Last night's Sony screening of "Julie and Julia," at the Lincoln Square movie theater, was bananas. It was more like a Woody Allen opening on the Upper West Side, and you know what that is like. People were waiting downstairs in an extraordinary wrap-around-the-lobby-press-line-poor New York Times critic Stephen Holden showed up not at all early and actually did a double take between the press tickets table and the end of the line. (To his credit, he hopped on the back of the line.) There were even people in the line who had been turned away from the last big-theater pre-screening. This screening looked a lot like the one, held in the same theater, for King Kong-a crazy rush of anticipation. Why? Could it perhaps have been... all the pre-press? READ MORE

Did you catch the piece on writer/director/neck-lamenter Nora Ephron in this week's New Yorker? It's got some funny bits and nice moments, but there's really nothing earth-shattering or new in it. And yet? I read the entire thing, a rarity for me. Which leads me to the conclusion that, at this point in 2009, writer Ariel Levy may be the best practitioner of longform profile journalism in the business. And I'll stand on Vanessa Grigoriadis' coffee table in my Kenneth Cole Oxfords and say that. (Kidding! You're great too, Grigsy!) But, yeah... ever since she came to the New Yorker I have been consistently impressed with how compelling and well-written Levy's stuff has been (this was probably the piece that sealed the deal); the craftsmanship is never ostentatious, but you're always aware that her stuff reads much more easily than it must have been to put together. So, nice work, Ariel Levy! I salute you.