By Stephen Jacob Smith 3/27 3:34pm

Manhattan Transfers

We hope Mr. Willis has a more pleasurable stay at the El Dorado than he had at Nakatomi Plaza.

Bruce Willis Pays $8.8 M. for U2 Bassist Adam Clayton’s El Dorado Pad

Last time Bruce Willis tangled with a tower, his Die Hard character escaped from the clutches of a German terrorist group with only his trusty Beretta sidearm. We hope his stay at El Dorado at 300 Central Park West, where he just picked up a co-op apartment, is less eventful.

The four-bedroom spread was rumored to be in contract for $8 million, according to New York Post, but as in The Sixth Sense, there’s a twist at the end of this purchase: Mr. Willis and wife Emma ended up paying $8.85 million for the fourth-floor unit, according to city records—a bit over the asking price of $8.695 million. (Even celebrities, it seems, can’t buy a co-op without listing their name on the need! Or maybe they just wanted the tax abatement?) Read More

By Rex Reed 5/23/12 11:54am

movies

Hayward and Gilman in Moonrise Kingdom.

In Moonrise Kingdom, Watercolors Run Dry

Preceded by bewildering blogs and Tweets (and even a few genuine reviews) from Cannes (“A Tender Triumph!” “Glows in the Darkness!” “Ode to Arrested Development!”), Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom is juvenile gibberish about two 12-year-olds who get married in a Boy Scout camp that is too sexually outrageous for the preteen age group it portrays and too tween for grown-ups. Like all Wes Anderson movies, it is naïve, mannered, pretentious and incomprehensible. He co-wrote it with Roman Coppola (yikes! another Coppola!). Together they were responsible for The Darjeeling Limited, one of the worst movies of all time. This one is neither as contrived as The Royal Tenenbaums nor as moronic as The Darjeeling Limited, but its boredom quotient is still stuck in the same unbroken wave of dubious tedium Mr. Anderson is famous for. (It also features another Coppola, the creepy Jason Schwartzman.) What is it with this guy and his awful movies masquerading as “original ideas” that turns otherwise sensible critics into slobbering groupies?   Read More

By Daniel D'Addario 4/19/12 12:32pm

Cannes

6 Photos

Robert Pattinson

Stars We’ll Be Surprised to See at Cannes

The slate for this year’s Cannes Film Festival has been announced, with a mix of films that will bring in a raft of unexpected American stars (as well as Cannes perennial Brad Pitt). Who knows–one of them might distinguish him- or herself–after all, last year Bring It On star Kirsten Dunst shocked the world with her Melancholia performance and took home the Best Actress prize. Could the same happen for, say, Kristen Stewart? Read More

By Ted Gushue 1/22/12 2:54pm

Sundance Film Festival

Bing Presents Comedy With Aziz Ansari And A Drake Performance At The Bing Bar - 2012 Park City

Turf Wars, Lil Jon And The Josh Hartnett Sundance Stink Eye

Day 2 of the Sundance Film Festival found The Observer snowbound in the extreme. We’re talking enough snow to give Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City transit system nightmares. Astronomic surcharges became the norm as Park City’s anemic livery force struggled to even make the most ludicrous time frames: ”Yeah I can have a guy up there in like 3 and a half hours?” deadpanned one audacious taxi dispatcher, who seemed to take pleasure in seeing so many city slickers squeal. Read More

By Joseph Alexiou 2/24/10 5:42pm

The Shindigger: At the Cop Out Premiere

The Feb. 22 premiere of Kevin Smith’s newest film, Cop Out, starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as a pair of goof-off flatfoots trying to recuperate a stolen Anthony Pafko baseball card worth $50,000, felt a bit like a comic police state. The two leads arrived at AMC Loews Lincoln Square separately and were surrounded Read More

By Rex Reed 2/24/10 12:49am

Please Don’t Make Me See Cop Out Again!

Cop Out
Running time 110 minutes
Written by Rob and Mark Cullen
Directed by Kevin Smith
Starring  Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Seann William Scott, Adam Brody, Kevin Pollack

ZERO STARS

With so much junk littering the screen these days, the movie business looks like a garbage strike, and it’s beginning to smell, Read More

By Christopher Rosen 9/25/09 1:06pm

Opening This Weekend: Thank Goodness September is Over!

The final weekend of September is upon and dare we say: not a moment too soon. Once October hits, real movies will start opening, but in the meantime we’re left with the rest of these September dregs. As we do every Friday, here’s a handy guide to the new releases.

Fame

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