You know summer's over when the biggest movie opening is Hamlet 2, a Sundance hit about a high school teacher's struggle to save the school's drama program by writing, directing, producing and starring in a zany time-travel musical. (Okay, there's also Death Race, which the Times calls "a supercharged junkyard apocalypse powered by an unabashed relish for brutal comeuppance and a flair for delirious vehicular mayhem.") British funnyman Steve Coogan – you know, the......

Has a Jimmy Fallon-hosted Late Night reality sunk in yet? Well, it's happening, and the ex-SNL cast member will be getting a head start by popping up at a URL near you sometime soon. The NY Times reports that "Lorne Michaels has decided to try to get a jump on things by starting NBC’s next edition of Late Night, with its new host Jimmy Fallon, as a nightly entry on the Internet." The web performances......

At a press conference set to take place today, it's expected that Jimmy Fallon will be announced as Conan O'Brien's successor on the "Late Night" show. WNBC reports that the early chatter came in from an anonymous source. The announcement doesn't come as a surprise, since reports of the late night changes began to leak last year; last month Fallon's new position was all but confirmed. The NY Times reports that Fallon will be formally......

In the past year there have been murmurings of Jimmy Fallon taking over Conan's "Late Night" seat, when the latter moves over to the Tonight Show. Variety reports that NBC will officially announce the former SNL star's new position within the next few weeks, reuniting the actor/comedian with the Peacock network as well as Lorne Michaels (who executive produces the show). The announcement was to be timed around an NBC presentation at 30 Rock "that's......

New York's called the city that never sleeps, but to many it’s also the city that never leaves its apartment. For the Netflix-and-sweatpants set, there are an increasing number of ways to get all the essentials with just a phone call or a few clicks of the mouse, provided you have a desirable zip code. The best known late night delivery service is Anytime, which provides East Village and Williamsburg shut-ins with the beer and......

Bronx-born writer Richard Price, famous for his gritty urban novels Clockers and Freedomland, as well screenplays like The Color of Money and award-winning episodes of The Wire, has now turned his eye for detail on the turbo-gentrifying Lower East Side. Lush Life, his first novel in five years, was described by Times critic Michiko Kakutani as “a visceral, heart-thumping portrait of New York City... no one writes better dialogue than Richard Price.” The story concerns......

Next Wednesday a cornucopia of comedians (Dave Attell, Louis C.K., Artie Lange and more) will gather at Town Hall for the The Gerry Red Wilson Foundation Comedy Benefit. Greg Fitzsimmons is one of the comedians responsible for putting together the show, which will raise awareness about meningitis (a disease that struck three people in his life, one of which was Gerry Red Wilson). You can buy tickets here. When not making one of his many......

We noticed two YouTube videos, taken from an apartment with a view of Dean Street, documenting some late night construction activity at the Atlantic Yards site in downtown Brooklyn. How late? Well, one video takes place at 11:42PM (video) while the other is in the 4AM hour (above!). For reference, according to 311, construction hours are generally 7AM to 6PM on weekdays (there may be emergency work in the middle of the night, but......

While we're always on the hunt for both the new and the unfamiliar in New York's kitchens, we also have standby favorite restaurants. One place we find ourselves returning to over and over again is Bedford Street's 'Ino, the sliver of a cafe and wine bar specializing in panini, tramezzini, bruschetta and a laundry list of wines (mostly Italian), with a handful available by the glass or half-bottle. Intimacy comes to mind in a......

What has Conan O'Brien been doing in his spare time? His writers have only been putting pen to paper for their picket signs, and even though he returned to his late night desk earlier this month -- he's been a one-man show, lacking his trusty troupe of scribes. Alone and living in a world of reruns, he's been unloading in his diary strike journal. In EW's latest issue, which hit newsstands today, they dive into......

Playwright David Mamet (pictured) will be maintaining a blog to promote his new Broadway play, November, which stars Nathan Lane as contemporary American president Charles Smith and Laurie Metcalf as his lesbian speech writer. What’s interesting, perhaps, is that Mamet will be writing the blog – which he says he’ll update for the duration of the open-ended run – as President Smith. Sample entry from Monday:CONGRESSIONAL PAGE SEX SCANDALS It seems to me that, at......

Last night Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert returned to their fake news desks, with picket lines outside of their studios and no strike beards in sight (however, a strike unibrow did appear). They were supportive as ever of the WGA though, in fact Stewart spent all 30 minutes discussing the strike, with only a lone joke or two about the primaries ("Cold white people have had their say"). He made it clear that "From now......

Late night television is back, with two hosts not crossing the picket line (David Letterman and Craig Ferguson), and three still getting WGA picketers outside of their studios (Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel). Only two hosts were willing to grow, and keep, their strike beards -- and we want to know whose you like best! We added a Photoshop-bearded Leno (because we wanted to know what it would look like), so your......

Last week everyone from writers on the picket line to bored couch potatoes were abuzz with news that the late night heavyweights would be returning with all new shows. Last night was the big night (Letterman, O'Brien, Kimmel, Ferguson and Leno all returned), and both Conan O'Brien and David Letterman took the stage showing solidarity with strike beards intact. Letterman threatened to shave his later on Conan's show, saying that he'd probably be helping his......

As we previously mentioned, the late night heavyweights have been angling to make a return in early '08. Letterman has been leading the pack by working on a deal with the WGA through his own production company, WorldWide Pants Inc. Yesterday they reached an agreement which will allow his show to return to the air next week, writing staff and all. The independent agreement he made with the WGA "included provisions to pay writers for......

CNBC's Money Honey Money Honey Says Mind the Gap Earlier this week, while in Grand Central Terminal we heard a familiar voice reminding us to “Mind the gap.” It turns out it was CNBC “Money Honey” Maria Bartiromo. Apparently Metro-North riders aren’t the only ones who are being reminded, as the Post reports that Long Island Rail Road commuters are getting similar reminders. The recorded messages were the brainchild of MTA board member Mitchell Palli.......

After Letterman announced his show's comeback with new episodes, writers' strike or no writers' strike, the leaders of late night all followed suit. Conan O'Brien, who has been growing a "strike beard" and paying his non-writer employees out of pocket, will return on January 2nd -- and his West Coast network-mate, Jay Leno, will do the same. Yesterday the WGA released the following statement regarding this move.“The AMPTP walked away from the bargaining table on......

Sick of watching reruns? Nervous you'll only get 8 episodes of Lost next season? Well, The NY Times reports on the first break in the writers' strike.David Letterman is pursuing a deal with the Writers Guild of America that would allow his late-night show on CBS to return to the air in early January with the usual complement of material from his writers, even if the strike is still continuing. Executives from Mr. Letterman's company......

The city's shocking sidewalks strike again! An Upper West Side pup was electrocuted Thursday during a late night walk on 72nd and Amsterdam. This has happened too many times over the past few years, more recently to a NY Post reporter's dog in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, who died from the shock. A few years ago when Jodie Lane died, and her two dogs were injured from a similar shock, Con Ed reported they......

SHOP: Still looking for that perfect gift? The Brooklyn Historical Society is holding the 4th Annual NY Creates Craft Fair, and they may have just what you're looking for. Check it out today and tomorrow, and it will be back the 22nd and 23rd for the real last-minute shoppers. Friday and Saturday // Noon to 6pm // BHS [128 Pierrepont St, Brooklyn] ART: Too much is going on the First Friday of every month, so......

During the 80s golden era of Late Night With David Letterman, Chris Elliott was one of the people most responsible for the show's distinctively bizarre style. Playing characters like "The Guy Under the Seats" and "The Regulator Guy," Elliott's contributions were sometimes hilarious and sometimes baffling, but always memorable for their absolutely unadulterated weirdness. He went on to cultivate his peculiar "Chris Elliott" persona in cult classics like the TV show Get a Life and......

Paramore Arrives One of our favorite albums of the year is by these girl-fronted teenage pop-punkers, and they were in town this week to headline their largest local show yet at Roseland Ballroom. It was the last show of a massive national tour, but you wouldn't know it seeing front woman Hayley Williams running around stage with the rest of her band. Paramore may not win any originality contests, but they've got more fire and......

Finding the best Cuban sandwich in NY is nothing short of grail-like quest: ingredient details are debated, locations are either revealed or remain secret, and the search continues anyway in the end. Just a stone’s throw from Cotton Club in Harlem is El Floridita, a workhorse diner that might skirt year end best-of lists. But remains a great destination for simple Cubano sandwiches. El Floridita is the last outpost of 3 original Floriditas; its owner......

Wait a minute, didn't Brian Williams host Saturday NIght Live just two weeks ago, the one where Barack Obama appeared in the opening? Yes, but with the Writers Guild strike still on, Saturday Night Live decided to revisit the recent past, versus dig into old "Best of" clip shows. The unfortunate thing is that Page Six reports 90% of the SNL production staff was fired "until further notice" because of the strike. Other TV shows'......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Utica Ave. in Brooklyn, an attempted bank robbery on East Fordham Rd. in the Bronx, and a large tree down on East 114th St. and 91st Ave. in Queens.. Buzz over the much-anticipated J.J. Abrams feature code-named "Cloverfield" has precipitated to something much more solid: a feature named "Cloverfield." The Internet's been speculating about the horror-thriller with a trailer that includes the decapitation of the Statue......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Art in the Twenty-First Century (Sunday, 10:00 p.m., WNET 13) Four artists - Robert Adams, Mark Dion , Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle Ursula von Rydingsvard – who explore the intersection between nature and culture. Billy Crystal: The Mark Twain Prize (Monday & Thursday, 9:00 p.m., WNET 13; Saturday, 7:30 p.m. WLIW 21) Billy Crystal receives the tenth annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center in......

Members of the Writers Guild of America have been striking in Los Angeles and New York this past week over details of a basic contract between writers and producers - one of the biggest sticking points is the amount of residuals writers get from DVD and new media distribution. The NY Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd asked Seth Meyers (who we spoke to on Tuesday) to give her a weekend update about the strike:......

The Boston priest arrested for stalking "Late Night" talk-show host Conan O'Brien has been found fit for trial. A Manhattan judge declared the Reverend David Ajemian mentally fit for trial after a court-appointed psychologist examined him. Ajemian was arrested after issuing a number of threats to the host of the NBC talk show host and attempts to get into an O'Brien taping. Ajemian was relatively more unhinged than your average show biz stalker. He was......

We'll be liveblogging the MTVU Woodie Awards tonight (hopefully Jared Leto won't break our blogging fingers) -- if you're looking for something else to do though, here are some suggestions... READING: Spend an evening with Global City Review contributors Linsey Abrams, Fred Tuten, and Michelle Yasmine Valladare. The publication "celebrates the difficulties and possibilities of the 'global city' and other constructions of community...while honoring the subversiveness and originality of ordinary lives," and reflects on New......

The Manhattan District Attorney's office announced that the Reverend David Ajemian was arrested on charges of stalking and threatening Conan O'Brien. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston placed Ajemian, a 46-year-old priest in Stoneham, Massachusetts, on leave. The DA's office says that Ajemian had sent letters (some on parish letterhead!) to O'Brien's offices at 30 Rockefeller Plaza and home, contacted his parents, and tried to attend tapings of Late Night with Conan O'Brien. He was......