposed to......

Sundance is definitely in full swing - you can tell by all the blurry-eyed revelers wandering up and down Main Street. We're trying to make all the rounds, but it's difficult because we actually have paying work to do at the festival. Today, we thought we'd serve up our report in terms of bests and worsts: Best party - Palm Pictures Like defamer, we hit the Palm Pictures party last night. We had a bunch......

While the scene in Conference Room 1 at the Ritz Carlton in Battery Park for the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou junket wasn't anything like our movie conception of a press junket — ie. Audrey Hepburn interviewed by Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday — we did find out a few fun factoids about the stars and their movie. "Only when I'm asked that question." —response from Noah Baumbach when asked if he was intimidated by......

- First date advice and what happens when non-Jews use JDate - Who ever thought the Jets would be the hot football team here? - Cheesy movie quotes that seem to come only from the 80s and 90s - The Spirit of Santacon - Pizza wars: Grimaldi's vs. Una Pizza Napoletana - Designing the Coney Island Parachute Jump Pavilion - When your lost cat is adopted by someone else - Checking out the hot New......

A Talk With Wes Anderson...

Gothamist has loved Wes Anderson and his films even since we saw Dignan's Five Year Plan in Bottle Rocket, so we're happy to announce that Touchstone Films has given us twenty-five tickets to a screening of Wes Anderson's new film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, starring Bill Murray. And we're holding a contest to give them away!! Enter at Gothamist Contest: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Each of the tickets (which are......

Since this one usually sells out quick, we wanted to give you a heads up that tickets for The New Yorker Festival went on sale today. This year's festival takes place October 1-3 at various New York City locations. There is quite a bit going on throughout the weekend. Friday night is dubbed fiction night and features discussions between Sherman Alexie and Dave Eggers, Nicole Krauss and Salman Rushdie and Jonathan Safran Foer and......

The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced the lineup for the New York Film Festival 2004, and it looks like NY will again benefit from being, arguably, the world's last major film festival by getting films that have played at other festivals by the time the NYFF starts October 1. Opening the festival will be Agnes Jaoui's Look At Me (premiered at Cannes); Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education (also at Cannes) is the centerpiece, as......

The Indepedent gets Jeremy Drysdale, screenwriter of Grand Theft Parsons, to give his top ten films about music, including 24 Hour Party People (number 1), This is Spinal Tap, High Fidelity, Backbeat, Cabaret, The Blues Brothers and Moulin Rouge. Gothamist agrees with many (but not Moulin Rouge - meh), but would have to consider many others, like Almost Famous, A Star is Born, Amadeus, Hard Day's Night, A Mighty Wind, The School of Rock, plus......

- Howard Dean tries to raise his street cred by "replicating" graffiti - The "Ugly One" Charles Bronson dies - The new Black Rebel Motorcycle Club CD is out - Looks like a teen magazine, preaches like a bible - Gothamist would love a Law & Order ride at Universal Studios - Jayson Blair: Plagiarist and kind of tiny - Kids with fathers who smoke pot in their presence - Movie news: Cate Blanchett in......

Cate Blanchett and Willem Dafoe are joining the cast of Wes Anderson's next movie, The Life Aquatic. Bill Murray stars as an oceanographer, who will be the center of the film, as he and his crew go on "a series of wild deep-sea adventures, including the search for a shark" (Hollywood Reporter). The rest of the cast includes Anjelica Huston, Owen Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, Peter Stormare, and Gothamist's favorite Anderson regular, Kumar Pallana ("Man, I......

The Post looks at what it's like to have your home co-opted by a film or TV show. With daily rates of $2000 (for posh locations), loads of equipment will be loaded in, your and your neighbors' peace of mind distressed, and strangers will tramp around your place. (Hey, it's almost like a couch surfer - just not the getting money part.) The Post has tips for how you can get your place on screen,......

Famed Italian movie studio Cinecitta is profiled by the New York Times today, as it tries to make itself a compelling option for Hollywood's filmmakers. Directors like Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti made Cinecitta the place to be in the 50s and 60s, but up until recently had not been successful. Wes Anderson's next movie, The Life Aquatic, is filming there, and most famously, Gangs of New York, was filmed there which had Martin Scorsese......

Further confirmation Imitation of Life head-actress Tara Subkoff and Bottle Rocket and Rushmore director Wes Anderson are dating: - Photos of Wes's posse at the Imitation of Life show in L.A. - L.A. Times reports: "Designer Tara Subkoff's Hollywood connections must rival Kevin Bacon's. Reese Witherspoon came out to support the designer who was once her roommate. And Wes Anderson, Subkoff's current beau, was able to reel in pals Anjelica Huston, Jason Schwartzman, Sheryl Crow......

I'm pretty much over Jimmy Fallon, like many others. He's funny, but not funnier than, say, Rachel Dratch. He's been riding the cute coattails a little too long in my book. Anyway, it doesn't mean I didn't know he was dating Tara Subkoff, sometime actress, designer of Imitation of Christ which is "Original of Crap" in my book. So I was intrigued when the Observer implied she's dating Wes Anderson(second item) and dissing Jimmy. Then......