In his Sunday NYTimes Arts&Leisure cover story, "Two Films, Two Routes From Poverty," A.O. Scott writes about Precious and The Blind Side and how it is "useful to imagine these mov...Read more

Tonight Blind Pilot headlines Brooklyn, at The Bell House, 149 7th St. (betw. 2nd & 3rd Aves.), Brooklyn, 718-643-6510; 8, $15 Read more

One of my first jobs out of school was playing a rotating succession of floozies—some dumb, some angry, all crazy—on MTV’s first-ever nonmusical program, Remote Control. The parts were tiny, but Remote Control, the cultish late ’80s game show in which three college kids confined to EZ-Chairs answered trivia questions about television and pop culture, was a big deal. Often presented in mini-sketch format, the questions were posed by comics, who’d pop out in different characters when their “channel” was selected. Read more

The rumors are true: other things will be screening this weekend besides The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Broken Embraces showcases a few of director Pedro Almodóvar’s favor...Read more

Next week, Theater 80 will fire up its film projectors for the first time in 15 years, when comic caper film The Brooklyn Heist begins its two-week run at the famed revival house. We asked The Brooklyn Heist director Julian Mark Kheel about how this unique booking came about, and why Theater 80 is the perfect venue for his satiric tale of three very different sets of New Yorkers all plotting to rob the same pawnshop owner…on the same night. Read more

One of my first jobs out of school was playing a rotating succession of floozies—some dumb, some angry, all crazy—on MTV’s first-ever nonmusical program, Remote Control. The parts were tiny, but Remote Control, the cultish late ’80s game show in which three college kids confined to EZ-Chairs answered trivia questions about television and pop culture, was a big deal. Often presented in mini-sketch format, the questions were posed by comics, who’d pop out in different characters when their “channel” was selected. Read more

We always assumed that people were still smoking inside because the places we tend to hang out are less than savory, but according to Eater, it's happening all over. Read more

Artist Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, who is best known for her collaborative environmental arts installations with husband Christo Javacheff, died today in Manhattan of complications stemming from a brain aneurysm. Jeanne-Claude, 74, is survived by her husband and son Cyril Christo. Read more

Helmer Toro, owner of H&H Bagels, was indicted for tax fraud yesterday. He pled not guilty to charges of withholding over $360,000 in payroll taxes. Surely the owner of the self-described “largest bagel manufacturer in the world” wouldn’t risk an enterprise that promising just to get out of paying some taxes? Read more

Air Waves addicts can check out the pop trio tonight with Bright Lights at Brooklyn Bowl, 61 Wythe Ave. (at N. 11th St.), 718-963-3369; 9, Free.Read more

In his Sunday NYTimes Arts&Leisure cover story, "Two Films, Two Routes From Poverty," A.O. Scott writes about Precious and The Blind Side and how it is "useful to imagine these mov...Read more

The rumors are true: other things will be screening this weekend besides The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Broken Embraces showcases a few of director Pedro Almodóvar’s favor...Read more

Next week, Theater 80 will fire up its film projectors for the first time in 15 years, when comic caper film The Brooklyn Heist begins its two-week run at the famed revival house. We asked The Brooklyn Heist director Julian Mark Kheel about how this unique booking came about, and why Theater 80 is the perfect venue for his satiric tale of three very different sets of New Yorkers all plotting to rob the same pawnshop owner…on the same night. Read more

The Film Talk guys, Jett Loe and Gareth Higgins, discuss A Christmas Carol and other recent reviews with Armond White. They call him the "most controversial of modern film critics." But the blog chatter is still raging with Preciousmania, and over at The Cooler blog, they've latched on to White's explanation (with a post titled "The Demonizing (of) Armond White") of his reputation as a contrarian: Read more

There’s no getting around the opportunism of IFC’s decision to release How to Be, starring a pre-Twilight Robert Pattinson, on DVD three days before New Moon’s Friday opening. (As if to underscore this sense of quick-buck desperation, the DVD’s back cover includes a misspelling of its star’s last name.) Still, this minor and frequently tiresome British comedy provides a chance to consider Pattinson beyond the broody trappings of the Twilight series. As it turns out, the guy’s actually kind of funny. Read more

Tonight Blind Pilot headlines Brooklyn, at The Bell House, 149 7th St. (betw. 2nd & 3rd Aves.), Brooklyn, 718-643-6510; 8, $15 Read more

See the poster children of Brooklyn sound, Dirty Projectors, at Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 N. 6th St. (betw. Wythe & Kent Aves.), 718-486-540; 8, $15 Read more

When I first heard Evangelicals’ sophomore release The Evening Descends in December of 2007, it sounded like the second coming of Arcade Fire. To my ears, it was the only album since Funeral capable of matching its intensity without sounding like a canned attempt at doing so. It brought Graham Parsons and Beethoven to mind in equal measure; it was marked by thematic cohesiveness, lyrical depth and an epicness that most other swing-for-the-fences-type indie acts come embarrassingly short of achieving. It had moments you just couldn’t totally shake: the opening bass line of “Skeleton Man;” the anguished, wailing coda to “Party Crashing,” the bitingly hilarious and totally unexpected satire of the “blind leading the blind” parable from the New Testament at the tail-end of “Bloodstream.” And I could go on like this. Read more

On its two albums, A Camp has a lilting, lush sound that wraps its pop sensibility in just enough indie packaging to make it the kind of music that should basically be played during every NPR program, all day, every day. Sure, it’s not what you’d call challenging to the listener, but everyone needs a few records they can play on a rainy day. It doesn’t hurt, I might add, that the band is fronted by the lovely Nina Persson, famous for her time as the lead singer of Swedish pop band the Cardigans, whose breathy voice and hint of coquettishness is the perfect topper to the band’s globe-trotting musical sensibility. Read more

There was a moment—one of those collective pant-shitting moments that only the truly great or deeply unstable ones can produce—in which the crowd at last night’s Jesus Lizard show was transfixed by the possibility of David Yow whipping his cock out. Read more