Oh, you know the Oscar drill already: Marion Cotillard surprised everyone by winning Best Actress for La Vie en Rose, further proving the rule that if you go ugly for a movie role, you will win. Poor Julie Christie just looked too beautiful. Otherwise, Tilda Swinton delivered the best speech for winning Best Supporting Actress for Michael Clayton. The men's races were yawners. Of course, Javier Bardem won Best Supporting Actor for No Country for......

Speed-the-Plow By David Mamet Presented By Bad Habit Productions 8:00 pm tonight and Saturday, 2:00 pm Sunday Factory Theatre, 791 Tremont St., Boston. $12. Tickets and information They are the largely thankless theatrical roles, the parts that move a piece along but don't bring with them the promise of glory. Take Hamlet in Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz & Guilderstern Are Dead" and Rose Maxson in August Wilson's "Fences" - both necessary characters, but parts designed as......

--A massive fire that started in an abandoned nightclub and eventually destroyed 14 buildings in downtown Lawrence broke into the national news. In a miracle given the size of the fire, no one was hurt. However, 30 families were displaced. Authorities think the fire is suspicious. The owner, who was in the process of turning the spot into a restaurant, says he has no insurance and that someone "jealous of his success" started it.......

--Were there enough police out to handle traffic in the major intersections during Thursday's snowstorm? [Blue Mass Group] --Mike Mennonno has a message for those who complained about how the city handled the snow storm: "… why didn't you avoid all this frustration by just seeking out alternative transportation for the day? Yes, you would have had other frustrations to deal with, but they would have been fairly minor in comparison to five or six......

--King Downing, the ACLU coordinator for the Campaign Against Racial Profiling, won his case against the Massachusetts Port Authority and the State Police. He sued because he felt that he was illegally detained at Logan Airport in 2003, and a jury agreed with him. [Boston Herald, WCVB] --City officials in Everett plan to develop an emergency plan to improve response to disasters following last week's tanker explosion. [WBZ] --The Boston Society of Film Critics gathered......

HEARTHROB Tuesday, December 4th Middlesex Lounge 315 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 9pm / 21+ / FREE w/ special guests: Peppermint Twinz (Christopher Wade + Initiales A.A.) It's surprising that a dance night like Hearthrob could be so successful considering it has hardly more than a MySpace page and does little to no promotion. The reigning master of such success is still word-of-mouth, and that is something that the three New England-based DJs have built......

Norman Mailer, identified with New York City but buried in Provincetown, died, giving rise to all manner of praise. But Paul Flannery at Boston Daily found the best tribute of all--the obituary Mailer wrote for himself for the magazine back in 1979. Here's a little taste: " At the memorial service, passages from his favorite literary works, all penned by himself, were read, as well as passages from prominent Americans. His old friend, Truman Capote,......

Juliette and the Licks Scissors for Lefty, Suffrajett Middle East Downstairs Tonight, 8 p.m., $15 (18+) MySpace She's a J. Lewis making a name for herself in music after an acting career, the frontwoman of an otherwise all-male band, someone known for keeping audiences guessing about how she's going to look, what she's going to wear, what she's going to do. But whereas Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis takes the demure route (as much as one......

Charlton Heston's Apocalypse runs Friday, August 17, through Monday, August 20, at the Brattle Theatre. Check the Brattle's website for showtimes. While we're all worried about global warming wiping humanity off the map, the Brattle is paying tribute to cinema's biggest disaster magnet – Charlton Heston. Everyone knows and appreciates Heston's scenery-chewing in the classics Planet of the Apes, The Omega Man, and Soylent "It's people! It's people!" Green, which the Brattle is showing......

You'd think that the story of last night's Red Sox/Devil Rays series kickoff would be the glorious-yet-atypical change of character demonstrated by DR pitcher Scott Kazmir. Sure, we'll get to that, but c'mon - something huge happened. Julio Lugo safely hit the ball! And then he did it AGAIN! It had been a long, rough road for our offensively challenged shortstop - a road with 33 seemingly untravelable off-ramps along the way. Different spots in......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

It came from the tales of Troop E. WBZ followed a tip that State Troopers were using one of the ventilation facilities constructed as part of the Big Dig for a driving range. What's news to us is the sheer volume of the ventilation buildings that allow for a third floor with 25 foot ceilings. We knew they were big just looking at their protrusions on the surface, but never knew they were that big.......

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay......

Day One is in the books, and sixteen teams have been given their handshakes and Certificates of Participation. Among them is Duke, who failed the reach the second round for the first time since '96. Since Duke-hate is second to only Yankee-hate in the land, that's going to make a lot of people happy. B.C. represented well in Round One, sending Texas Tech and mercurial coach Bobby Knight back to Lubbock with an 84-75 win.......

Boffo Box Office, with a lecture from burlesque historian David Kruh, a screening of Lady of Burlesque and a performance from the Boston Babydolls Burlesque Troupe, will start at Coolidge Corner Theater tomorrow night at 7:00 pm. Tickets are $12. Boffo Box Office at Coolidge Corner Theater kicks off a month packed with burlesque events. Tomorrow night, historian David Kruh will talk about the Old Howard theater, which used to be Boston's home of burlesque......

This morning Ramp L, also known as Exit 20, has reopened. Yesterday Mass Turnpike Authority officials opened the carpool lane just north of the ramp, and this morning the ramp was opened to traffic. The ramp, closed since the incident last July, will allow the estimated 22,000 drivers to connect from I-93 N to I-90 E towards Logan. A carpool portion of the eastbound ramp does remain closed for repairs, and is expected to open......

At first it was hard to tell if it had begun, and what exactly it was. So Percussion had quietly positioned themselves in one corner of the stage and the lights had dimmed, and when the Museum of Fine Art's sold-out Remis Auditorium had hushed itself we began to hear a net of beads rubbing around a gourd-shaped object in front of a microphone. This gentle clacking was joined by some barely-perceptible fuzz and......

On and on and on goes the ever-worsening saga of the Big Dig, as investigators found more loose ceiling bolts yesterday and can offer no time period for the tunnel closures. We're now into the project for 15 billion dollars, one innocent life, and traffic that is as snarled today as it was before this whole business got started. And, of course, no one knows how long it will take to fix this, or whether......

Remember that hubbub a little while ago about the use of substandard concrete in the Big Dig tunnels? That Big Dig scandal was so five minutes ago. Today, it's all about the Rose Kennedy Greenway - the swath of park that will eventually sit atop the crumbling tunnel and brighten all of our lives. Specifically, it's about the memorial to the victims of the Armenian Genocide, which the state legislature said in 2000 should be......

Menino has come out voicing opposition to putting an Armenian genocide memorial on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. It is a reminder that the Greenway isn't at all finished – as if the Jersey barriers and haphazard chain-link fencing, backhoes, and dirt weren't enough. The Big Dig tunnels and roadways may be nearly complete, but the surface streets and greenspaces still show the public a seeming breakdown in infrastructure. Today's video is a public art piece......

Bostonist became somewhat obsessed with the Boston Strangler case after reading A Rose for Mary which chronicles the case from start to finish with such detail that you are instantly taken back to that frightening time here in the city. Written by local journalist and nephew of one of the Strangler victims, Casey Sherman, the book definitely led Bostonist to question if Albert DeSalvo was indeed the Strangler as he confessed to being. When we......

At lunch today, this Bostonist found herself with a veritable hot Man-wich, that is, sandwiched between three attractive young professional males (two front/one behind) in the deli line. This caused us to wonder: is the Leather District really "the next Soho" of Boston? Bostonist has noticed at least three major condo developments going up within as many blocks of our place of employment — in fact, Lincoln Plaza, directly across the street, is already......

This week we're trying hard to think about something other than how hard it is out here to be a pimp. Well, ok, maybe Bostonist is looking at the Oscars and just scratching our heads. We didn't know Jon Stewart could be that bland. We're still waiting to hear what Three 6 Mafia were wearing that made the camera all jakey last night. Now that we're done with the Academy we're looking back to Grammy.......

Bostonist has found that biking around the city is much more convenient that other vehicular travel. Boston may be a walking city, but when you’re looking to get from Central Square to Centre St., the bike ride is only about 20 minutes, it’ll take you that long in a car with no traffic, and a bit longer if you’re taking the subway or busses. The Southwest Corridor park is one of our favorite ways to......

Last month, fundraising for the Boston Museum Project reached the $4 million mark, a milestone for them, but still just a fraction of the $70 million projected total cost. The goal of the Boston Museum Project (BMP) is to construct a new museum showcasing Boston’s past, present, and future on parcel 12 of the soon-to-be created Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway. Bostonist doesn’t mean to sound overly critical, but our first reaction to seeing the......

Big Dig officials keep telling Boston that the project is almost complete. Bostonist will believe it when we see it. With the mélange of Jersey Barriers (named for the cow, not the state), confusing signage, incomplete parks, and on and off ramps that may or may not get you on or off anything, the project doesn’t seem to be in those final stages. The Rose Kennedy Greenway, the 30 acre park system between the North......

When one finds herself stuck at her parents' house for the weekend, the suburban nightlife can leave something to be desired. So when Bostonist was in this situation last week, we did what we used to do Saturday nights in high school: we headed to the local cinemaplex, which always lacks independent films but always has a Starbucks in the lobby. Bostonist decided to take in the newest addition in the chick lit-turned-flick genre, In......

While this Bostonist has never lived in Beacon Hill, we have heard the woes from our friends and co-workers about the lack of a decent supermarket in the area. In such a pricy neighborhood, the shopping options are limited to pricy, smaller local markets like Savenor's and Deluca's. Well, the waiting for a supermarket is over; a brand new Whole Foods Market is opening today in the Charles River Plaza on Cambridge Street. (A Stop......

News last week is that the Big Dig was getting closer to completion, albeit a little leaky. The fourth lane will be added to the Zakim Bridge, a new tunnel configuration will be implemented, and the southbound Congress street onramp will be opened. The Rose Kennedy park in the North End will also begin construction as soon as the weather permits. Transportation and civic projects are one thing, but the makeovers that Bostonist is following......