Téa Leoni picked up the Riverside Drive pad for $5.12 million—not exactly a tower heist.

Actor and actress couple David Duchovny and Téa Leoni haven't offloaded their old New York City triplex yet (though they've reportedly been broken up for almost two years), but Ms. Leoni has already moved on: the Deep Impact star just picked up a three-bedroom combo spread at 190 Riverside Drive.

The eighth-floor corner unit is decked out in a thoroughly traditional (dare we say geriatric?) style, with "exquisite detailed moldings, stained glass doors, original fireplace mantels, bay windows and coffered ceilings"—fancifully-coffered ceilings beyond the standard square patterns, by the looks of it—according the listing description.

Ms. Leoni.

Corcoran brokers Deanna Kory and Carlin Wright had the listing and, we're guessing, their fill of the hard candies that the sellers almost certainly kept in a little dish on the coffee table.

The unit only has two true bedrooms—that is, rooms with en-suite bathrooms and walk-in closets—but if Ms. Leoni's kids or guests are willing to slum it and walk through the hallway to reach the bathroom, the home can accommodate up to four  bedrooms.

Though the décor in Ms. Leoni's new apartment is sure to be cleared out before the actress takes up residence, we can see why she was drawn to the apartment. It's very much in line with Ms. Leoni and Mr. Duchovny's Upper East Side co-op maisonette, replete with overstuffed leather chairs, wooden cabinetry and kitchen chairs that look straight out of a 1950s diner. They are asking $9.25 million for their old first-floor triplex—a true maisonette, in that it has a separate street entrance.

For her new Upper West Side digs, though, Ms. Leoni paid $5.12 million, a bit below the $5.25 million asking price, to sellers Nathan Berry and Ceara Donnelley. Ms. Leoni may be a movie star, after all, but much like a mere mortal, her post-breakup pad is more modest than the married spread. Stars, they're just like us!

Kelly Ripa and hubby Mark Consuelos gettin' frisky!

Given that it was our second evening in a row at Cipriani's – albeit at the midtown franchise on this occasion – our usual penchant for the venue had been dampened somewhat, and the inclement weather certainly wasn’t helping. But the UNICEF Snowflake Ball managed to turn our well plucked frowns upside down in a glittering evening of philanthropic revelry, with celebrities in a multitude of fields pitching in to lend a hand. The sumptuous menu was designed by revered chefs; the entertainment led by a veritable swing legend, and the auction prizes donated by some of America’s hottest talent. It is fair to say that UNICEF, like the bartenders, got the mix just right.

Katy Perry was the evening’s surprise A-List attendee, swishing through the foyer’s revolving doors in a fishtail dress designed by another of the evening’s guests, Naeem Khan. The couturier’s wife, jewelry designer Ranjana Khan, recently ventured into reality TV land with several appearances on The Real Housewives of New York and was quick to dispel her involvement with any of the cattiness the show has become famed for.

“Being on RHONY was fun, but I didn’t get caught up in the drama,” she told The Observer on the red carpet. “My friend Carole [Radziwill] wanted me to be involved with the last season, and she’s returning for the next one, so I know she might want me to do something again.” Did Mrs. Khan just let an inside secret slip, perchance? Ms. Radziwill is yet to officially confirm her involvement with season six, but you heard it here straight from the jeweler’s mouth. The Observer 1, RHONY 0.

Indeed, spilling secrets seemed to be a trend throughout the evening, with Manhattan’s favorite crooner Tony Bennett revealing: “Lady Gaga called me last night from Peru. She wants to do an album together and we’re going to do it, just me and Gaga. It’s going to be a big swinging album with a big hot band.” Well, perhaps it wasn’t quite the juicy nugget we initially imagined, given that Mr. Bennett has been quoted as saying that the "Poker Face" singer called him the previous night from New Zealand with the idea for a collaborative record. That quote happened three months ago.

Given that Mr. Bennett is at the ripe old age of 86 and still put on a glorious show – some of which was without a microphone – we’ll forgive this little slip. But please be more careful next time, Tony, when toying with our Gaga-fueled emotions.

From genuine secrets to recycled ones, there was one couple on the red carpet who weren’t attempting to hide a thing – step forward Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos. The fruity pair didn’t miss a beat when volunteering to talk about their ahem, romantic interludes, with Ms. Ripa divulging: “We have an Indonesian holiday themed bedroom, and a bed from Bali. Which may or may not have broken once.” Quick, somebody call Poirot, we’ve got a cryptic case of too much information on our hands.

After the duo’s domino effect of smut polluted The Observer’s innocent mind, we went in search of some good clean fun at our table, where we dined with the chefs who put the menu together. Best-selling author and UNICEF ambassador of 12 years Marcus Samuelsson had drafted in help from fellow restaurateurs Michael Anthony and Marc Murphy, who co-created a meal trumped in deliciousness only by their company. As they wined and dined us with a feast of truffle lobster salad and Wagyu steak, the flavors of the food were perfectly enhanced by the Wynton Marsalis Quintet, whose jazzy tunes rose to the very top of Cipriani’s lofty ceilings.

Just edging out the edibles in terms of success was the auction, which contributed to the event's staggering $2.5m raised for the very deserving charity. A backstage pass with Selena Gomez, who was decked out in a floor length Dolce & Gabbana number for the event, scooped two high bids of $20,000 apiece, contributing to the money raised by other high bidders on lots for Lady Gaga tickets and a day on the Knicks’ court as player Tyson Chandler’s personal guest. The guests were not left wanting when it came to an eclectic mix of goods, and spunky auctioneer Courtney Booth of Sotheby’s coaxed the cash from the crowd’s pockets with ease.

There was just time to honor Harry Belafonte before the evening came to a close, and he undoubtedly made a deserving recipient of the Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award for his commitment to the charity over the past quarter of a decade. With the audience on their feet as he took to the stage, the emotion in the room was palpable.

It was clear that UNICEF was close to the hearts of all of the evening’s attendees, including Uma Thurman and Téa Leoni, and as we slunk out of Cipriani’s once more, the prospect of returning didn’t seem quite such an imposition.

Lindsay Lohan is once again harnessing the power of Myspace to remind fans to vote. [People] 

Justin Long, who previously dated Kirsten Dunst and Drew Barrymore, was spotted making out with, uh, Tila Tequila. [P6]

Charlize Theron settled her $20 million lawsuit with watchmaker Raymond Weil. [NYDN]

The supposedly separated Tea Leoni and David Duchovny held hands as they took their kids trick-or-treating on the Upper East Side Friday night. [P6]

A modest Angelina Jolie claims she is "just a punk kid with tattoos." [US Weekly]

Madonna and Guy Ritchie did not have a pre-nup, and the director is now reportedly looking for "a nice piece of the pie." [NYDN]

Prince deigned to visit the exclusive Eldridge only after he'd sent in an "advance man" to scope the place out. After arriving with five bodyguards, he stayed for about an hour before departing for Butter, where he installed his personal DJ. (This is all acceptable because he is Prince.) [P6]

Hermès heir Mathias Guerrand-Hermès assaulted the pilot of his Air France flight earlier this week. Apparently, he tried to "grab the pilot's crotch and punch him," a move that resulted in his being shackled to a first class seat for the remainder of the trip. [NYT via Cityfile]

Declining hot spot Bungalow 8 is now issuing invitations via Facebook. [Down By The Hipster]

David Duchovny's recent trip to rehab for sex addiction wasn't enough to save his marriage to Téa Leoni. [US Weekly]

Dennis Rodman stole a half-finished bottle of Champagne and two glasses from Bounce Uptown, then left without paying. [R&M]

Bristol Palin and putative fiance Levi Johnston were sporting tattoos of each other's names at the Republican National Convention last night.[US Weekly] 

Paris Hilton has canceled two screenings of Adrian Petty's film "Paris, Not France" at the Toronto International Film Festival "in an attempt to gain more publicity for [the] new documentary about herself." [P6]

Actress Anne Hathaway reportedly dumped conman boyfriend Raffaello Follieri over the phone six hours before he was arrested. [US Weekly]  

Not shockingly , the symptoms of actor David Duchovny's sex addiction included cheating on wife Tea Leoni. [NYDN] 

Donald Trump's sister-in-law Blaine Trump is divorcing his brother Robert, who has apparently been living on Long Island with another woman. [P6]

Meatpacking District staple G Spa is closing. [Down By The Hipster]

John Dahl’s You Kill Me, from a screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, reaffirms Mr. Dahl’s distinctive role as the Val Lewton of B movies for our time. His career has spanned almost two decades, and featured such minor neo-noir classics as Kill Me Again (1989) and Red Rock West (1992), peaking with Linda Fiorentino as an all-time femme fatale in The Last Seduction (1994), stumbling a bit with the excessive gimmickry of Unforgettable (1996), regaining some lost ground with Rounders (1998), Joy Ride (2001) and The Great Raid (2005), and now reaching new heights with the suitably homicidally entitled You Kill Me.

The movie’s mob intrigues begin in Buffalo, which is already a comic concept, what with its perpetually wintry goombahs, embodied in Philip Baker Hall’s overcoated Roman, battling for their share of the icy turf coveted by an invading Irish mob led by Dennis Farina’s O’Leary. It is at this tense moment that Ben Kingsley makes a not-so-grand entrance as the local hit man Frank Falanczyk, who has been ordered by his boss to eliminate O’Leary at a designated time and place. The problem is that Frank has become such a compulsive drunk that he falls asleep in his car while waiting for O’Leary to appear. Instead of being rubbed out for botching his assignment, Frank is sent to San Francisco by his curiously paternalistic though angry employer to enroll in an Alcoholics Anonymous program, while working as an undertaker’s assistant. Only an actor capable of Mr. Kingsley’s steely-eyed seriousness could endure these grotesque plot gambits without at least inwardly cracking up and giving the show away.

Frank ultimately rises to his feet at the A.A. meeting and tells his fellow alcoholics, male and female, that his drinking has made it impossible for him to perform in his profession, which, he explains explicitly, consists of killing people for business reasons. Frank’s Clausewitzian candor about capitalism seems to strike his listeners as perfectly reasonable. After all, if drink diminishes one’s capacity for earning a living even by killing people, that’s awful.

This outrageous humor extends somewhat more gruesomely to Frank’s duties in the funeral parlor, but we have been conditioned by the popular cable television series Six Feet Under to accept graveyard jokes as part of the human comedy. Frank unexpectedly finds a romantic soulmate in one of the relatives of the deceased, Téa Leoni’s tough-minded broad, Laurel. Ms. Leoni possesses a distinctive brand of deadpan comedy skill that has been absent from the screen for too long a time, and her smoldering intensity recalls Ida Lupino’s (1914-1995) noirish roles at Warner’s in the 40’s. Indeed, she is even more impressive here than Ms. Fiorentino was in The Last Seduction, simply because Ms. Leoni’s Laurel also succeeds in being warmly sympathetic by leading Frank to demon-drink-free salvation without cramping his style as a hit man, which is perhaps the most hilarious conceit of all. Along with the splendid principals, Luke Wilson as Tom, Frank’s moral support at A.A., and Bill Pullman as Dave, the Buffalo mob’s contact in San Francisco, round out an extraordinarily accomplished ensemble. Not that anyone in the cast, including Mr. Kingsley and Ms. Leoni, will be up for Oscars. But then no one in a Val Lewton movie was ever considered for an Oscar, either.

When I was a kid, I collected Captain Marvel and Superman , and considered Spider-Man a bus-and-truck version of Batman , so I know nothing about the Marvel Comics by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Judging from the dopey, lavishly overproduced new movie directed by Sam Raimi, I'd guess Spider-Man was an action hero created to enthrall readers under the age of 10. (By 10, I had graduated from Nancy and Sluggo to Archie, Betty and Veronica.) So I am just now catching up in time to discover what looks like about a trillion dollars' worth of digital effects and 25 cents' worth of plot.

By day, he is Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), a goony, bespectacled and conveniently orphaned college nerd with a special passion for arachnids, who lives with his kindly aunt and uncle (Rosemary Harris and Cliff Robertson) in an ugly row house in Queens. One day on a class science outing, he's bitten by a genetically altered spider, and when he wakes up the next morning, toned and magnetized with camera-ready pecs, he's been transformed from a human tweezer into-Pow! Zowie!- Spider-Man ! With revitalized superhuman strength, the shy egghead now flattens the bullies in the school cafeteria, climbs buildings, scales walls and flies from roof to roof on spider webs that shoot from his fingers like cotton-candy clotheslines. Crawling with subcutaneous insect juice, he is at last ready to trap New York's rats and hoods in his webs and win the admiration of Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), the unattainable girl next-door who plays Lois Lane to his Clark Kent.

None of this is as easy at it looks. Spider-Man's archenemy in fighting the criminal underworld is an evil nemesis called the Green Goblin. By day, he is a benevolent tycoon (Willem Dafoe) and the father of Peter's best friend, Harry (Golden Globe winner James Franco, the chiseled newcomer who scored memorably in the recent television biopic about James Dean). By night, he can fly, too-but his motives are destruction and death. The Green Goblin looks like a laminated praying mantis wearing an Islanders mask. This maleficent monster sprays a toxic insecticide that is lethal to Spider-Man as he wreaks havoc on the space program, the board of directors of his own corporation and especially Mary Jane. The movie works best when it's funny ("What is that thing?" "I dunno, but somebody's got to stop it!"), and the funniest actor in it is not Mr. Dafoe, who hisses like a leaky radiator, but J.K. Simmons, who has sprouted a full head of hair in a versatile turnaround from the bald sexual predator he plays on Oz . Mr. Simmons plays the ruthless, cliché-spouting, penny-pinching editor of the Daily Bugle , the sensation-seeking metropolitan rag where Peter works as a photographer. While nobody seems to wonder why Peter is the only cameraman in town who ever gets a picture of the web-spinning Spider-Man in action, Mary Jane knows there is something about Spider-Man's kiss that she just can't put a finger on.

And so it goes, with the villain blowing up the cable on the tram to Roosevelt Island, Mary Jane hanging from the 59th Street Bridge and Spider-Man in a dilemma about saving them all in one swoop. In the end, the secret of Spider-Man's true identity wins out over romance. Get ready for the sequel.

Despite all the technology, the special effects are cheesy, and despite the attempts to bring the characters to human dimensions, the actors are upstaged by the noise. Tobey Maguire's open-faced, saucer-eyed innocence worked to better advantage in The Cider House Rules and The Ice Storm . As Spider-Man, he's merely an inarticulate pawn. I liked Kirsten Dunst better as a blonde. As a sweater-girl sweetheart in garish red Dynel hair, she looks strangely tough and chalky. Willem Dafoe chews scenery even when you can't see his teeth. Cliff Robertson is the warmest, nicest uncle a spider ever had, but what can you do with lines like "With great power comes great responsibility"? The great Rosemary Harris, clearly on board for a handsome paycheck, bakes cookies and knits.

In Spider-Man , the stunt men do all the work. What to say about the silly but not fanciful enough script by David Koepp? He wrote the screenplay for one of my favorite movies ( Apartment Zero ). He also wrote one of the worst movies of all time ( Mission: Impossible ). I'm glad he's rich. Send the children to Spider-Man and stay home with Six Feet Under .

Woody Goes To Hollywood

For grown-up laughs, a moment of genuflection, please, for the continuing brilliance of Woody Allen. Hollywood Ending is his best film in years. After flirtations with Ingmar Bergman, Chekhov and German Impressionism, Woody has returned to top form, tweaking Hollywood filmmaking with the kind of fresh ideas, hilarious dialogue and classy satirical flourishes that can only blossom from a truly original mind.

Before the bouncy strains of Bing Crosby singing "Going Hollywood" fade, neurotic, self-destructive Val Waxman (Woody), a once-great Oscar-winning director of critically acclaimed art films now reduced to shooting geriatric diaper commercials, is offered a chance to make a comeback with a gritty $60 million gangster epic filmed on location in New York. He needs the job, and his sleazy agent (director Mark Rydell) gets him "half a million plus one-tenth of a percentage point after quadruple break-even." But the film is being financed by the slick, handsome studio chief (Treat Williams) who stole Val's now ex-wife, Ellie (Téa Leoni), and Val's own live-in bimbo (Debra Messing from Will and Grace ) demands a role in the picture herself-all of which drives his jealousy, shingles, heart palpitations, back problems, hearing loss, broken rotator cuff and ulcers into a Code 3 crisis.

Problems plague the film from the start. Val wants to make it in black and white with a Cole Porter score, like a … well, Woody Allen movie. The production designer (Isaac Mizrahi) wants to rebuild Harlem, Central Park and the Empire State Building. The costumer (Marian Seldes) is a Diana Vreeland clone who abhors every color but pink. The Chinese cameraman only speaks Mandarin. Worse, there's a journalist on the set covering the 10-week shoot for Esquire . But the coup de grâce is delivered the first day, when the director goes neurotically, psychosomatically blind.

Nobody plays frustration, like a wrinkled pug that has just been petted backwards, better than Woody. Muddling through it all with only his ex-wife in on the secret, Woody has created enough wacky pratfalls and delicious slapstick situations for himself and the beautiful, brainy and talented Ms. Leoni to catapult them both into a comedy dream team. By the time anyone gets a look at the rushes, it's a disaster all around-until, that is, Val, like Jerry Lewis, gets discovered by the French! It's sort of a Hollywood ending with escargot, which is not the least of Woody's inside jokes.

Ms. Leoni is the most glamorous Seeing Eye dog a sightless, card-carrying nut case ever had. Mr. Rydell is just perfect as the agent who will do anything to get his 10 percent and doesn't mind bending the rules because he doesn't have any. Curvaceous Tiffani Amber Thiessen has a lovely bit as the sexy leading lady who isn't secure or comfortable until she seduces the blind director, who feels her breasts and thinks they're sofa cushions. George Hamilton is a happy surprise, spoofing himself in the bargain as the vain, mysterious studio executive with no specific duties or abilities except to dress up the set with his Malibu tan and inquire discreetly about discount liposuction. (There's one on every picture, vaguely mumbling about "overages" and "demographics," and it's never clear what they are doing there.)

Hollywood Ending is a 40-carat cinematic jewel for anyone who has ever wondered about the insanity of a movie shot on location-and if you don't recognize the inmates, then it's obvious you've never visited one.

Dreck-Or Something Like It

The woefully derailed Life or Something Like It is not much of a movie. More of a train wreck-or something like it. Angelina Jolie may be many things, but a nice, upstanding career girl in sensible Laura Bush suits is not one of them. Playing a Seattle television reporter with tattoos discreetly concealed and a platinum wig, she looks like a trashy Mamie Van Doren-or is that an oxymoron? When a street prophet predicts she will die in one week, the self-involved material girl with a handsome baseball-star fiancé and a perfect job rethinks her values, repositions her priorities, turns a transit strike into a rock concert, falls in love with the cameraman she hates (Edward Burns, the poor man's Ben Affleck) and finds redemption before her time runs out by rediscovering the joys of sex.

But wait. On the last Friday before her biological clock ticks its way to the Pearly Gates, she gets a network nod from a Good Morning America –style morning show and grabs the first plane for New York. "You're still technically, legally and every other way alive," says the script. "It's still Thursday in Louisiana," says the not-very- jolie Ms. Jolie.

The speeded-up motion of city traffic and a lot of lousy pop songs are just two of the conceits director Stephen ( The Mighty Ducks ) Herek leans on to fill in the dead spots in a one-note plot. The script, by John Scott Shepherd, a Kansas City ad exec who cut his teeth on McDonald's commercials, is dead on arrival. The film is formulaic, delusional and about as accurate a depiction of life in television news (or something like it) as a Pillsbury bake-off. It's only point is that for an ambitious blonde in the big city, the money, fame and success of network TV cannot compare with the love of a good man back home.

Trust me. Diane Sawyer did not start out this way.

By making Val the hypochondriacal victim of Woody's worst fears throughout his career, Mr. Allen has found an inspired way to get easy laughs out of sick but safe sight gags about the sightless. Though there aren't many more belly laughs than those seen in the coming attractions, there are smiles and chuckles aplenty, and many unexpected layers of comic invention. Thus, at a time when many people have been writing Mr. Allen's professional, commercial and artistic obituaries, our Woody has successfully mined for gold in the rough terrain of his own life and career. And in the process, he has come up with a cultural curtain line that would have made the legendary George S. Kaufman beam with pride.

We are also seeing a new Woody on the publicity front. No more ostentatious reclusiveness for the Woodman: His new studio backers have reportedly required him to promote his own product in person, with the result that his old standup-comedy skills, on display at this year's Oscars, will get another workout at the Cannes Film Festival, where Hollywood Ending has been chosen as the opening-night film.

But the really big news for me is that not since the glory days of Diane Keaton in Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979) has Mr. Allen come up with a leading lady of such romantic stature as Ms. Leoni's Ellie incarnates here. I've liked her winsome, deadpan quality in the past, but it was generally displayed in subordinate parts with darker hair. Here, Woody has given Ellie industry heft, a cool intelligence and a subtle sweetness. He takes a leaf from Molière's Tartuffe by delaying Val Waxman's entrance until a roomful of studio executives have responded to Ellie's championing of Val as the perfect director for a "hot" New York property the studio is getting ready for production. One by one, the executives tell a different Waxman horror story of perfectionism run amok to rival the most lurid rumors of Erich von Stroheim and Orson Welles assaulting the studio balance sheets without any concern for potential box-office returns. Ellie holds her ground, however, and Val gets his chance-though not without a great many doubts being expressed out loud.

When we finally do meet Val, he's almost buried in a Canadian snowstorm that he's had to endure for the sake of filming a television commercial-a fate worse than death for an auteur of Val's peerless snobbery. Indeed, Val the eternal victim brings out the screechingly nasty worst in Woody as he extends his range of insults from Hollywood to Canada-perhaps as a way of getting back at filmmakers who have abandoned New York City as a shooting location for lower-cost sites in Toronto and Montreal. Nor is Val's verbal abuse of Debra Messing's Lori, the self-parodying bimbo with whom Val is currently cohabiting, witty enough to get the misogynistic laughs it is seeking.

When Val's fabulously loyal agent Al (Mark Rydell) almost tearfully informs him that he has secured a prize directorial assignment, and that all he has to do to clinch the deal is to "do" lunch with Ellie in New York, Val demurs. But the combination of Al, Lori and his own dire straits ultimately persuade Val to "take" the meeting. There ensues a curious scene in which Val alternates between making serious suggestions about the script and frothing at the mouth over Ellie's betrayal of him with Hal, even while they were married. The Three Stooges –type nomenclature of Val, Hal and Al is Mr. Allen's shrewd way of introducing a cartoonish element to his characters. But here again, he succumbs to such overkill that I began to wonder if he was building up to a permanent case of Val's schizophrenia.

At this juncture, Val goes blind, and the film takes off into the stratosphere of farcical whimsy, requiring a lot of discipline by the entire cast to preserve the logic and believability of the conceit. Val needs at least one person he can trust at all times, not only to keep his secret, but to assist him in his ridiculous directorial deception. Mr. Allen's ingenuity in plot construction comes to the fore as the hitherto supposedly self-sufficient Val finds himself so completely dependent on other people for the basic necessities of survival that he makes Blanche Dubois look dynamically independent.

Al takes care of putting him to bed at night and taking him to the bathroom in the morning, but he is not permitted to accompany Val on the set because it is company policy to exclude agents. Here, Val's previous eccentricity in hiring a Japanese cinematographer who doesn't speak English enables Al and Val to take the Japanese interpreter into their confidence and keep him close by Val, much to the discomfiture of the Japanese cinematographer. Meanwhile, Lori has conveniently gone off to a spa to get in shape for her small role in the film. Eventually, the Japanese-American interpreter from N.Y.U. adds a satiric dimension to the narrative by intervening in the creative process, much as Chazz Palminteri's gangster kibitzer did so memorably and hilariously in Mr. Allen's Bullets Over Broadway in 1994. As the circle of initiates into Val's bizarre secret ominously widens, Ellie has to be told at last so as to salvage her own career.

The farcical circle has been completed so as to produce the "Hollywood ending" of the title. But here Mr. Allen injects a note of realism into the situation by limiting the creative miracle that can be achieved by a blind director, and by making what is finally created the cream of the jest. As in the best farces, Hollywood Ending does not venture too far beyond reality and probability and necessity for its humor. For the first time in several years, Mr. Allen has surpassed himself with the magic he's spun with the Hollywood empress of Ms. Leoni's Ellie.

Off-Key Exploration Of Life and Love

Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher , from Mr. Haneke's screenplay, based on the novel by Elfriede Jelinek, seems to arouse wildly conflicting responses among viewers. One either admires this painful contemplation of kinky sex among otherwise cultivated characters, or one hates it-but no one despises it, simply because there is not a trace of sentimentality or titillation in the whole film. The sado-masochism on display here is singularly ugly and ungainly, and the characters are uniformly strident and unsympathetic. By significant contrast, the music-which consists mostly of Schubert selections-is exquisite.

Nonetheless, count me among The Piano Teacher 's haters, despite my eternally high regard for Isabelle Huppert, who plays the title character. Her oddly astringent performance won her an acting award at last year's Cannes Film Festival, and I can certainly see why. Her role defies the audience to like her or be charmed by her. Indeed, she is presented as a monster in her personal life, despite her admirable mastery of the piano in her musical life.

Not only is it somewhat shocking that Ms. Huppert's middle-aged piano teacher, Erika Kohut, still sleeps alongside her blowzy and bossy mother (Annie Girardot), but she also patronizes a sex shop for vicarious thrills. When a mysteriously adoring and undeniably talented young male student named Walter Klemmer (Benoit Magimel) comes on to her, she initially tries to block his admission to the musical academy at which she teaches, and then proceeds to demand that their relationship go according to her own peculiar tastes. Along the way, Erika commits a vicious act against a young female student she jealously imagines to be her rival for Walter's attention. She never shows the slightest remorse for her outrageous behavior, and she is never discovered. This is not the prescribed method to win friends and influence people in conventional movies. I suppose that is what film festivals are for, but once one experiences Mr. Haneke's own sadistic tendencies toward his audience, one is left with a sour taste in one's mouth, and little else.

Stamp Sting

Fabián Bielinsky's Nine Queens , from his own screenplay, was last year's Oscar nominee from Argentina as Best Foreign Film, and it's almost too thoroughly entertaining to fit comfortably into that often austere category. Two con men team up to pull off a stupendous swindle with a forged set of stamps, the "Nine Queens," as their bait. Juan (Gastón Pauls) and Marcos (Ricardo Darín) don't know each other well enough to trust each other beyond a certain point, but after some stormy disagreements they make an effective team.

We gradually get to know the family backgrounds of the two men and their diverging objectives, and we learn to suspect them both as much as each suspects the other. When Marcos' beautiful sister Valeria (Leticia Brédice) enters the picture and becomes part of the swindle, the stakes begin to escalate and the audience is set up for the final surprise-which I shall not reveal here, for fear of reader retribution. Nor will I communicate to the reader the American movies to which Nine Queens bears a certain twisting-plot resemblance. And for those in the audience who claim to demand social significance in their entertainment, Mr. Bielinsky has fashioned a wicked parable of the financial chaos in contemporary Argentina.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, Dan Zanes, a former rock 'n' roll hellion, tuned his guitar in preparation for a midday gig at the Park, a new bar and restaurant in Chelsea. Back in the 80's, Mr. Zanes had been the lead singer and guitar player for a loud and mildly successful Boston band called the Del Fuegos, a band which at its height scored a hit single ("Don't Run Wild"), filmed a commercial for Miller Beer and toured with Tom Petty. In those days, Mr. Zanes, who at 39 maintains a rocker's voluminous, precisely mussed hair and gangly frame, drank a ton of beer, thrashed around the stage in leather pants, and sang songs like "He Had a Lot to Drink Today," "I'll Sleep With You (Cha Cha d'Amour)" and "Lost Weekend."

Today, however, Mr. Zanes makes a living singing songs like "Polly Wolly Doodle," "King Kong Kitchie" and "Mole in the Ground." This new career started a couple years ago, when Mr. Zanes–who disbanded the Del Fuegos in 1989–began recording children's songs for his daughter, Anna, now 6. He passed a couple of the children's songs tapes along to his Greenwich Village neighbors, and they went nuts for it.

Last winter, Mr. Zanes assembled a band and released a CD called Rocket Ship Beach , which featured guest performances from Sheryl Crow and Suzanne Vega, among others. Simon Kirke, the drummer from Bad Company, contributed a song called "All My Friends Live in the Woods," a friendly tribute to a badger and a mole. ( Rocket Ship Beach also included a performance by the Sandy Girls, a group of West Indian baby-sitters Mr. Zanes met in his neighborhood.)

Without a trace of embarrassment Mr Zanes embraced his transition from rock star to children's musician. Kids were good audience members, he said, and better still, they could care less about subjects like romantic love, which Mr. Zanes said formed the basis for "95 percent" of adult rock songs. "I was tired of writing about that, anyway," he said. "I've been married for 14 years!"

Recently Mr. Zanes and his band began an open-ended brunch engagement Sundays at the Park. While playing children's songs was easy, finding places to play in New York had been harder than he expected. "I'm trying to book shows in playgrounds right now," Mr. Zanes said. "I've been going to schools and I tell people, 'I've got a great band. Let me know if you're having any kind of fair at the school.' Seven times out of 10 people won't take me up on it. You know, I wasn't asking for money . I was just trying to book shows."

The Chelsea shows have found a quick and loyal following, however, primarily among hip downtown parents too cool for Raffi CD's. For today's show, a handful of tables had been reserved, with cups of crayons and birthday hats placed on top. Just before showtime, the room was busy with toddlers and handsome-looking parents who had yet to succumb to the grooveless, austere look of parenthood. A young father in a bomber jacket chased his daughter around as she tugged at her corduroys. "You need to go potty?" the father asked. "Well, keep your pants on in the restaurant! It's one of the big rules."

At 2 p.m., Mr. Zanes led his band in a marching procession into the room, singing a song called "So Glad I'm Here." The crowd erupted in a chorus of preschool and adult applause. Charles Goldberg, age 6, began referring to Mr. Zanes as "Mr. Porcupine," owing to the rocker's haircut.

Also in the audience was Madelaine West Duchovny, the 1-year-old daughter of actress Téa Leoni and X-Files actor David Duchovny. Madelaine, who had been to the previous week's show as well, had come with her famous mom, and mom had brought her own friends, too, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Stella McCartney and Liv Tyler. As Mr. Zanes' band played, Ms. Tyler bounced someone's child on her lap and Ms. Paltrow clapped along. Hotelier Ian Schrager surfaced, too, bringing along his daughter and settling at a table across the room.

Somewhere along the way, Madelaine West Duchovny got naked but for a diaper. "This has gone too far!" Mr. Zanes called out from the stage upon noticing his emboldened young fan. "This is more like a rock 'n' roll show! Nothing but a diaper on!"

After the show ended, and Mss. Paltrow, McCartney and Tyler had left the restaurant, Ms. Leoni stayed behind to chat with her sister-in-law, Laurie Duchovny, a teacher at Saint Ann's in Brooklyn. Nearby, Mr. Zanes and the band packed their equipment. Ms. Leoni began to get a little breathless about Mr. Zanes. "This is the only children's CD that we really, really groove to and both love," she said. "David loves it, too. So we can play this in the car and everybody can rock out, so it's not just like we're having to play, you know, David's Metallica or, you know, my Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Grateful Dead that bores everyone to sleep. We'll maybe listen to a little Elmo, but Elmo doesn't even rock as good as this guy."

Then, a bombshell. Ms. Leoni learned that Mr. Zanes had been the leader of the Del Fuegos. " Get the fuck out!" she mouthed to her sister-in-law, so that Madelaine West Duchovny could not hear her.

" Dan!" Ms. Leoni cried out. " Dan! The Del Fuegos? I had no idea!" In an instant, the actress seemed to have been transformed into her former, younger and shriekier self.

"Yeah, my other life," Mr. Zanes said, sheepishly.

"I've got all your albums!" Ms. Leoni said. "I swear to God. I'm a huge Del Fuegos fan. That was my favorite band at Putney. Huge ! In fact, I kept thinking, 'When am I ever going to, like, see the Del Fuegos?'"

"Where are they now?" Mr. Zanes tossed out.

"Where are they now?" Ms. Leoni asked.

"They're right here," Dan Zanes said, and gathered the rest of his stuff: his mandolin, his black top hat, his plastic lobster.

–Andrew Goldman

Fuzzy Math

Last November, fashion models dressed like tigers and leopards unveiled a plaque at Spa, the bustling nightclub near Union Square. The plaque read: "THE ONLY WILDLIFE AT SPA IS HUMAN–NO FUR COATS ALLOWED."

Spa's fur ban, which received a hearty bark of approval from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, brought the nightclub scads of critter-friendly publi-city. Club boss Steve Lewis directed his doormen to prohibit fur-wearing night crawlers, and Spa's publicists were quick to call gossip columns like Page Six when boldfaced names were turned away. Word got out that Jennifer Lopez and Sean (Puffy) Combs had been told to leave their furs in their limos before coming inside.

But Spa's fur ban proved to be a boon for a few smart entrepreneurs at the parking garage next door to the East 13th Street nightclub. This winter, the attendants at the garage charged fur-wearing Spa-goers–panicked that they wouldn't be allowed inside in their animal skins–$10 each to check their coats among the Toyotas and Benzes for the night. For that small fee, the attendants were happy to take your fur and stash it in a clear plastic bag on a cement floor, under a desk.

Juan Reyes, one of the parking attendants at the Randi Parking Corporation's garage, said that during the cold season, he and his co-workers checked three or four coats on weeknights, and up to seven on weekends. That translated into an under-the-table gross of some $5,000.

Mr. Reyes, who didn't speak English terribly well, said the garage started the impromptu coat check because Spa owner Steve Lewis "told me to." Mr. Lewis confirmed the arrangement to The Observer. "We turn people away, they grab them and chuck their furs." (Calls to the parking garage's boss, Marco Orcte, went unreturned.)

For some fur-wearers, this out-of-house coat check was a night-saver. Yoon Lee, a 26-year-old architect, said she often checked her white fox coat with the East 13th Street parking attendants. Though she was wary at first about leaving an expensive coat in a parking garage, Ms. Lee had no troubles, she said.

Even V.I.P.'s wound up utilizing the parking-garage coat check. It happened to Jen Blumin, a 24-year-old blonde, when she arrived at Spa on a cold March night with club promoter Noah Tepperberg. As she walked inside, doormen noticed Ms. Blumin's checkered rabbit-fur coat, and they gently took it from her and spirited it outside to the garage. When Ms. Blumin decided to leave, a doorman was dispatched to the garage; he then returned the coat to Ms. Blumin's shoulders.

The treatment impressed Ms. Blumin. "You should always wear a fur coat to Spa," she declared.

–Deborah Schoeneman