By Drew Grant 12/10/12 3:45pm

Celebrity profiles

Michael Caine: Will do anything for $10 million. (Getty)

Can You Spot Michael Caine’s ‘Million Dollar’ Joke Hidden in His New York Times Profile (Video)

Has everyone read Melena Ryzik’s crackerjack profile of prolific actor Sir Michael Caine in The New York Times? It’s pretty great! He explains his “eye trick” for looking at both a camera and subject simultaneously, the weird back-story he made up for Alfred in Nolan’s Batman series (though it’s pretty inconsistent, since he talks about Bruce Wayne meeting Alfred in a military mess hall, when we all KNOW that Alfred has been with the Wayne family since before Bruce was born, no d’uh), and how he slept with all of Hollywood and everything before falling for his wife after seeing her in a commercial for Maxwell Coffee.

But there was one specific quote of Caine’s, seemingly benign, that made us believe both he and the Times were in on the most famous joke about the actor. Read More

By Kim Velsey 10/12/12 1:11pm

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

The Park Avenue in the South Bronx.

The Two Park Avenues: Promotion of Documentary About Income Inequality Perpetuates Inequality

We received a press release yesterday heralding the release of a new film. It read: “740 Park, the bestseller by Michael Gross, becomes Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream.”

This struck us as odd because we had, in fact, heard about this documentary before, but described in a very different way: the famed building would be used as a foil for Park Avenue in the South Bronx, as a means of discussing income inequality in America. This had seemed to us like a very good idea. Not that we wouldn’t also like to see Michael Gross’s engaging social history become a movie (or an inspired-by Dallas-style TV show that would blow 666 Park and its many real estate inaccuracies out of the water), but that would be a very different movie indeed.

This was, of course, the same movie we had heard about, a movie that is described more accurately and evenhandedly, we discovered through some extensive googling, on the Independent Television Service website. But back to that first release and how its spin got under our skin. Read More

By Brian Thomas Gallagher 8/17/12 12:21pm

books

Mr. Amis.

No Country for This Old Man: The New Novel by Martin Amis Is About Anything But the ‘State of England’

A mediocre book by Martin Amis is better than most books by anyone else, but unfortunately, a bad book by Martin Amis is just as bad as any other bad book. And Lionel Asbo (Knopf, 255 pp. $25.95) is a bad book.

The mention on the cover of Mr. Amis’s previous masterworks—Money and London Fields—does Lionel Asbo no favors by calling to mind its better-realized predecessors. As in those books, the protagonist is a morally bankrupt, misogynistic menace to society—which for Mr. Amis is a promising start. Unfortunately, Asbo reads like a first draft of an Amis novel, before the linguistic pyrotechnics, trenchant wit and cosmopolitan insight have made it in. Read More

By Foster Kamer 2/23/12 5:41pm

HANDY GUIDES TO IMPORTANT THINGS

jeremy lin sad tired upset

How To Think About Jeremy Lin vs. LeBron James: A Handy Guide for Smart People

If you are a sentient human being, you have no doubt heard by now that tonight the New York Knicks are playing against the Miami Heat tonight, in Miami. This is basically a euphemism for “LeBron James and Jeremy Lin: The Title Fight.”

It’s exciting because LeBron James is a polarizing figure who people love to hate, or love to love because of all the people who hate him, and because Jeremy Lin is the most exciting thing to happen to the NBA since Ron Artest got beer all over him. Also, seeing as how LeBron James turned down both the New York Knicks and the soon-to-be Brooklyn Nets to go to Miami, fans of Tri-State Area basketball have quite a bit invested with this. Figuratively speaking.

But for those who truly want to take something away from this evening, and the entire Jeremy Lin craze, which will reach a new level of fever pitch tonight? Read More

By George Gurley 8/09/11 1:05pm

Money for Nothing

South Korean Economy Boosted As Won Jumps To New High

fREE ca$H 4 U!!! NOT a scam!

Besides being well-known, well-heeled New Yorkers, what do Henry Kravis, Jessica Seinfeld, Donald Trump, Lewis Lapham, Lizzie Grubman, Peggy Siegal, Nina Griscom, Ira Rennert and Nicole Miller all have in common? They don’t know it yet but Tiffany & Co. owes them money. How about Jerry Seinfeld, Matt Dillon, Michael Nouri, Sigourney Weaver, Julia Stiles, former Observer editor Peter W. Kaplan, Glenn Close, Joey Ramone’s heirs and Madonna? Cold, hard and abandoned cash from Walt Disney could be coming their way very soon.

Want more? Read More