Eugene Hernandez Named Exec Director of New York Film Festival, Dennis Lim Promoted to Artistic Director

EXCLUSIVE: Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is being turned into a Netflix movie with Little Fires Everywhere creator Liz Tigelaar adapting.

EXCLUSIVE: Kevin Rankin (Claws) and Elizabeth Rodriguez (Orange is the New Black) are set as leads opposite Amanda Warren and Jimmy Smits in the CBS police drama pilot East New York.

NEW YORK -- New York City's mayor will announce Thursday that he’s exempting athletes and performers from the city’s vaccine mandate for private workers, a move that will allow Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving to play home games and unvaccinated baseball players to take the field when their season begins.Mayor Eric Adams will make the announcement Thursday morning and it will be effective immediately, according to a person familiar with the upcoming announcement who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.The city’s sweeping vaccine mandate for workers will still apply to people with other types of jobs, including government employees.Adams had said he felt the vaccine rule was unfair when it came to athletes and performers because a loophole in the measure, imposed under his predecessor, allowed visiting players and performers who don’t work in New York to still play or perform even if they are unvaccinated.Irving, a vaccine holdout, had been among the most high-profile people impacted.

NYPD Blue alum Jimmy Smits is returning to the cop drama beat, signing on as the male lead opposite Amanda Warren in the CBS hourlong pilot East New York.

Ali Wentworth has got candid in a new video from her bedroom in New York City while discussing the latest episode of her podcast, Go Ask Ali.MORE: Ali Wentworth shares delight over latest career news as famous friends applaud herThe actress shared footage of herself lying in bed, dressed in lilac pyjamas while discussing the power of dreaming.The latest topic of her podcast was teased in the video, as she told viewers: "In this week's Go Ask Ali we're talking about dreams. How we interpret dreams and how now because of social media and the news and the world being on fire we may not be interpreting our dreams the right way.

Ruben Santiago Hudson, Richard Kind, Lavel Schley and Olivia Luccardi have been cast as series regulars opposite Amanda Warren has been tapped as the lead in the CBS drama pilot East New York.

Arcade Fire have announced a last minute concert in New York tonight (March 18) to help victims in Ukraine.The band took to Instagram today to confirm they are playing a benefit show at the Bowery Ballroom – watch the announcement clip below.In the post, frontman Win Butler and band member Richard Reed Parry can be seen stapling posters for the show on a message board.“Hey New York, we’re gonna play a show tonight, if you guys wanna come,” says frontman Win Butler. “It’s a benefit gig for Ukraine at the Bowery Ballroom.”A post shared by Arcade Fire (@arcadefire)A caption on the clip also says “pay what u can” but no further information on how to purchase the tickets has been posted.It comes after the band played a benefit concert for Ukraine in New Orleans earlier this week.That show saw Arcade Fire play a number of new tracks including their single ‘The Lightning, I, II’, ‘Age of Anxiety’, and ‘Rabbit Hole’.All proceeds from that “pay-what-you-can” gig went to benefit the Plus1 Ukraine relief fund, which is supporting Ukrainian people through non-profits providing humanitarian aid as Russia’s invasion of the country continues.Meanwhile, the band unveiled details of their new album ‘WE’ yesterday (March 17).Speaking about their sixth studio LP, Butler said creating it was “the longest we’ve ever spent writing, uninterrupted, probably ever.”Described as a “concise 40 minute epic” in a statement, it contains seven songs and is “as much about the forces that threaten to pull us away from the people we love, as it is inspired by the urgent need to overcome them”, according to a press release.

New York Post declared that dressing like a lesbian is fashion’s newest trend. Attached to the tweet was a recent article published by the news outlet, in which it declared that womenswear is “leaning toward the stereotypical lesbian look”. The article published by The Post referenced an essay written by queer author Jill Gutowitz for Harper’s Bazaar.

Lady Gaga is the lady of the night at the 2022 New York Film Critics Circle Awards!

Amanda Warren has been tapped as the lead in the CBS drama pilot East New York.

Sasha Urban editorCBS police drama pilot “East New York” has cast Amanda Warren (“The Purge”) in the starring role of Regina Haywood, a serious street cop turned deputy inspector.“East New York,” written by William Finkelstein and Mike Flynn, was given a pilot order last month. No other cast members have been announced.The pilot’s executive producers are Finkelstein, Flynn, Mike Robin from Skyemac Productions, Christine Holder and Mark Holder from Wonder Street.

A New York appeals court has overturned a ruling made last year in the ongoing defamation legal battle between Kesha and producer Dr Luke which would make it harder for the latter to prove that he was defamed by the former, while also opening him up to a damages claim.That original ruling last year was based on new free speech laws in New York state, but the appeals court said last week that those new rules should not be applied retroactively so that they impact on active disputes.Luke’s defamation lawsuit against Kesha is all that remains of a long-running, multi-layered and quite complicated legal battle between the two former musical collaborators.At the heart of the wider legal battle was Kesha’s allegation of rape against Luke. He denies that allegation, and in turn alleges that she only made that claim in a bid to force his hand in contract negotiations.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAfter two years of pandemic-induced shutdown and Omicron-postponed reopenings in December and January, Iridium, the downstairs music club in New York’s Times Square known as the “home of Les Paul,” is finishing the second week of its grand reopening, which launched on March 1 with a performance by the Harlem Blues Project, followed by four shows with a fiery jazz-rock band led by guitarist Mike Stern (featuring the great Randy Brecker on cornet), blues guitarist King Solomon Hicks, veteran folksinger Tom Rush and tonight and Saturday, guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, and jazz guitarist Larry Carlton, including sets focused on his extensively 1970s work with Steely Dan.The unusually intimate (for New York, anyway) 170-capacity downstairs club, which has updated its cleaning procedures and air-filtration system, returned with a full menu (including entrees like “The Les Paul” burger and the plant-based “Jerry Garcia”) a robust wine list and many (potent) specialty cocktails. The club is also launching Iridium Underground, a new series focused on emerging artists, next week with Brooklyn-based guitarist-producer Mario and the Mood.

Kate Aurthur editorSonja Morgan, a beloved cast member on Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of New York City,” has been signed by UTA for comedy touring. Morgan is set to launch a nine-city leg of her “Sonja in Your City” tour this spring, and tickets go on sale March 8.Morgan joined “The Real Housewives of New York City” in the show’s third season in 2010.

Carole Horst The 14th annual ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York kicks off April 7 and runs  through April 13 as a hybrid with both in-person and virtual events. ReelAbilities is dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories and artistic expression of people with disabilities.The 2022 edition boasts a dozen features and more than 25 shorts, plus post-screening discussion, presented by Pfizer, and other events aimed at opening dialogue and discussion.“The Specials” (pictured above), starring Vincent Cassel, Reda Kateb, Helene Vincent and Brian Mialoudama opens the festival.

This review of “Page One” was first published on January 24, 2011 after the film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.  It’s kind of weird for me to watch “Page One,” a year-long chronicle of my former colleagues on the media desk of The New York Times and their struggle to produce journalism in this most challenging of times.The film, which starts around the time I started TheWrap in 2009 after having left the paper, is kind of like watching the conversation continue in the room after you’ve walked out.On the one hand, the film directed by Andrew Rossi does an able job of documenting the critically important role that the Times continues to play in news-gathering and dissemination – and why it can be so damn exciting to be there.On the other hand, the film gives a rather superficial assessment of what everybody really wants to know: Will the Times make it, or not? Can the newspaper of record change fast enough, dramatically enough, to adjust to an upside-down business model?That he doesn’t answer.In 2008, the Times cut 100 jobs, borrowed $250 million and re-leased its building. In 2009, it cut another 100 jobs.It is distinctly odd to hear someone say on film exactly what I felt at that tie: “The mood is funereal.” And, I might have added, not conducive to doing great journalism.The team on which he focuses includes heroically smart and dedicated journalists – David Carr, Brian Stelter, Bruce Headlam (proud to say I’ve worked with two of them, hope one day to work with the third) who make up much of the media desk.The challenge of the media desk is even more profound – to chronicle the potential demise of an industry of which you are a part.