"thanks to Paramount Pictures for coming through with Oscar tickets and proving true to its word," Kirn tweeted this morning, "which i shouldn't have doubted."

Guess he wasn't drilled after all.

According to his report-which relies on unnamed sources-the duo could walk in 15 months if their relationship with Mr. Redstone, whose purchase of Dreamworks through Paramount was regarded as a coup in Hollywood, does not improve.

Mr. Geffen called Mr. Bart from his yacht, location unknown, on Friday, to try to quash the reports, citing their pleasure with marketing and distribution for Dreamworks successes Disturbia, Transformers, and Shrek the Third. But if Mr. Bart's sources are right, it would be further evidence that not all is well in the house of Redstone. Last week, reports he was feuding with his daughter, Shari, put the inheritance of Mr. Redstone's media empire in doubt.

And so another Golden Globes has come and gone, an award event favored by TV viewers who know that, unlike the gravitas-laden Oscars, there’s a high probability of seeing their favorite star get sloshed on white wine and slur his way through presenting (cough … cough … Harrison Ford). Plus it’s the only awards show that mixes television and movie stars in one uncomfortable caste-system night.

Mainly, the Golden Globes are about the partying, the dressing-up and celebrity mixing at the Beverly Hilton, where—within one cavernous compound—the studios all host after-parties with security checkpoints that would put J.F.K. airport to shame. The anxiety was palpable: “Where are you going? Did you get into this one? I just came from In Style—it sucked; try HBO’s …. ” And so on.

Los Angeles is one of those places where all the clichés turn out to be true. The traffic really is a disaster, people actually do drive around with the top down yapping into cellular headsets, each cocktail waitress is thinner, prettier and blonder than the next, movie stars really are shorter in person, and the sky is—somewhat disturbingly—a constant, sparkling spick-and-span blue.

But judging from last weekend’s freakish cold snap—record-breaking lows in the 30’s—one thing that Angelenos don’t know how to handle is real weather. Many establishments, lacking adequate heating, were forced to rely on tall outdoor heaters. And apparently no one in L.A. has ever heard of a coat check. This led to some awkward valet situations, as celebrities were forced to huddle and shiver in plain sight while waiting for their cars (favorite group huddle: a grinning Alec Baldwin, a teensy Bill Maher and Arianna Huffington outside of the L.A. Confidential magazine party).

But for the Golden Globes themselves, the temperatures were nothing short of a disaster. Women with couture gowns certainly didn’t want to cover up. And most of the post-award parties had some sort of outdoor element, creating a new category of celebrity sightings: look who’s hanging out under the heat lamp.

Paramount Pictures was a big winner—Dreamgirls for best picture in the musical or comedy category, with Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson winning best supporting awards, with Babel (under the Paramount Vantage label) winning as best picture in the drama category. Many Paramount partygoers at the Beverly Hilton attended in the hopes that they’d lay eyes on the holy grail of celebrity gawking: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. No such luck. Though their names were constantly invoked as the night went on, the couple was nowhere to be found at any of the parties (according to one report, they hopped on a plane directly after the show).

According to a group of friendly paparazzi perched in front of the Paramount party entrance, Jay-Z and Beyoncé were among the first to arrive, sweeping through the room in grand style but leaving moments after Jennifer Hudson arrived—meouch!—certainly not dispelling any of the rumors of a rivalry between Beyoncé and Ms. Hudson. Steven Spielberg arrived with his step-daughter, the actress Jessica Capshaw, while Patrick Dempsey (a.k.a. “McDreamy”) caused a group of older women to literally swoon as he made it through the door. Sacha Baron Cohen, another winner for best actor (and thankfully not in his unwashed Borat suit), helpfully told a foreign press reporter that his fiancée, the teenily beautiful Australian actress Isla Fisher, was in Wedding Crashers. Later, he was seen feeding her pizza in a secluded corner. (As Borat might say: Niiiiiiiice!)

Nearby, at the HBO party, the Entourage guys stuck together. They joked about having to walk the carpet in front of Brad and Angelina. “In-sane,” said Kevin Connolly, ruefully shaking his head. Jeremy Piven seemed to be carbo-loading, with food piled high on his plate, as Mark Wahlberg, the show’s executive producer and muse, held court like the Godfather at a table, rising only to a half-standing position to greet well-wishers like Brian Grazer. The Big Love cast was one of the only groups to stay put—probably wisely—in one venue. “Where’s my posse at?” yelled Chloë Sevigny, one of the few celebrities who is actually taller in real life, as she entered the room, to be directed to the back.

The hotel lobby between the parties ended up being the place to see and be seen. Hugh Grant stood awkwardly trying to make a phone call as a clump of Grey’s Anatomy cast was ambushed—thwomp!—by fans. The by-now-well-fed Mr. Piven, who had arrived at the awards ceremony with his mom, looked pretty cozy with America’s Next Top Model’s whiny loser, Melrose. The brain bleeds!

But despite the pleasure of being almost stomped on by Rebecca Gayheart, one Golden Globe party veteran claimed that the turnout was weak. “No one is out,” she complained. “No Leo, no Brad and Angelina, no Penélope—I swear the cold is keeping everyone away.” (More importantly, where the heck were they keeping Peter O’Toole?)

The weather, which had been dominating the local news for several days, apparently flummoxed, fashion-wise, some fragile celebrities. Last Saturday, at HBO’s pre–Golden Globes party at the Chateau Marmont, the Olsen twins shivered like lapdogs as they climbed the steps to make their entrance. “Oh. My. God. I so can’t handle this,” said Mary-Kate Olsen, in a floor-length green dress and fur stole. The girls, with their matching platinum hair, scrawny, malnourished bodies and china-doll pouts, even shivered identically.

Inside the Chateau, it was wall-to-wall celebs. New couple Ginnifer (Big Love) Goodwin and one-time Katie Holmes paramour Chris Klein nuzzled at the bar, while Sacha Baron Cohen compared notes with Chris Rock, Jeremy Irons classed things up with Helen Mirren, and Michael Keaton chatted with Bill Paxton. Cuba Gooding Jr. (remember him?) pursued a waitress with puff pastries—show him the yummy!

“The Oscars are like the wife, and the Golden Globes the mistress,” said party host and HBO Films president Colin Callender. Indeed, the mood seemed awfully louche, and with no V.I.P. area, velvet rope or bouncer in sight, leading to all sorts of unfettered celebrity interactions, such as Vincent Gallo chasing down Ivanka Trump for a hug and kiss. The mind reels! And by the way, why is sweet Oscar winner Marisa Tomei engulfed in a big fur coat? And how come Matthew Perry won’t take off his coat?

(Another thing that makes an L.A. party different from a New York bash: all the shoving. It’s hard to imagine thrown elbows and the stomping of Manolos being accepted at, say, the Mercer Hotel. But maybe this is why New York never understood last year’s sappy big winner, Crash: Maybe people in L.A. really do need a little bit of human contact outside of their cars.)

“People are going to hurt their necks if they keep craning them about like this,” said a New York City publicist. But though the Golden Globes were just 48 hours away, no one seemed to be talking about movies. Instead, said E! senior editor Marc Malkin, “people can’t stop talking about Britney’s vagina.” Mr. Malkin, a recent Manhattan émigré, looked around and sighed. “Or else everyone is just talking about the cold weather. It sucks—I moved from New York for this?”

"I don't look at it as a chance; I look at it as an opportunity [for Columbia]," said Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, the head of Revolution Studios East. Ms. Goldsmith-Thomas produced Maid in Manhattan and Mona Lisa Smile with Ms. Schindler, and currently has several projects in the works with her. "I think with [Deborah], also, to take a physical producer and make her an executive consultant, I think that could maybe create the best of both worlds. I think it's a great positive step for the film community in New York that Columbia is taking it so seriously."

Ms. Schindler is a natural fit for Columbia. In fact, she's been working on the studio's behalf for some time now. Most recently, she helped negotiate the deal that brought the motion-picture remake rights to Dan Klores and Ron Berger's documentary Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story to the studio.

"They're the two least-likely Hollywood people," said Mr. Klores from his cell phone, commenting that Mr. Mitchell had seen the film at Sundance and that ultimately both he and Ms. Schindler made him feel comfortable working with a studio. "And that, to me, was a deal-maker."

From Columbia's point of view, this type of teamwork has to be the ideal: two non-L.A. intellects making sense of the crowded art-house world with an eye on the bottom line. (Mr. Mitchell, Ms. Schindler and executives at Paramount couldn't be reached for comment by press time.) But let's not forget that Mr. Mitchell has been here before. Over a decade ago, Mr. Mitchell did a brief tour of duty at Paramount Pictures as a director of development. Either unwilling or ignorant of the potential conflict of interest, Mr. Mitchell continued to do film reviews for NPR after being hired at Paramount. His stint as a studio executive lasted six months. Thankfully for Mr. Mitchell, the dynamic at Columbia is a bit different. He has been assigned the welcome task-apparently Mr. Mitchell gets antsy if he isn't traveling (which explains a lot)-of trolling film festivals for potential acquisitions and evaluating the Columbia library for potential remakes. Neither endeavor appears to require the same attention to studio politics and practicalities-which seem to have caused Mr. Mitchell trouble at his former post-as development. But that doesn't mean he will not encounter any obstacles.

"When you're a critic, you have the luxury of thinking about whether a movie is good or not according to your own aesthetic response to it," said Mr. Mitchell's former fellow critic in arms, A.O. Scott. "If you're an executive in the movie industry-in whatever sector of it, however independent-you have to make a commercial decision." He added, however, that Mr. Mitchell is more than qualified to understand that distinction. "He's extraordinarily knowledgeable. He has insights into movies and ways of understanding how they work that didn't always comes across on the page."

Currently, neither a spokesman for NPR, where Mr. Mitchell continues to do reviews on Weekend Edition with Scott Simon, nor Ruth Seymour, the program director at KCRW, the Santa Monica–based radio station where he hosts a half-hour-long interview show called The Treatment, know if he plans to stay on. But they are counting on it.

"I hope so," said Ms. Seymour, speaking over the phone from her office. "The people who been with us a long time-these people are like family." And since his program doesn't involve film reviews and his interview subjects are outside the film industry, she doesn't see a potential conflict of interest. Either way, she asserts that Mr. Mitchell will never pander. "He has a purity of vision," said Ms. Seymour. "He's not going to say something that he doesn't believe."

David Edelstein, the film critic for Slate, seconds Ms. Seymour.

"In the case of Elvis, I think it is important to say that no one has ever, to my knowledge, questioned his integrity as a critic," said Mr. Edelstein. "He was not your typical suck-up who was trying to use a position of some power to get into the industry."

But it is Mr. Mitchell's fierce individuality that could come back to haunt him. It surely didn't work for him at Paramount.

"It's counterintuitive to me," said Jay Rosen, former chair of N.Y.U.'s journalism department and author of What Are Journalists For? "I wouldn't think that a critic would be good. Writers, I don't think they're basically good at anything where you have to make these practical calls all the time, all of these compromises. It's all about the art of the possible: working under rough conditions, tempestuous people, always radically imperfect."

In 1979, Pauline Kael, the only other well-known critic to attempt the jump from criticism to studio commercialism, was an executive consultant at Paramount. It only took her five months before she became fed up with studio politics-apparently, a euphemism for Don Simpson-and returned to the comfortable confines of The New Yorker. And while much has been made of Mr. Mitchell's reported friendship with Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Amy Pascal (they are said to have met through her husband, former Times colleague Bernie Weinraub), it will soon become evident whether this connection is enough to protect Mr. Mitchell from the corporate stringency that doomed his career at The Times-and perhaps more to the point, his career at Paramount Pictures.

For now, however, the addition of two creative executives to the New York film world is a boon. With these hires, Columbia Pictures has added itself to a list of studios-including Warner Bros., DreamWorks S.K.G., Fox and Paramount-which maintain a constant creative presence in the Big Apple.

"[Columbia's] totally thinking outside the box," said Ms. Goldsmith-Thomas. "I'm excited for them. And I am excited to see how this is going to work."

The Silver Screen Collection is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the screen debut of the eminent theatrical team, the Marx Brothers: Chico (1887-1961), Harpo (1888-1964), Groucho (1890-1977) and Zeppo (1901-1979). Their first vehicle, The Cocoanuts (1929), was based on the George S. Kaufman play (adapted for the screen by Morrie Ryskind) in which the brothers had starred on the Broadway stage. Looking at The Cocoanuts today, one is struck by the static cinematography typical of the early talkies, with the camera parked in front of a set across which the characters walk on and off as they enter stage right and exit stage left, or vice versa. In their first two films, the Marx Brothers owed more to their writers than to their directors. Groucho himself remarked of the director and assistant director of The Cocoanuts : "One of them [French-born Robert Florey] didn't understand English, and the other one [former dance director Joseph Santley] didn't understand comedy."

Yet even in this early phase of their movie career, the team projected a uniquely anarchic charisma that stood out among the pallidly conventional figures of boy-girl musical romance. There was no lasting romance for any of the team, unlike their often lyrically girl-seeking predecessors, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. Harpo chased pretty girls with a gleam in his eye just for harmless fun. Groucho leered at them, but quickly lost interest. Chico was oblivious to them, and Zeppo, the "normal" one, was too drawn into the zany orbit of his brothers ever to settle down with a nice girl.

For their second film, the Marx Brothers chose another of their hit Broadway plays, Animal Crackers (1930), written by the same Kaufman-Ryskind team that gave us The Cocoanuts and directed by journeyman director Victor Heerman, who tried in vain to get Groucho to wash off his grease-paint mustache and wear a false one instead. "They never believed us anyway," retorted Groucho as he refused the director's request. In both The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers , Groucho was brilliantly assisted in making his brand of insult humor register with audiences by the exquisitely dignified self-abasement of Margaret Dumont, one of the greatest character comediennes in the history of the cinema.

The Marx Brothers finally left New York, where The Cocoanuts had been shot (at the old Paramount Astoria studios in Queens), for their third film, Monkey Business (1931). Shot entirely in Hollywood by a new director, Norman Z. McLeod, Monkey Business also had a new cadre of New York–ish and New Yorker writers: S.J. Perelman, Will B. Johnstone and Arthur Sheekman, and a new feminine foil for Groucho in Thelma Todd, a brassy-dame type with comic flair, and a big change from the matronly, high-society Dumont. Their fourth film, Horse Feathers (1932), included a partly new and partly old writing team-Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, S.J. Perelman and Will B. Johnstone-the same director, Norman Z. McLeod, and the same comic foil in Thelma Todd. Up to now, the Marx Brothers had been functioning in a pre–Production Code atmosphere that allowed semi-sluttish talent like Todd to get laughs with suggestive innuendoes.

It may thus be only a coincidence that Dumont returned to the Marxian fold in 1933 with Duck Soup , a flop in its time after four big hits that almost ruined Paramount and almost ended the Marx Brothers' movie careers. Fortunately, they were rescued by Irving Thalberg at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where they made one of their biggest commercial and critical successes, Sam Wood's A Night at the Opera (1935), which reunited them with their first comedy writers, George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. In the meantime, Zeppo left the team and was replaced in spirit by M.G.M. tenor Allan Jones, whose operatic romance with Kitty Carlisle began the gradual displacement of the Marx Brothers for the sake of more conventional scenarios.

Ironically, many critics consider Leo McCarey's Duck Soup to be the funniest and most magical film in their entire oeuvre , as well as their most chaotic. At the time when the world was in a stifling economic depression and Europe was turning to fascism, the sending-up of martial excesses in the nation of Freedonia may have been too unsettling for 1933 audiences. The Marx Brothers were reportedly delighted that the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini banned the film from Italy because he thought it was a direct attack on him. But was Groucho tempting fate when he discounted the film's alleged significance? "What significance?" he asked rhetorically. "We were just four Jews trying to get a laugh."

One may say that, overall, the individual parts of the Marx Brothers' films were superior to the sum of their wholes-and what parts! The funniest highlights are spread throughout their oeuvre , but they're mostly found in their Paramount period. For starters, there's Groucho's land auction in The Cocoanuts , Harpo and Chico's bridge game in Animal Crackers , Harpo's madness with the passports and the puppets in Monkey Business , Harpo and Groucho's bunny-nightcap confrontation in the mischievous mirror of Duck Soup , and Harpo's pushcart duel with Edgar Kennedy in Duck Soup .

Special features of value in this DVD package include a Harpo Marx "interview" in pantomime and Groucho Marx in a riotously funny mock interview on The Today Show -and, on a more serious note, Harpo's son William, who provides home movies of his father and uncles along with his own childhood memories .

[The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection: The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup ; G, $59.90]

Love Story

Richard Linklater's Before Sunset is a fantasy realized: a reunion with an old, briefly known lover, someone you think about warmly still, partly because you never knew them long enough to feel otherwise. Mr. Linklater is too smart to let things play out like straight fantasy, yet somehow the film maintains an undeniable, almost realistic, romantic glow.

Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) are the two lovers whose meeting on a train nine years before was chronicled in the movie Before Sunrise . They disembarked in Vienna and spent a wonderful, talk-filled evening together. They promised to meet again on a specific date, but one of them, we learn in this sequel, never showed up.

When they meet again in Before Sunset , it's because Jesse has published a novel and is promoting it in Paris, where Celine lives. So they spend the day together engaged in the same clever banter as before. They stroll, express regrets and wishes, trade jokes. The most heart-wrenching scene takes place in a taxi, when Celine reveals the true consequences of getting older: She's angry and, in a way that splits her sunny façade wide open, bloody and honest. But perhaps she's not bitter-later, alone together in her apartment, Celine beguilingly sings Jesse a folk song she has written about him. It's a rapturous moment in an already stunning film. The song captures the optimism of their first meeting; it's also a time capsule of their youth. Right before it ends, Before Sunset finally feels like a beginning.

[ Before Sunset , 2004, 80 min., R, $27.95]

-Suzy Hansen

"I can't wait," said Mr. Pastore with a Cohiba-enhanced growl, adding that a good deal of his anticipation was due to the festival's closing picture, Paramount's The Italian Job. "I was in Serving Sara for Paramount, so Paramount puts me on the A-list, I guess.

"There's a lot of buzz about it, but I'm also excited it's here, at our festival. It's exactly what New York needs-a nice shot in the arm, you know?"

In it's sophomore year, the festival created by Tribeca Films' Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro is poised to be a pretty big shot. Those who follow the papers will know that it has signed up bigger sponsors (NBC and General Motors have joined American Express), more movies (200, according to press materials, which is approximately double last year's slate)-and, somehow, acquired Mr. Pastore as a vocal cheerleader. And suddenly Ms. Rosenthal, who has emerged as the real muscle behind the party, is beginning to look a lot more like an architect of New York's future-or at least its post–Sept. 11 recovery-and a lot less like the woman who produced Rocky and Bullwinkle .

But the festival's surprise slam-bang success in its first year has some skeptics questioning how Ms. Rosenthal can move the ball forward this year. The answer seems to be: with a mix of big-budget comedies ( Down with Love, Daddy Day Care ), a caper flick ( The Italian Job), some classics ( The Night of The Hunter, Once Upon A Time in America ), and a slew of gritty independents ( The Shape of Things , Pretty Dirty Things ). The festival will crank up the feel-good early 1960's-style frippery, and steer clear of the Sundance-style wheeling-and-dealing. There will be fewer Sept. 11 memorials, less Marty Scorsese, but more Al Pacino.

Mr. Scorsese, who seemed to be everywhere at last year's festival-remember the Food in Film panel?-is busy prepping The Aviator in California and Canada. His spokeswoman, Leslee Dart, assured us that "schedule pending," he's going to try to make it back for the end of the party.

Many of the films on the slate have already premiered at Venice, Sundance and Toronto. But that's fine by Variety editor Peter Bart, who said that Tribeca provides "more of a pure film experience. The merchants have not taken over."

Apparently, neither have the publicity wizards. One portion of the paper schedule decoded the festival's cryptic symbols as follows: *F means "Feature"; *D means "Documentary Feature"; *>2 means "Documentaries > 2."

But, hey-Mr. Pastore's not complaining!

When we asked him if he would be seeing anything besides The Italian Job , he thought for a second before remembering "Oh, yeah. My friend's movie!"

He rustled through the schedule and carefully spelled the name of Begonya Plaza, whose documentary Souvenir Views will screen on May 9.

"I'll actually be down there a couple times," said Mr. Pastore. "It depends on who else invites me."

For Mr. Pastore and everyone else who's wondering what invitations they should wheedle, here are the events that, according to our festival sources, are worth attending or avoiding. But it should be noted that, at press time, the schedule was still changing and some of the events listed may be either moved, canceled or sold out.

May 1

Don't be fooled by Tribeca's press department, which keeps hooting about the Tuesday, May 6, Down With Love premiere as the "opening- night" hoo-ah that kicks off the festival. On May 1, Vanity Fair editor in chief Graydon Carter and festival co-founder Robert De Niro-two men who have very different opinions about hair styles-host a kickoff dinner at the State Supreme Courthouse on Centre Street. What, is somebody expecting a lawsuit or something?

May 3

See May 1. The festival begins three days earlier than announced with a Family Film Festival. At noon, The Maldonado Miracle , directed by Salma Hayek, will premiere. It stars Peter Fonda, Mare Winningham and Rubèn Blades, and it's about a miracle involving a statue of Christ and an illegal immigrant. Somebody alert John Ashcroft!

If you prefer your children's fare Christ-light, check out Shaolin Soccer . The Miramax-distributed Stephen Chow comedy is supposed to be wonderful and features Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon minx Bai Ling, and made $60 million in Hong Kong alone.

[ The Maldonado Miracle : U.A. 5 at noon; Shaolin Soccer : U.A. 10 at 12:45 p.m.]

Saturday also marks the first day of the I Spy Tribeca Interactive Scavenger Hunt , recommended for children ages 5-9. Players will scurry around the neighborhood in groups, armed with riddles and workbooks inspired by photographer Walter Wick's series of books and games for Scholastic.

Hey, kids! I Spy fatty toro for $15 apiece! I Spy Bob (The Secretly More Intriguing Brother) Weinstein! [Tribeca Film Center, 3 p.m.]

May 4

Sunday features the sold-out world premiere of Daddy Day Care, the Eddie Murphy comedy that is as close to a sure-fire hit as anything at this year's festival. The film has tested through the roof, and its ubiquitous trailer-pee-pee on the ceiling!-has left audiences and Joe Roth's Revolution Studios shpritzing with hope.

"Our previews have indicated that it's for everybody, parents and the children alike," said Revolution partner Todd Garner. "Eddie is right back where people love to see him-funny and heartwarming."

Those of you whose funny and heartwarming memories of Mr. Murphy include his telling Bill Cosby to "have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up!"-not to mention co-star Anjelica Huston's turn as Maerose "Right here. On the Oriental. With all the lights on" Prizzi-will be as surprised as we were to learn that Mr. Murphy is now a veritable kid franchise, what with Dr. Doolittle I and II , The Nutty Professor and Shrek.

Daddy Day Care was one of the first festival movies to sell out, and producer Christine Vachon said, "That's the one I can't wait to see. [My daughter] Guthrie and I are there like the first weekend! That, and the pixilated fish movie!"

Alas, Pixar's Finding Nemo won't be screening at Tribeca.

For those who were shut out, the company that brought you Shakespeare in Love is here to present an alternative- Pokémon Heroes!

Not only will Miramax screen the latest movie about the weirdly species-ambiguous creatures, they will also present Pokémon characters roaming Tribeca's broad avenues. Give a wave to that yellow ball of fur streaking past you to get to Bubby's-it just might be Miramax spokesman Matthew Hiltzik in his Pikachu costume!

For Manhattan teens who get all smirky when they hear the word Squirtle, there's another offering: rock star Dave Matthews, making his film debut in the adaptation of Wilson Rawls' novel, Where the Red Fern Grows . But forget him! Dabney Coleman, next in line at the Bill Murray Career Renaissance Ride at Six Flags, is also in the movie.

[ Daddy Day Care: 2:30 p.m. at U.A. 5; Pokémon Heroes : 12:15 at U.A. 10; Where the Red Fern Grows : 10:15 p.m. at U.A. 4]

If you're over 12 and not a pervert, Tribeca might not be for you this weekend.

Consider marching across the Brooklyn Bridge-sing that Björk "Quiet" song like the Sex and the City women and see how many people try to stab you-to check out the Brooklyn International Film Festival.

On Sunday, catch the BIFF's grand finale: a screening of the Ben Stiller executive-produced Crooked Lines . "It's not exactly star-studded," said BIFF spokesman Matt Heindl. Pshaw! The film's stars-Colin Quinn and Burt Young-will be there. Mr. Stiller won't be.

May 6

The Black Filmmakers program provides a double bill of Spike Lee. At 6:30 p.m. is She's Gotta Have It (1986), Mr. Lee's breakthrough film. At 9 p.m., there's Do the Right Thing , the 1989 movie that you think about on every sweltering summer day in Brooklyn, or whenever you want to think nice thoughts about Danny Aiello. At 8:30, check out Charles Laughton's masterpiece, The Night of the Hunter , the screenplay of which was written by that master of bull's-eye brevity, James Agee. According to press materials, the festival is presenting a version replete with all kinds of cuts and outtakes. Hope that the "extras" don't include a mini-documentary on all the boneheads and ex-cons who were inspired to get "Love" and "Hate" tattooed on their knuckles after seeing the picture.

Those knuckles belong to the extremely creepy Reverend Harry Powell, played by Robert Mitchum, who does battle with Lillian Gish and a couple of kids and has loads of memorable lines, such as the one-sided conversation with God in which he says: "There are things you do hate, Lord: perfume-smellin' things, lacy things, things with curly hair."

The bad reverend also says, "Salvation is a last-minute business"-but if you're watching Mitchum at 8:30, chances are you weren't asked to be part of the rapture at 6 p.m., wherein Ms. Rosenthal and Mr. De Niro invite all their perfume-smellin' friends to the premiere of Fox's Down with Love , the kicky homage to Rock Hudson–Doris Day movies that stars Ewan McGregor, Renée Zellweger and the two spring peepers that reside in her cheeks.

Director Peyton Reed made 2000's smart, fun Bring It On . Down with Love reverses those priorities, but Mr. Reed makes 1963 Manhattan-the Pan Am Building, Brentanos, Ed Sullivan-as much of a character as Mr. McGregor or Ms. Zellweger, and boy, it feels good-even if, in his New York, the United Nations building sits across the street from Grand Central Terminal.

[ She's Gotta Have It : 6:30 p.m. at U.A. 2; Do The Right Thing : 9 p.m. at U.A. 2; The Night of the Hunter : 8:30 p.m. at Pace University; Down with Love : 6 p.m. at U.A. 5, 7:30 p.m. at Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 8 p.m. at U.A. 10]

May 7

Today, Tribeca resembles Sundance, with a host of much-talked-about independent films. Attention self-obsessed, self-loathing, self-abusers, have we got a cautionary tale for you! Turn off Six Lays, Seven Nights and check out Love Object , about a lonely guy who buys a $10,750 silicone sex doll and dresses it up like the object of his affection. Hey, didn't we see that on HBO's Real Sex ? Not this part: When his real crush starts talking to him, the deflowered doll is not happy-and who can blame her?

Ed Pressman, head of Content Films, which produced Love Object , said, "[Director] Robert Parigi is the new Brian De Palma." He should know. Mr. Pressman worked with Mr. De Palma on Sisters . Hey, didn't he say that about Wendigo director Larry Fessenden a few years ago?

Another midnight show, 28 Days Later -not to be confused with the Sandra Bullock rehab snoozer, 28 Days -wins this year's Grim Zeitgeist award. This thriller about an apocalyptic virus called "Rage" - not to be confused with the Scott Rudin employee-training seminar - concludes with a Q&A with screenwriter Alex Garland.

"It's just a paranoid film, a film about paranoia," said Mr. Garland.

Note to Mr. Garland: Don't get too friendly with festival attendees who show up for a 2 a.m. schmooze session.

For self-abusers of a different variety, there's My House in Umbria , another movie featuring Maggie Smith in Italy. See also: Tea with Mussolini, A Room with a View and The Honey Pot . No, wait. Don't see Tea with Mussolini .

You're already too late to score tickets for Step Into Liquid , the surfing documentary directed by Dana Brown, the son of Endless Summer director Bruce Brown. A screening of the film in Santa Barbara drew 4,000 viewers. And director Forest Whittaker, "a friend of the film," brought it to NoDance, the alternative to SlamDance, which is the alternative to Sundance - all of which take place in January and are pretty much becoming the same commercial rat-fuck so why don't you all get over yourselves already.

The movie doesn't just have incredible word of mouth. It also has megolithic financial backing from Microsoft, which Peter Newman, the film's producer's representative said will include trailers on 6 million units of product this fall as part of its bid to get into digital distribution.

And there's The Shape of Things , the latest in writer-director Neil LaBute's blood-curdling portrayals of relations between the sexes. The movie screened well at Sundance.

[ Love Object : midnight at U.A. 12; 28 Days Later : midnight at U.A. 10; My House in Umbria : 9 p.m. at Pace University; Step Into Liquid : 9 p.m. at U.A. 9; The Shape of Things: 6 p.m. at Pace University]

Today is the beginning of the very best and weirdest part of the Tribeca Film Festival - the Panel Discussions!

For those who just can't get enough of the warmth and wisdom of Mr. LaBute, welcome to Directors on Directing , a conversation between Mr. LaBute and Liev Schreiber. Expect Mr. Schreiber's small Jack Russell terrier, Chicken, to show up, once again throwing his sexuality into question.

[Directors on Directing, 8:30 a.m. at the Prada store]

May 8

Tribeca screens one of the week's most lauded films, Jim Sheridan's (My Left Foot ) semi-autobiographical In America . The movie got a great Toronto reception, but it's been kicking around for some time. You've probably saw previews at Christmas time, though the film won't open until Thanksgiving.

"It's been around for a hell of a long time," said Mr. Sheridan from Dublin. "[Fox Searchlight] wanted to release it this Spring, but I thought it more an Autumn film."

Mr. Sheridan will be here for the Tribeca screening, where he says he hopes it goes over well. "Sometimes, at film festivals, they like them to be more intellectual. This is heartwarming and optimistic. Sometimes people don't like that so much."

Oh, buddy, are you coming to the right festival.

Particles of Truth , directed by a woman - mirabile dictu! - is about the relationship between a woman dealing with her father's drug-addled decline and a recluse who spends all his time writing in a car.

"It's a nice car," said Queer as Folk actor Gale Harold, who plays the scribe. "I mean, it has really nice wheels and tires and leather seats and a sun-roof."

What you won't see today is Comandante , Oliver Stone's movie about Fidel Castro, which was yanked due to the changing political climate in Cuba. Whoops! Too late for the festival guide, which described the movie as "an incomparable snapshot - as compelling for what is revealed as for what is not." So canceling it just makes it more compelling, right?

"I thought that Ramones movie was fantastic," said Magnolia Pictures head Eamonn Bowles, in reference to tonight's screening of End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones . Mr. Bowles is in a garage-punk band the Martinets and said he's also heard good things about the other Ramones documentary, Hey Is Dee Dee Home , which showed May 7 at midnight.

Il Buono, Il Bruto, Il Cattivo , also known as Sergio Leone's 1965 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, is fifteen minutes longer than it used to be, and if he makes it back in time, Mr. Scorsese's going to introduce it.

At 6 p.m.-hoo-ah!-Mr. Pacino sits down to talk about Chinese Coffee , his adaptation of Ira Lewis' stage play, in which he starred with Jerry Orbach and which has been an obsession of his since long before he started saying, "Hoo-ah!" Speaking of Pacino catch phrases, expect some wiseacre to start shouting, "And Harry, Jimmy, Trent, wherever you are out there, fuck you too!" Trust us, he's heard it before."

We almost forgot. Panel time! From the people who brought you yesterday's Directors on Directing comes today's Actors on Acting -paging Jon Lovitz! The panel will be moderated by Variety editor Peter Bart, and feature actors Paul Rudd, Helen Hunt, John Turturro, and the sublime (and newly erotic) Edie Falco.

Mr. Bart said that he'd moderated a panel last year and "found it was a really very stimulating audience. I liked the energy of the place."

Finally, tonight kicks off Tribeca's 1950's Style Drive-In on Pier 25. In this post-Lizzie Grubman-at-Conscience Point world, however, the press release for the Drive-In event, which is co-sponsored by General Motors, stresses the following: "pedestrian traffic only."

[ In America : 9:30 p.m. at Pace University; Particles of Truth : 9:30 p.m. at U.A. 16; End of the Century : midnight at U.A. 16; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly : 6 p.m. at Pace University; Chinese Coffee : 6 p.m. at Tribeca Performing Arts Center ; Actors on Acting: 1 p.m. at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center; 1950's-Style Drive-In: 8 p.m. at Pier 25.]

May 9

It's a slow movie day at Tribeca, but take a lunch break and catch the newly restored Barefoot Contessa with Bogie and Ava Gardner. Go back to work and feel ugly for the rest of the day.

Later, check out An Amazing Couple , the second installment of Lucas Belvaux's trilogy, all of which are screening here. Each film is stylistically different, but the characters are interwoven.

"There will be a character in one movie who's a real asshole," said Mr. Bowles, whose Magnolia Pictures is distributing the films, "but then in the next you'll see the events from his point of view." Sounds like a Ken Auletta story.

Tonight at the Drive-In from which cars are banned: Diner ! See Mickey Rourke before he had a little dog like Liev Schreiber's.

[ The Barefoot Contessa : noon at Pace University; An Amazing Couple : 4 p.m. at U.A. 12; Diner , 8 p.m. at Pier 25]

May 10

It's Saturday; do you love Tribeca yet?

You will by the time you've roamed the street fair , where at an American Express activity center-attention, Tom Ridge!-kids can create their own festival credentials.

But if you really want to have a laugh-hoo-aah!-at the expense of your 6-year-old, take her to Professor Pacino's workshop, where he'll be teaching secondary school students all about understanding, directing, and acting in Shakespeare. This will be followed by a screening of Looking for Richard.

Miramax's Dirty Pretty Things has garnered terrific reviews in Europe. Director Stephen Frears ( My Beautiful Laundrette ), at work in London on a television film about Tony Blair, said "I have no idea how it will do in America. You're so peculiar over there." As for what his film-which is about Nigerian immigrants making their way in London and also includes the non-Nigerian Audrey Tatou-is doing at the Tribeca Film Festival, Mr. Frears said: "I have no idea. You'll have to ask Harvey."

A message to all you boys who harbor obsessions with Jack Kerouac and dreams of driving forever and writing your endless masterpiece on a roll of toilet paper: Please stop dating; you're polluting the gene pool. That, and you'll probably dig today's documentary, Bukowski: Born Into This, about poet Charles Bukowski.

"There's this one scene where he breaks down and starts crying, and it's like seeing Darth Vader helping an old lady across the street or something, said Magnolia's Mr. Bowles, who's distributing the film.

You think it's heresy to remake the side-splitting Peter Falk comedy The In-Laws ? Blame the success of Tribeca Films' Meet the Parents . Imagining Michael Douglas yelling "Serpentine! Serpentine!" does make you want to cry, but at least his co-star Albert Brooks will be dodging the bullets. If it's all too sad for you, the original comes out on DVD on May 13. In the meantime, look for Mrs. Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones to steal the spotlight from both men-and anyone else who gets in the way-at the premiere.

[ Looking for Richard , 10 a.m. at U.A. 15; street fair, 10 a.m. at Greenwich Street; Dirty Pretty Things , 7 p.m. at U.A. 16; Bukowski: Born Into This , 5 p.m. at U.A. 5, The In-Laws , 8 p.m. at U.A. 5]

For the uber -nerdy, Law & Order producer Dick Wolf presides over a panel called Solving the Mystery: Forensics On Film. "Join us to explore the world of forensics on film," reads the press release. Join us to laugh our asses off at the nearest bar. The panel's sold out anyway. Meanwhile, our invitation to Stranger than Fiction: The Politics of Journalism & Film must have been lost in the mail.

Over at The Indies Go To Hollywood panel, actors Sam Rockwell and Patricia Clarkson, writer Kenneth Lonergan, and producer Christine Vachon will be jawing away while beanstalk lawyer/producer John Sloss "moderates," which is not a term that has ever been used to describe how Mr. Sloss finds distributors for his clients' films.

Tonight, hoof it to Pier 25, where the final drive-in movie is a Grease Singalong . If Mr. Pacino shows up sporting a pompadour, look out!

[Solving the Mystery, 1 p.m. at Tribeca Performing Arts Center; Stranger Than Fiction, 8:30 a.m. at Tribeca Rooftop; Indies Go to Hollywood, 10:30 a.m. at Tribeca Performing Arts Center; Grease Singalong, 7 p.m. at Pier 25]

May 11

It's Mother's Day, and we're almost done. But not before some of the wackiest events yet!

Before a screening of The Princess Bride , there's going to be a fencing demonstration in Icarus Plaza to launch the activities leading up to the Fencing World Cup on June 12-15.

Who had to sleep with whom here?

For your mother who loves Robert De Niro -a lot-there's the 229-minute cut of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time In America . For our editor in chief, there's more of Jennifer Connelly.

And finally, there's The Italian Job.

Actor Ed Norton fought Paramount chief Sherry Lansing tooth and nail to get out of this movie, but The Italian Job is getting some remarkably good word of mouth.

"When I got to Paramount as VP of Production," said Mr. Bart, "the first picture they were making was the original Italian Job . It was sort of a curmudgeonly caper picture with a lot of attitude. The heavy was Noel Coward, which is slightly perverse. I don't think this picture has got that special perversity."

Maybe not. But it does close the Tribeca Film Festival; [Princess Bride : noon at Tribeca Performing Arts Center; Once Upon a Time in America : 2:30 p.m. at Pace University; The Italian Job , 4 p.m. at Tribeca Performing Arts Center]

Are you dreaming of a white Christmas? If so, the odds are that it's not like the one you used to know, but like the one Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby persuaded us we used to know. I mean, I grew up here in the Northeast, where it used to snow a lot more than it does now, but I don't recall sleigh bells tinkling in the snow. Nor were there all that many glistening treetops to be seen on West 96th Street.

I do, however, remember the fall of 1942, when "White Christmas" was No. 1 on Your Hit Parade and pouring out of every radio and jukebox. America was a year into the war, and things weren't going well for us: Our young men were dying in the South Pacific, far from sleigh bells, and nobody's days seemed very merry or bright. The overwhelming success of this song, given its instant nostalgia for a simpler world, made total sense. But at the time, no one could have predicted its transfiguration into an American icon; apart from anything else, it was simply another predictable hit for Bing-a couple of months earlier, "Be Careful, It's My Heart" was No. 2; a couple of months later, "Moonlight Becomes You" was No. 1.

Today, 60 years later, "White Christmas" remains a ubiquitous annual presence (think of malls and Muzak), probably the most omnipresent song ever written, and together with Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" and Clement Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (and shopping), the foundation of our secularized Christmas. Of course, some people still go to midnight mass, listen to (or sing in) Messiah and celebrate the birth of Christ with carols-the religious impulse and the combination of sentiment and consumerism aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. But Scrooge and Santa and Irving and Bing have made it easy for others to experience Christmas without a nod to Christianity.

In his new book, White Christmas , Jody Rosen spends a lot of time on this secularizing of a Christian festival by a Jewish songwriter-and of the general influence that Jewish writers and Hollywood moguls have had over America's cultural consciousness. His thinking is fuzzy (though not as fuzzy as his writing), but he's accurate in this: Berlin and Gershwin and Rodgers and Louis B. Mayer and the brothers Warner preferred to see themselves as Americans rather than as Jews. (Not coincidentally, the most sympathetic 30's Hollywood movie about Jews-and a big hit-was 20th Century Fox's The House of Rothschild , made by Hollywood's only Gentile mogul, Darryl F. Zanuck.)

Mr. Rosen's little book is an oddity, not least because the subject can't really sustain an entire volume on its own, which is why it reads at times like a piece of inflated feature journalism. It also suffers from the author's lack of context. He is, he tells us, a product of the era of "rock and soul and hip-hop," his book "inspired by [his] curiosity about the music"-that is, about the standards that make up the so-called Great American Songbook. In other words, he was starting from scratch. The good side of this is that he approaches Berlin and Crosby and their world with naïve enthusiasm, trotting out well-known facts and stories and legends as if they were real discoveries-which they clearly are to him. He's diligently read his way through the ever-expanding literature on popular music, and he's earnestly tried to sort it all out. As a result, his book, whatever its flaws, isn't cynical-it's a product of sincere infatuation, not calculation.

But Mr. Rosen's lack of context constantly undermines his authority. There's a lot in here about the movies-partly because "White Christmas" first turned up in the Crosby-Astaire picture Holiday Inn . (It's set in Connecticut; Chritsmas could be white.) But Mr. Rosen knows even less about Hollywood than he does about Tin Pan Alley. I'm not talking about careless surface errors, like spelling Aaron Copland "Aaron Copeland"; everybody makes them. But when he refers to Adolph Zukor, who spent his life creating and running Paramount, as head of 20th Century Fox (Zucker was still Paramount's chairman emeritus when he died, at the age of 103, in 1976) or to Samuel Goldwyn as the "head of Paramount's rival studio M-G-M"-this is in 1942, almost 20 years after he set up his independent Samuel Goldwyn Productions-he's revealing fundamental ignorance about his subject.

As for his knowledge of popular music, anyone who cites Johnny Mercer, a great lyricist who tossed off half a dozen or so tunes, as one of "Tin Pan Alley's most celebrated composers" along with Cole Porter and Harold Arlen, is out of his depth. Mr. Rosen is also wrong about there being almost no Depression-era songs that reflect the Depression. And he's wrong about the songs of the classic period speaking "almost exclusively in the voice of the white middle class"-Fats Waller and Andy Razaf and, for that matter, Cole Porter would have been surprised to hear that that's whose voice they were speaking in. It's hard to trust a guide who doesn't know the basic terrain.

Mr. Rosen's writing is terminally over-excited: Berlin "frostily refused permission to reprint his lyrics even to friends working on fawning tributes." And: "Berlin's cranky reputation was well-known, and the legends that swirled around his final years depicted a livid, thin-skinned old man, stalking the gloomy rooms of his East Side mansion: the Hermit of Beekman Place." And: "What the songwriter scarcely realized was that the most significant development in the saga of 'White Christmas' was to take place some months later, in the spring of 1942, back in California." It's his enthusiasm that carries him away; when he settles down, he can come up with interesting material. His account of how "White Christmas" began as a specialty number for a revue, then was held back and modified until Berlin found the ideal time and place and singer for what he knew was a great song, is entertaining in itself, as well as instructive about Berlin's shrewdness. He's right to emphasize that "White Christmas" was a wartime song, yet was "no 'Over There.' It was an 'over here,' a vision of home-front serenity, of the imperiled 'American way of life' that the nation was fighting to defend." And he draws an interesting parallel between the Jewish musicians, from Al Jolson to Harold Arlen, who were the sons of cantors, and "the great church-reared African-American singers-Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, James Brown, to name just the most illustrious-who reinvented sacred gospel music as secular soul and R&B."

In sum, this is not a book the world really needed-it's padded out, notional and factually unsteady-but it means well, and it reflects some of the virtues of its subject: sincerity and a corny and touching simplicity. So let's wish it and its author and its publisher a very merry Christmas. And may all our own Christmases be white.

Robert Gottlieb is the co-editor of Reading Lyrics (Pantheon).

Mr. Norton's appearance in Mr. Gray's film marks the culmination of a quiet but corrosive five-year contractual dispute between the actor and Paramount Pictures' Motion Picture Group chairman Sherry Lansing that recalls days when a more powerful studio system held its actors in choke holds.

Rob Friedman, C.O.O. and vice chairman of Paramount Pictures, told The Transom that Mr. Norton is "working happily and professionally" on The Italian Job , but confirmed that the actor took the role because it was "a contractual obligation" to the studio that "[went] out on a limb and [took] a chance" on him early in his career. Mr. Norton declined to comment for this article, but one of his attorneys, litigator Marty Singer, said that although Mr. Norton has decided not to enter into litigation with the studio, he feels that he was betrayed and lied to by Paramount executives.

Other film-industry sources said that the actor is furious at having been forced into the role, and that Ms. Lansing-who also declined to comment on this story-has won a small but crucial industry battle pertaining to the leverage that talent can wield over studios.

Mr. Norton's relationship with Paramount began in 1995 when the actor made his screen debut in the courtroom drama Primal Fear , which the studio produced. The actor's contract stipulated that he would be obligated to make two future movies for Paramount following the release of Primal Fear . He would be paid $75,000 for the first and approximately $125,000 for the second. Such stipulations are common in the film industry and ensure that a studio taking a chance on unproven talent will have the opportunity to cash in later should the actor connect with movie audiences.

Mr. Norton connected quicker than most, winning a Golden Globe and scoring an Oscar nomination for his Primal Fear performance . Soon he had been cast in Milos Forman's The People vs. Larry Flynt , which was distributed by Columbia Pictures, and was dating his co-star, Courtney Love. He took roles in Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You , for Miramax , and in New Line's controversial American History X , for which he was also nominated for an Oscar.

Though the clock stopped whenever Mr. Norton took on another project, time continued to tick away on the Paramount deal, with neither Mr. Norton nor the studio able to find a mutually satisfactory project on which to collaborate. When Mr. Norton began to negotiate with Fox to appear in David Fincher's Fight Club in early 1997, sources familiar with the situation said that the actor believed his Paramount option had expired.

But Paramount disagreed. According to sources familiar with the negotiations, the studio contended that Mr. Norton was contractually obligated to appear in a project called Twenty Billion that conflicted with the Fight Club production schedule. Those same sources said Paramount also sent a "preemption letter" to Fox explaining the situation. In response, Fox told Mr. Norton that it was unwilling to take on a legal battle with another studio, and that if he did not resolve his differences with Paramount, he would not be cast in Fight Club .

Sources close to Mr. Norton said that co-starring in Fight Club was so important to him that he decided to make peace with Paramount rather than fight the studio. Mr. Norton and his then-agent Ed Limato agreed to a settlement that would extend the terms of Mr. Norton's contract with Paramount.

Under the new terms of his agreement, Mr. Norton was obligated to do only one future movie for Paramount, for which he would be paid $1 million. After Fight Club wrapped, Mr. Norton and Paramount had 18 months to find a project they both liked. If they couldn't come to an agreement, the studio got another 24 months to assign Mr. Norton a project of their choice.

At that point, according to sources familiar with the situation, Mr. Norton had a meeting with Ms. Lansing in which he expressed concern at the possibility that he would ever be forced to take a part. These sources said that Ms. Lansing reassured him that he had nothing to worry about. According to Mr. Singer, "the quote was: 'I'll never force you to do a movie you don't want to do.'"

Mr. Friedman would not confirm that Ms. Lansing ever made a verbal promise to Mr. Norton, but rather said of Mr. Singer, "His job as a litigator is to build a case that he believes is an appropriate case. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's factually correct." Mr. Friedman added: "I don't believe he [Mr. Singer] was involved in the conversation and I wasn't involved in the conversation. That is a recollection that I believe he was probably told by his client. That doesn't mean it's true."

Either way, Mr. Norton and Ms. Lansing proceeded to spend years haggling over potential projects.

Mr. Singer said that Mr. Norton would have been happy to star in Paramount's 2000 picture, The Talented Mr. Ripley , but Matt Damon was cast instead. He said Mr. Norton also volunteered his services for any part in Paramount's upcoming Mission: Impossible 3 , which will be directed by Mr. Fincher, but he was not cast. According to the litigator, Mr. Norton also presented Paramount with the option of producing The 25th Hour , a Spike Lee feature with Philip Seymour Hoffman in which Mr. Norton wanted to star as a man about to begin a jail sentence. Paramount declined to take on the project. Mr. Norton shot it this summer for Disney.

A great deal of disagreement arose from Mr. Norton's decision to star in the 2001 picture The Score , with Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando. The Score was produced by Mandalay Pictures Entertainment, which at that time had a satellite deal with Paramount, which distributed the film. Mr. Friedman confirmed that Mr. Norton suggested it count as his Paramount option and that Paramount turned him down.

"Mandalay was the primary producer [on The Score ]," Mr. Friedman said. "We were [just] financial partners. They offered Mr. Norton the part, he accepted, and then tried to roll it over as his commitment to us." Paramount declined to let The Score count as the movie that fulfilled Mr. Norton's option.

Mr. Friedman refused to confirm any of the movies that the studio offered the actor, but sources close to the situation said that Paramount-suggested films that Mr. Norton rejected included Abandon , directed by Traffic screenwriter Stephen Gaghan, and The Core, a sci-fi drama starring Stanley Tucci and Hilary Swank. Mr. Friedman preferred to look at the big picture, noting: "There were seven years of attempts made to allow Mr. Norton to fulfill his obligation to Paramount."

In the spring of 2002 Paramount offered Mr. Norton a part in The Italian Job , which is about a group of criminals who create an enormous traffic jam so that they can get away in their Mini Coopers. Mr. Gray's previous features include 1996's Set It Off and 1998's The Negotiator . Mr. Norton, who had just completed Red Dragon and was about to begin shooting The 25th Hour , told Paramount no.

But in late April, Mr. Norton received a letter informing him that he didn't have a choice, and that the studio was exercising its option to force him to do a project. Sources close to the situation said that Mr. Norton got on the phone with Ms. Lansing to express his anger at the situation and remind her of her promise. The phone call did not make a difference.

It was then that Mr. Norton called in Mr. Singer, who sent the studio a letter "suggesting that they re-evaluate their position … and that it was not appropriate to force him to do a movie against his will." Paramount had hired its own litigator, Patricia Glaser, who, according to Mr. Singer, promptly "threatened to file a law suit immediately unless he [Mr. Norton] agreed to do [ The Italian Job ]."

"Mr. Norton was told that he would never have to do a movie against his wishes and Paramount was insisting that he do this movie. And if he didn't agree they'd sue him," said Mr. Singer. "Rather than get involved in extensive litigation, [Mr. Norton] agreed to do the movie."

"Usually the studios work with the actor or actress and don't force them to do the movies," said Mr. Singer, who has handled similar cases before, though he declined to name his clients.

How will Mr. Norton's ire impact The Italian Job ? As Mr. Singer pointed out, "If you want the best possible performance and the best possible movie, you wouldn't want to force an actor of his caliber to perform against his will."

A well-known producer was blunter. "I want to find out what happened to this director's testicles," said the producer. "If I were a director with brains and balls, I'd say, 'This guy trashed me, trashed you [Paramount], and trashed the script!' and refuse to have him in my movie."

Mr. Gray did not return phone calls.

Mr. Friedman would only say that whatever Mr. Norton's grievances, "He's going to be there. He's been very professional about living up to his commitment and he's indicated as such in conversations with our management."

Donald De Line, producer of The Italian Job , agreed. He said that Mr. Norton had been to a costume fitting in New York last week, and had been working diligently on the project.

"He has given input on the script and his character and has contributed to making it a better piece," said Mr. De Line. "He's a brilliant actor and we're thrilled to have him in the movie." Paramount shifted the shooting schedule to accommodate Mr. Norton's Burn This commitment.

And so on Nov. 11 Mr. Norton will begin his month-long Italian Job , and possibly contemplate future legal action.

"We have not discussed it," said Mr. Singer. "But a representation [that Paramount would not force him to make a movie he didn't like] was made to him which has not been followed through on."

Mr. Singer stressed that for Mr. Norton, who now makes around $10 million a movie, taking a $9 million pay cut was not the problem.

"This was never about money," said Mr. Singer, who said that at no point did Mr. Norton agree to do The Italian Job for a bigger fee. "He wasn't looking to shirk his responsibility. He never said, 'I'm not going to do it.' He's just the kind of actor who will not do movies unless he feels strongly about them."

The Transom did not ask about Mr. Norton's strong feelings for 2001's Death to Smoochy .

Mr. Friedman said that the studio's issue was about an actor's "contractual obligation" to the place that gave him his break.

"For us not to have that [contractual] obligation fulfilled would set a very dangerous precedent that we can't live with," said Mr. Friedman. "That's not only for us, but for the rest of the industry."

Reese's Peace

Give Reese Witherspoon credit for understanding the perils of celebrity. Ms. Witherspoon didn't exactly look like she was enjoying herself at the post-premiere party for her film Sweet Home Alabama at the Altman Building on Sept. 23. Her husband, Ryan Phillippe, had accompanied the actress into the soirée then disappeared with his cell phone, leaving the wispy Ms. Witherspoon to the media pack. But the actress, who kept her dark trench coat on for the duration of the event, stood in the center of the room and politely answered journalists' questions-even the difficult ones. When The Transom asked Ms. Witherspoon if there was any truth to the rumors that her marriage was on the rocks, she replied: "Rumors are rumors. I know the truth, and I'm very happy." Ms. Witherspoon didn't appear happy, but also didn't ask her publicist to eject us from the state of New York. Indeed, when she noticed The Transom's discomfort at asking the question, she clapped us on the arm and said: "Don't sweat it. I understand. It's your job."

-Noelle Hancock

Ba-Rocco DiSpirito

The theme was Belle Epoque, and Union Pacific chef Rocco DiSpirito seemed to be in a baroque frame of mind at the Perrier Jouët–sponsored costume-ball benefit for the American Ballet Theater on Sept. 19. When The Transom ran into Mr. DiSpirito at the event, which was held at the Surrogate's Court building on Chambers Street, we asked him why he wasn't working. "Work … work … an interesting concept… " said Mr. DiSpirito, who was dressed in a brown velvet jacket and brown plaid trousers. And then he said something about "pancakes" that we couldn't quite understand.

In one respect, the chef had been working-as a judge for the rather lackluster costume parade that had taken place during dessert. "It's always been my dream to determine the winner of a Belle Epoque Black Tie Gala," Mr. DiSpirito said with the sincerity of Don Rickles. "So they organized all of this so that I could have my moment, my big lifetime dream. It's thrilling. Absolutely thrilling."

Then Mr. DiSpirito volunteered that he had a "lot of crazy dreams that most people would label as insanity."

Like what? The Transom asked.

"I'd like to be a judge at the benefit for the world's shortest man," he said with a regal air. "I'm fond of midgets, midgets make me very happy. And then maybe the best Asian prostitute contest, that would be fun too. I wouldn't actually test myself. I'd have to take the word of qualified testers." Oh.

-Elisabeth Franck

Magic Is Hell

On Sept. 16, David Copperfield, who has been branded by the Library of Congress as an official "Living Legend," turned 46. On Sept. 20, he celebrated his birthday at the GQ Lounge at Pressure, located under the tennis bubble above Bowlmor Lanes on University Place.

Mr. Copperfield claimed to be at the party stag, having broken up in the spring with a girlfriend of two years.

"I'm a Virgo," he announced to a small crowd ensconced on a mound of Fila pillows near a wall where Kenneth Cole quotes were being projected. "Being a Virgo means I'm a perfectionist, and I'm detail oriented. It also means I have big feet and big hands and … " Yes? "Well, two out of three ain't bad!" he said with a smarmy smile.

A dark-haired girl in a backless dress rushed up to the swarthy guest of honor.

"I saw your specials on prime time when I was 12 and I thought they were awesome!" she yelped.

He smiled coyly. "That must mean you are of age by now? I'm good at mathemagic."

He suddenly dropped to his knees, put his right palm to the ground and rotated his hand around 360 degrees.

It was an evening of many such enigmas.

Matt Dillon, Donald Trump and Tommy Hilfiger all stopped by to toast Mr. Copperfield, a self-proclaimed "Communicator of the Impossible." The magician's parents, Rebecca and Hy Kotkin, originally of Metuchen, N.J., were also in attendance. They'd escorted him to see Hairspray earlier in the week.

"He has intensive eyes," said plastic-surgery poster-monster Jocelyne Wildenstein, the big-haired divorcée who was wearing a necklace and cuffs she'd had made out of gold and the hair of elephants-Jackie and Dumbo-who she'd owned in Kenya "before zee divorce." She said she'd first met Mr. Copperfield at a polo party in London when he was still with "what's-her-name." We assume she meant Claudia Schiffer, Mr. Copperfield's ex-fiancée, whose mug was ironically flashed occasionally on the lounge's many L.C.D. screens that were showing a loop of footage from fashion shows of yesteryear.

Over near a room full of red velvet beds, Chloë Sevigny-clad in a black turtleneck with black suspenders, cut-off jean shorts and high-heeled lace-up boots-chugged beer while shooting pool. She explained that she and Mr. Copperfield currently share a hairdresser, Jeff Francis.

Meanwhile, Paris Hilton, who seemed to be fresh off some designer's runway-there was still black lace glued above her left eye-discussed magic as she hung on to her boyfriend, Tommy Hilfiger underwear model Jason Shaw.

"David Blaine levitating is phat!" she said. A friend whispered in her ear and she blushed.

"Oh, yeah. David Copperfield is cool, too," she said.

Had she ever performed a magic trick?

"I can make McDonald's French fries disappear! And I made him fall in love with me," she cooed, flashing a massive diamond which she said was a family heirloom and not an engagement ring. "We're not engaged yet, but we will be soon," she told us. Ms. Hilton also said that as a child she was good at making small change vanish.

Back over near the Fila pillows, a leggy brunette balanced a hamburger platter on her knees and didn't even look up as Mr. Copperfield, clad in a bloused white shirt, announced he was about to perform an illusion. He stuck his nose in the air, threw his shoulders back, breathed deeply and slowly walked a small circle through a loosely gathered group of people who weren't paying attention to him.

"See! I moved around and I didn't say excuse me once!" he said.

-Anna Jane Grossman

Mr. Ramer is the novice author of The Joy of Trek: How to Enhance Your Relationship With a Star Trek Fan , a canny, self-mocking guide to the science fiction franchise that has fed thousands of nerds' future fetishes. Mr. Ramer intended his book to help non-Trekkers catch up with all the arcana and gadget-mania that makes viewing the show so off-putting.

Mr. Ramer wrote the 217-page guide, published in 1997 by Carol Publishing Group Inc., without permission of Paramount Pictures Corporation, a fact he points out in a cover disclaimer: "This book has not been authorized by any entity involved with the creation or production of Star Trek ." Paramount soon sued, asking for $23 million in damages, $100,000 for each of 230 episode citations. In June 1998, Star Trek 's copyright holders convinced a Federal judge in Manhattan that Mr. Ramer had lovingly included too many details from the franchise's television episodes, movies and spinoff books in chapters like "How Did Scotty Get So Old and Fat?" The judge ordered the book's distribution stopped. As they say in Klingon, net'oy !–that hurts! Mr. Ramer and his publisher appealed.

The appellate argument, scheduled for April, will focus on how much "fair use" a fan can make of his favorite show when writing about it for money. Beyond that, in an age of multilayered media empires, the case could fire up a feud between the executives at the top of synergy and the writers down below. "It cuts both ways," said Steven Schragis, the lawyer-owner of Carol. "The concept of what is and isn't fair use, in a world where there's so much branding and so much controlled by media outlets, would be welcome."

In the case of Mr. Ramer's book, most of the legal argument will focus on the middle chapters. Judge Samuel Conti of Federal District Court in Manhattan and the litigants agree that the author's first 48 pages and his last 27 pages of conclusion, in which he reviews the allure and annoyances of Trek culture, qualify as legitimate original commentary. But, the judge ruled, the 158 pages in between are too heavy on plot, character and trivia synopses of Star Trek 's 530 episodes and eight feature films and too light on analysis. "These chapters do not add anything substantial that is new to the Star Trek story," wrote Judge Conti.

One legal scholar who read the decision thought the appeal would go Paramount's way. "If you have 158 pages of summary, it's going to be hard to win," said Hugh Hansen, a law professor at Fordham University and the author of Intellectual Property Law and Policy . He said that Carol's protestations about the book's intellectual value was unlikely to distract the appellate judges from the book's target: its buyers. "They're not buying this book for critical analysis or insights, they're buying this to get in on the game, so to speak," Mr. Hansen added. The book's cover indeed describes it as "everything a Star Trek novice needs to know."

Judge Conti provided Mr. Ramer's lawyer, Leon Friedman, with fuel for the appeal with one finding. "Mr. Ramer was motivated, to a large extent, by a genuine desire to help others understand the idiosyncrasies of the typical Trekker," the judge wrote. Mr. Friedman (along with Carol's attorney Melvin Wulf, a former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union who was a key lawyer on the Pentagon Papers case) used that opening to claim in their appellate brief that, in 1991, the Supreme Court appeared to smile on works like Mr. Ramer's: "The primary objective of copyright is … 'to promote the Progress of Science and Useful Arts.' To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work." Now the question is, does Mr. Ramer's book represent the advance of science and the useful arts?

Mr. Ramer, who is not insured against damages, desperately wants to keep his book from getting pulped. In a phone interview conducted after he had interviewed some police witnesses for a case, he told N.Y. Law that he is willing to rewrite, for free, all the supposedly offending passages to suit Paramount's taste. "I've even said to them, listen, we'll give you the book if you just let it live. They said they won't license it, they want it destroyed. And they will not explain why." A Paramount spokesman and lawyers declined to comment.

Now 35, Mr. Ramer views his Star Trek devotion as the bootstrap that lifted him from a single-parent household in the South Bronx to the top-rank Bronx High School of Science and to the District Attorney's office. "There were a lot of bright kids stuck in bad situations," he said. "We saw that one day our way of thinking would triumph–that smart people would be respected, and that technology would invent new ways for people to express themselves and surpass the limitations that they had."

The show also gave him some non-Bronx notions about his job: "It's chock-full of the 60's progressive idea of criminal behavior as something that can be cured. I'm not sure how valid that is, but it's a nice idea." Then, too, the show has featured plenty of trials, including three courts-martial of Captain Kirk. (In the one where Captain Kirk was accused of murder, he was defended against computer evidence by a famous 23rd-century attorney, Sam T. Cogley. The commander was also brought up on charges of resisting mandatory retirement, and for being a woman in a man's body.)

Carol's motivation for publishing is less philosophical. Mr. Schragis, the co-founder of Spy magazine who has pushed Carol to the top of the down-market publishing heap–attracting lots of boldface references in the gossip columns in the process–has already gotten into a heap of copyright trouble with other media companies by targeting books for couch potatoes. And Carol's frequent nemesis has been Paramount, which has sued Carol over five Star Trek books, a Cheers book and a Frasier book. Castle Rock Entertainment had sued over a Seinfeld book, and 20th Century Fox Television had taken Carol to court over three X-Files books. In early February, Carol, spurred by a Federal judge's earlier ruling that its Seinfeld Achievement Test was not a fair use of copyrighted material, agreed to scuttle all but Mr. Ramer's book and Beyond Mulder and Scully , a similar fan book that was attacked only for a couple of unauthorized photos. If you own What's Your Frasier I.Q.? , it's now officially contraband.

Why is Carol holding out on Mr. Ramer's book? Mr. Schragis views it as more literary than Seinfeld and the other quiz book offerings. " The Joy of Trek is sort of a next generation," he contended. "Paramount's argument is, well, if under [Seinfeld] this is illegal, this is an infringement, so why don't we take it farther and call a book like Joy of Trek an infringement."

Scholars pooh-poohed Mr. Schragis' notion that academics and serious critics will be the next to get sued. "We're talking about the spinoff market, not talking about the turgid tome market," said Jane Ginsburg, a professor of intellectual property law at Columbia University. Mr. Hansen of Fordham agreed: "Its niche in the marketplace is not one the courts are going to bend over backwards to protect."

But Mr. Hansen, at least, thought Mr. Ramer's attorney could have more success with the argument that courts are going too far to protect companies' rights to spinoffs. Copyright law's original mission, he explained, was to quash copycat plot and title theft (tuxedo-wearing spy fights global bad-guy with a drink in hand, the name's James Blond). "Maybe he can get the Second Circuit to listen if he makes the argument that it's time to rethink this whole body of law, the whole way of protecting copyright."

Mr. Ramer thought he had put together a fair and original commentary. "In order to write about Spock, you have to know some key things about Spock. You can't write about how important Spock is without talking about what makes him tick as a character. If you say Spock mates only once every seven years, does that mean you are stealing Star Trek ?… In my opinion, there were some episodes that were important for Spock's character. All I did was write two or three sentences telling you why these are important, and why, if you want to watch Star Trek , in my opinion you need to watch these."

This prosecutor can't stand the implication that he is a thief. "They say that I stole; basically, they say I copied the show. When I think of copying a show, I think of selling a videotape on a street, or copying it verbatim and saying it's yours, or copying it in such dramatic detail so that you don't have to watch the program. What I did was to help people understand the show, understand what the characters were about."

As a fan suffering through the dark days of the late 1970's and early 1980's, he wrote to Paramount to urge them to put out more Trek product. Now he's gotten more than he asked for. "I think they've just decided after 30 years of fans promoting the show, of really being involved with it, and really proselytizing Star Trek and its vision, they've decided it's a commodity like anything else, and they want to control every aspect of it."

Leaks Case, Updated

In late January, Vincent Heintz was removed as lead prosecutor in the Federal case against John A. Gotti and bounced back to his old post with Mr. Ramer, in the office of the Bronx District Attorney. The reason: He had guided reporters to material damaging to Mr. Gotti. That blow, which removed the prosecutor who had been on the case the longest and knew the case the deepest, prompted U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White to issue a memo to the remaining three prosecutors on the case. From here on in, they must refer all reporters' calls to the press office.

Meanwhile, the investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility into Mr. Heintz's leaks apparently continues. At least one reporter, Jerry Capeci of the Daily News , who had accused the New York Post 's Federal courts reporter, Al Guart, of helping to turn Mr. Heintz in, said Mr. Heintz did not leak to him. "I've spoken to the guy like once," Mr. Capeci said.

Is the New York Post conducting an investigation of whether Mr. Guart deliberately triggered the probe of Mr. Heintz? The Post's managing editor for news, Stuart Marques, said he spoke to Mr. Guart, who told him he did not "intentionally burn any source … He said he wouldn't do that. He said he didn't do that.

"I have confidence in our reporter. Hopefully that'll be the end of it," said Mr. Marques.

You can reach N.Y. Law by e-mail at mfleischer@observer.com.

Brown plastic covers the windows. A sign says, "opening soonish," a claim that has been an industry joke for years. But right now, inside the unmarked building, there are … guests. Leonardo DiCaprio has slept here. So have Sofia Coppola and other assorted rich hipsters.

André Balazs, the hotel's owner, has been allowing people to try the place out for around $250 a night. So far, a select few have slept in the 38 available rooms (out of an eventual 75), giving Mr. Balazs and his staff a chance to do a little trouble-shooting before the formal opening in late April (too late for the next fashion week, alas). Mr. Balazs' "soft opening" also helps to generate a precious commodity: buzz. And Mr. Balazs, who also owns the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles and the Sunset Beach Hotel on Shelter Island, is going to need all the good word-of-mouth he can get. He'll be competing not only with the Paramount and Royalton hotels-Ian Schrager's midtown hot spots of the early 90's-but also the nearby SoHo Grand, which beat Mr. Balazs to the neighborhood when it opened in 1996.

On Feb. 25, at 10 P.M., an architect was getting ready for bed in his room on the fifth floor. Looking at ease in his terry-cloth bathrobe, which was open at the chest, he was happy to give an early review. "If you want something that's younger and cleaner and a little bit more visually pleasing, why not?" said the man, who did not want his name used. "And they've got great cleaning staff. I've never seen middle-aged Asian men as a cleaning staff. They're doing a good job. There's nothing bad to say about it. It's not the most beautiful thing in the world, but New York has nothing else like it, and that's why it's packed. There are all these people who want to say they're in the hot, hip new place-'It's not open yet, but I'm there, ha ha!'"

With former partner Campion Platt, Mr. Balazs purchased the landmark neo-Romanesque building, erected in 1888 by John Jacob Astor III, for $8.2 million in 1989. It was first set to open by late spring and then June of 1992. The opening was stretched to late summer 1992, then the fall, and so on. By the end of 1993, the hotel had run up costs of a reported $26 million, after legal, zoning and engineering problems, some neighborhood opposition, numerous consultants, the backing-out of a Japanese investment company, the murder of a construction manager and other setbacks. Work on the hotel ceased in 1993 and remained on hiatus until 1995 while Mr. Balazs did some refinancing. Construction resumed in February 1996.

The lobby is still a work in progress. Thick wires hang down from the ceiling. But it has oversized sofas, shelves filled with books ( Erotic Art, Beefcake ) bought in bulk from the Strand and a front desk made of African wenge wood. The woman tapping away at a laptop behind the desk, wearing all black and a pair of funky spectacles, did not look much like a clerk. There was one vacancy, at a bargain price of $250 a night (when the hotel opens, room rates will range from $285 for a single to approximately $1,500 for a loft suite).

A delivery guy showed up and was directed to the elevator. "Let me just call them so they know their food's coming up," the woman said. (A basement restaurant, a bar and room service are coming soonish, too). Onto the elevator, a stainless steel chamber out of an early James Bond film. The halls are bare and dim.

The rooms, by French interior design wizard Christian Liaigre, are serene. They seem perfectly square, with high ceilings, two simple armoires, a bed with crisp sheets and a plain couch. There's a Sony TV-cum-VCR (Web TV is on the way) and sisal rugs, the kind that crush when stepped on. The mini bar was full of soda, Kit-Kats, Cracker Jack, Toblerone and Dean & Deluca espresso beans covered in chocolate. The colors-browns and beiges and creams and whites-give a good feeling to the rooms and allow the morning light to come in unbroken through the windowed floor-to-ceiling French doors, which open out onto little wrought-iron Juliet balconies.

The Mercer is simple without being cold; if this is minimalism, it is a homey minimalism. A nice antidote to the stress of dealing with New York. And the bathrooms are big.

The architect on the fifth floor was happy overall, but like a lot of the seen-it-all types who will stay here, he had his little gripes. "Visually, there's nothing else like it in New York," he said. "It's not a bunch of tired old chintz and it's not like a glitz palace, like the St. Regis, or like the Four Seasons, with the glitzeroo hookers. It's a good location. There's nothing else downtown, other than the SoHo Grand, which has minuscule rooms. Not that this is the greatest thing on earth, but it's nice.

"It's nice not having framed prints by the yard on the wall. It's nice not having chintz. It's plain, it's calm, it's pleasant. Why would you want to stay at some glitz palace in midtown full of tourists wearing badges when what you really want is a big huge bathroom and nice sheets? The greatest thing about the room is everything's on a dimmer-it's all about comfort, good lighting and sex."

He eyed the light fixture above. "It's two light bulbs with a paper shade around them hanging from the ceiling with hardware store equipment, but it looks great." He fixed his gaze on the bathroom. "White tile, milk glass fixtures, very good use of the Italian marble. The nicest-done sinks. Open shower and a big ol' tub, a three-way mirror facing the tub. I think that would count as a king-sized tub. Big."

What about the bedside tables? "They're lovely, but you can only fit a slip of paper in them. And no phone books."

He looked up again. "It's a very chic-looking ceiling fan, not like one you'd see in a singles' bar on the East 70's. There's nothing else like it-that's the key. There's nothing else like this except the Ian Schragers with the minuscule rooms. Yeah, this is a perfectly nice place. It's a shame the room service isn't here yet. That would be nice. You know, 'soonish'-what is soonish? How about nowish? But I think they've thought through a sexy, young hotel. That's good. I hope they keep the sandblasted glass on the windows downstairs. It would be a shame if everyone could see in."

Up on the sixth floor, two women in their 20's, who described themselves as "two lovely British lasses" and "London girls," had just returned from dinner and smokes at Jerry's around the corner.

"There's no room service, but it doesn't really matter," said one. "I think it's really-I like it. The people are really friendly, really cool, the rooms are really nice, the baths are really big, and it's cool."

"I don't really like the hallway," said the other one. "You know what it reminds me of? The Paramount. It's very L.A. cocktail lounge 80's. But I don't like it. And it's all dark, I find it dark here."

"I think it's mellow," said the first one.

In a big room on the fourth floor, Tyler Brûlé, the Canadian editor of Wallpaper , a London-based home and style magazine, was sprawled across his bed dressed in head-to-toe Prada. Three friends were visiting Mr. Brûlé, lounging on the bed with him, watching basic cable and looking at photographs of models.

"This is my third time staying here already, so obviously I like it," Mr. Brûlé said. "There's something very residential about this hotel, in the Wallpaper sense, anyway. It doesn't seem very hotel-y to me. Does it feel hotel-y to you, Scott?"

"Oh, slightly," said Scott.

Mr. Brûlé said he normally stays uptown in the Four Seasons. "At the Four Seasons, I can get my shirts back in two hours," he said. "I can't here. In fact, last time I was here, the shirts didn't get back at all-they had to get sent to London! I wouldn't put up with that shit normally, but I did that time."

Anything else, pal?

"I think the location is fantastic and obviously it's probably the world's most anticipated hotel. It took so fucking long for it to open."

One of Mr. Brûlé's friends had another grievance: "How could they not have MTV here?"

"I made a request," Mr. Brûlé said. "They've got to get MTV, it's ridiculous. I mean, like, come on."

A woman who works in cancer treatment was staying on the fifth floor. She was here on business, doing work in the daytime at St. Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center.

She told of her impressions of the Mercer in a phone interview while she watched Late Show With David Letterman . "They've made a couple of mistakes, so they need to be really careful," she said, mentioning something about a fax of hers that was somehow sent to a competitor. "But they were really nice about it and they apologized. I think their staff is young, but when you call things to their attention, they're willing to correct it. They're friendly, they're prompt, so I think they'll get all the glitches ironed out. It's also pretty unpretentious and I hope that they keep it that way, because that's the cool thing about SoHo-it's pretty real."

She said she comes to New York every few weeks and plans to return to the hotel. "It's better than staying at a big, impersonal hotel and it's such a great location, and I like places that seem clean-the linens are washed all the time and it's not like you feel like you're sleeping in a bed that 500 other people have slept in.

"If I had known that they didn't have a restaurant and they didn't have a bar-and tomorrow I need to Fed Ex a bunch of stuff, which could potentially be a problem-I probably wouldn't have stayed here. I don't know if I agree with soft openings. People like me really need services. When I wake up in the morning, I start e-mailing Turkey, and I need a cup of coffee and I want it delivered to my room. But it's been O.K. I'm not sorry I stayed here. But I'm here by accident. If I had known it literally just opened, I would have stayed at the SoHo Grand and tried it out on my next visit.

"But it's good. The bathrooms are great. The fact that they give you big things of shampoo is good. They've got to get their liquor license. But by then, it's going to be a big fashion hotel, and then I'm never going to be able to get in here."