By Rebecca Webb 9/21/12 2:45pm

Smelly people. (PMc)

DKNY’s Fragrance Fête: “It’s Not Like a Lesbian Movie—It’s a Fun Movie”

“It’s not like a lesbian movie—it’s a fun movie.” In retrospect, this conversation, overheard by The Observer Thursday night at The Hole gallery, may not have actually been in reference to “Intense,” the film collaboration for DKNY’s “Be Delicious Intense” fragrance championed by Beatrice Dupine, Veronique Gabai-Pinsky and Enrique Badulescu, but, frankly, we will never really know.

The somewhat spasmodic images of a beautiful blonde, mouth occasionally agape, biting (kind of necessarily, given the advertised scent) into a large green apple, that were projected onto nearly every surface of the gallery were certainly to blame for any potential confusion here. Words like “tense,” “bite” and “intuition” also kissed the walls. The rooms were packed full of surprisingly bad-smelling people, including Kelly Killoren Bensimon and Fern Mallis (though The Observer knows they smelled just fine), and most stared, if not at their phones, then at something else besides the images blinking around them. This further confounded the nature of the event and the film at its center. Read More

By Drew Grant 7/12/12 12:10pm

Viral Marketing

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The Gotham Observer: Batman’s City Gets the Newspaper It Deserves

When picking publications to model your fictitious newspaper on, we obviously have a bias. Still, it’s nice to see that the Warner Bros.’ viral marketing team agreed with us, as their late-June campaign for The Dark Knight Rises included clues to unlock the Gotham Observer, a newspaper that bears resemblance to our own organization in title only.

(We would never lead with a cover story on a ‘Festivity Day’…even if it was in honor of a fallen district attorney. Or if we did, we’d make the led much snappier.)

Read More

By Drew Grant 7/09/12 2:25pm

top of the tumblr

a.o.scott

A.O. Scott Zingers: The Tumblr

It’s a rare critic among us who can elevate the dissection of someone else’s work into its own separate art form. The New York Times‘ A.O. Scott, with his combination of whimsical praise and scorched-earth snark, happens to be one of them. His reviews are driven by movie narratives, but they are also mini-lessons on film theory, biting satirical commentary, and extremely literary. It’s worth reading his reviews of movies you aren’t even planning to see. (We still maintain that his Melancholia review might have been as beautiful and poetic as the film itself, if not more so.)

Really though, we read every A.O. Scott review secretly hoping he hated the film, so we can giggle over his  hysterically funny take-downs. (See: Shutter Island, perhaps our favorite non-Observer movie review of all time.) And now there’s a Tumblr for that, too! Read More

By Foster Kamer 2/01/12 3:00pm

Exclusive

YEEZY OF ARABIA

Yeezy of Arabia: Kanye West to Make Film in Middle East

The Observer has learned that Kanye West, the multi-platinum rapper and Twitter super-user recently sent representatives to the Persian Gulf region to scout locations for a short film. The project, which will take a form much like his 30-minute “Runaway”—a hybrid art film and music video starring model Selita E. Banks that premiered on MTV in October, 2010—is to be filmed in March. Read More

By Foster Kamer 1/31/12 5:39pm

MOVIE TRAILERS

JULIANNE MOORE SARAH PALIN GAME CHANGE

Video: Julianne Moore’s Sarah Palin Impression on Display in ‘Game Change’ Trailer

Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s gossipy, somewhat controversial bestseller about the 2008 presidential campaign—filled with plenty of juicy Sarah Palin anecdotes—recently received the HBO adaptation treatment. Julianne Moore’s role as the former Governess of Alaska and vice-presidential would-be is one of the more highly anticipated actor-politician roles in recent history. And Read More

By Henry Krempels 1/12/12 12:00pm

U-Boats

GOODBAR. (Hassan E. Hussein)

More than a Blip: The Under the Radar Festival Brings Outre Theater to the East Village

As you enter the capacious quarters of the Public Theater in the East Village, you walk through a construction site: a grand building being torn out from the inside. The space is currently undergoing renovations, but still acts as the primary location for the eighth year of Under the Radar, New York’s downtown experimental theater festival, which runs through Jan. 15.

This feeling of restoration never seems to leave as you become privy to the rich, eclectic and fiercely original performances the two weeks has to offer. Experimental theater, by definition, avoids convention, often leaving audiences questioning the value of the genre. But doubters must make the trip downtown: the offerings are impressive and remarkably diverse, including media like video, music, dance and puppetry, produced by companies based in Europe and America. Read More

By Foster Kamer 1/11/12 5:55pm

HIGHLY ANTICIPATED

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LCD Soundsystem’s Final Concert: The Movie (Trailer)

Last year, the centerpiece band of James Murphy’s Brooklyn-based record label—DFA Records—called it quits, after three critically and increasingly commercially successful albums. People were upset! The band announced they’d be having one last show at Madison Square Garden before calling the whole thing off. The show sold out in two minutes, and people were extremely upset. The band then decided to have a four nights worth of shows at Terminal 5 before the final hurrah at the Garden, which was generally received to be nothing short of extraordinary. The end, it would seem, had finally come.

Not entirely, however. Read More

By Foster Kamer 1/04/12 7:07pm

LAYOFFS

hoberman

End of an Era: J. Hoberman is Out at the Village Voice, Staffers Mourn Former Critic and Labor Leader’s Departure

The Village Voice‘s longtime chief film critic and an institution at the paper, J. Hoberman, is out, his tenure ended by Village Voice Media as yet another in a long, ongoing series in staff reductions at the paper. The reactions from fellow staffers and among his contemporaries have been swift and unilateral in their disappointment and sadness. Read More