In a televised address Monday night, Polish President Lech Kaczynski showed a clip depicting a gay couple (pictured) from Queens getting married in Toronto five years ago. Kaczynski’s anti-gay speech was meant to warn Polish conservatives about what lies ahead if Poland ratifies the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. Here's TV news coverage of the gay marriage storm gathering at Poland's borders. The two men in the video, Brian Fay, a documentary producer, and......

When Harold Pinter’s masterpiece The Homecoming first premiered on Broadway some four decades ago, the dramatized hostility was met with equal hostility from the bourgeois audience, as witnessed by the playwright himself: One of the greatest theatrical nights of my life was the opening of The Homecoming in New York. There was the audience. It was 1967. I'm not sure they've changed very much, but it really was your mink coats and suits. Money. And......

SFist saw Christmas Day turn tragic after a Siberian tiger escaped from her pen at the San Francisco Zoo, killing a visitor and mauling two others. Phillyist counted down the top ten items on Philadelphia's New Year's wish list. Gothamist looked at the wooden bikes being offered for NYC's first bike share program on Governors Island. LAist received a Christmas present in the form of a drunk Santa Claus in a g-string. Bostonist launched......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: 2007 American Music Awards (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., WABC 7) Most awards shows are basically useless and awards shows where people vote on line are even more so. This year this awards show invented by Dick Clark in 1973 gets even more useless. Jimmy Kimmel hosts. Nature: The Beauty of Ugly (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., WNET 13; Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., WLIW 21) A look at some of the strangest......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Nature: Silence of the Bees (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., WNET 13; Wednesday 8:00 p.m., WLIW 21) The long running PBS nature series Nature takes a look at the recent decline in the honey bee population and the possible consequences of it. Masterpiece Theatre: The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., WNET 13) The story of a supermarket manager becomes Prime Minister continues with Mrs. Pritchard facing some hard......

A look at some of this week's noteworthy television: Desperate Housewives (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., WABC 7) A homosexual male couple moves into Wisteria Lane and wackiness ensues. Masterpiece Theatre: The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., WNET 13) In this 6 part series, Jane Horrocks plays a British supermarket manager who is dissatisfied with the political hacks who are gunning to be Prime Minister and decides to mount her own campaign. BBC 1 aired it......

Representatives Anthony Weiner and Jerrold Nadler announced that they are introducing legislation to block a $20 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The Sun reports the pair stood in front of the Saudi Consulate, questioning the logic of the Bush administration's plan. Nadler said, "The folly of this arms deal is beyond belief. Saudi Arabia is the no. 1 exporter of terrorism in the world today." Supporters of the deal, which includes advanced weaponry, "say......

A lot is being made of Mayor Bloomberg leaving the Republican Party - Could it be a prelude for a run for the White House? Officially, Bloomberg is saying that he won't be running for President and that he is serving out his term as mayor. Our reader poll yesterday was pretty divided, one question that needs to be asked is how Bloomberg would measure up in height if he ran for, and became President.......

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... Gothamist spent the week writing about New Yorkers behaving badly: at the post office, at the Garden, and at the fertility clinic. Calvin Klein may not be misbehaving, but he's just a little dirty, and in a completely different way than some NYC kitchens. SFist had its share of misbehave-rs, too, like......

Generally speaking, Gothamist isn’t moved by most of Greenpoint’s many Polish restaurants. Perhaps owing to some early scarring experiences at a fading Borsht Belt resort, we’re seldom inspired to board the G Train and make the long haul north for a plate of boiled cabbage. Still, Krolewskie Jadlo, or “King’s Feast” piqued our interest. Chef Krzysztof Drzewiecki (formerly a chef at Nobu as his website repeatedly portends) traded maki for herring to open “a restaurant......

It's that time of year again, when the New York Film Society at Lincoln Center and a small group of local film critics selects the entries from new world cinema they feel deserves their erudite stamp o' approval. As this year's pre-screening Festival ID tag points out, their 44 years of discernment includes a pretty elite bunch of films and filmmakers, and this year is no different. The NYFF doesn't set out to be mainstream......

What is a Presidential trip to New York without some protest? During President Bush's United Nations General Assembly address (in which he tried to emphasize that the U.S. wanted a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear program), protesters rallied outside to speak out against the war in Iraq. After initially being prohibited from marching by the NYPD - which then allowed the march to take place if only on the sidewalk and on a different......

Tomorrow is Bloomsday, the day chronicled in James Joyce's Ulysses. And for the 25th year, Symphony Space has a full Bloomsday on Broadway celebration, focusing on "on Mr. Leopold Bloom's spiritual son, Stephen Dedelus (aka James Joyce), with readings from Ulysses, Portrait of the Artist and Dubliners." The events start at noon tomorrow, and the final performance is the inimitable Fionnula Flanagan reading Molly Bloom's monologue (aka, "The Fully Molly") at 10PM till whenever she......

This is so unfair! Londonist tells us that there's a whale in the Thames! Is the Thames that much cleaner than the East River or Hudson? Hmm, nevermind. We have seen harbor seals in the city (in the Gowanus Canal, stranded in another part of Brooklyn, or just hanging around downtown), but never before murky images of a whale. We imagine a shoe or body would clog up the whale's blowhole or that the toxicity......

During the morning rush hour, a series of explosions have blasted in downtown London, killing at least two people and casualties (which include both the wounded and dead) were hovering near a hundred. The front of a double decker bus was sheared off in one explosion, while a number of explosions (anywhere from three to seven) hit between six Underground stations (Edgware Road, King's Cross, Liverpool Street, Russell Square, Aldgate East, Moorgate). People may still......

Priscilla Grim, Membership & Advocacy Director AIVF...

New York fixture Robert De Niro may be granted Italian citizenship next month at the Venice Film Festival. The idea of De Niro becoming a citizen has drawn criticism from some Italian cultural groups. The Order Sons of Italy in America sent a letter to the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, in an attempt to change his mind. They believe that De Niro's movies damage the "collective reputations of both Italians and Italian Americans." Born......

The New York Knicks and the New Jersey Nets will meet each other in the first round of the NBA Playoffs this Saturday. It has already been dubbed the "Bridge and Tunnel Battle", the "Lincoln Tunnel Series", the "Tunnel Tussle", and the "Battle of the News" (we came up with that lame one). It's Stephon Marbury vs. Jason Kidd, Old (Coach Wilkens) vs. New (Coach Frank), Knicks vs. Nets, Marbury playing his old team, it's......

The Yankees lost their first game of the season today, falling to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 8-3. The game was played in front of 55,000 fans at the Tokyo Dome. Starter Mike Mussina went 5 plus innings gave up 5 runs on 10 hits. Gary Sheffield went 2-2, Jason Giambi was 2-4, crowd-favorite Hideki Matsui was 1-4, new Yankee Alex Rodriguez was 1-4, and Derek Jeter was 0-5 (full box score). The ceremonial first......

The capture of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was met with elation. Iraqis rejoiced, as President Bush and Prime Minister Blair breathed a sigh of relief. American forces found Hussein just outside of his hometown of Tikrit, hiding in a "spider hole," 6 feet underneath the safehouse hut (safehut?) with two AK 47s, a pistol, and $750,000. In the cowboy vigilante style, U.S. Administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him,"......

Gothamist doesn't care if the Reuters caption is President Bush "pretends to pour a pint of beer" at the Dun Cow pub in Britain. We just think it's irresponsible of Prime Minister Blair to take an admitted alkie to a pub full of sweet, sweet Guinness. PM Blair, didn't Laura brief you properly? We're sure she left the emergency numbers with you and left the pantry stocked with your favorite snack foods. And in......

Tom Cruise met with dashing (in looks...Gothamist claims no knowledge about Japanese politics, barely able to keep our own country's goings on in check) Prime Minister Koizumi while promoting his upcoming Oscar-contending film, The Last Samurai. They apparently karaoked to an Elvis tune. And for some reason, reporters made Cruise say, "I think he's a charismatic and very intelligent man," while really, what else is a visiting super star going to say about his gracious......

Whitney, dear Whitney! As if the interview with Diane Sawyer weren't enough, Whitney is visiting Israel to meet her brothers and sisters in Israel, the "Black Hebrews" (or their full, official name, "The Original African Hebrew Nation of Jerusalem"). Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon is going to meet with the Diva herself later this week. There goes any chance of calm in that country! Gothamist on Whitney and Bobby's interview with Diane Sawyer.......

Prime Minister Blair visits with President Bush at Camp David to discuss the war. I've always been curious about Camp David. It's an undisclosed location, so does someone like PM Blair get blindfolded when he's nearing it? Hmm. Updated: Doesn't it seem oddly appropriate that Blair is in the leather chair (sturdy, classic) and Bush is in the weirdly cheesy plaid chair (funky in an ugly, cheesy way)?......

According to Reuters, moderate, pro-Western, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was just taken out by a sniper in Belgrade. He was trying to clean up organized crime and dealing with the fallout from the collapse of Slobodan Milosevic's vicious government at the hands of NATO. This leaves nationalist former Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, who's no friend of ours, as the most prominent politician in the country. As the Bismarck quote above implies, nothing good is......