Cindy Adams

Fresh off its lament for the days when Jay McInerney was cool, Gawker.com lashes out at Cindy Adams for her deranged claim that Michael Crichton has a history of writing best-selling books. The devastating kicker:

A column continuing to run long after it's lost any shred of coherence or even entertainment value? Only in New York, kids.

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Introducing an occasional scorecard for New York's most dynamic gossip columnist.

Today's Post gives Cindy Adams a much-deserved page-one teaser: "WTC: Why I hate this lousy movie."

Inside, on page 14, Cindy--self-nominated as "New York's watchdog" (motion seconded! And carried!)--touches all the critical bases:

* Filmgoing experience? "Slow-moving and formulaic."

* Commercial prospects? Oliver Stone's "handlers are moving him around with a tweezer. Must be, like on that actual day itself, they, too, can smell death."

* Factual accuracy? "Goshen to Manhattan for a cop driver on an empty highway at that hour is an hour and 15....He couldn't still be driving at 6 a.m."

* The ethics of commodifying and aestheticizing the mass murder of thousands of people, thereby reinforcing the horrifying success of the terrorists in their principal aim of creating an unforgettable spectacle? "When it came to filming, the city wouldn't allow Oliver Stone to close off those streets again and again, dress them with ash and debris and personal belongings and bleeding bodies, and more screams and agonies and horror and people jumping from windows...[F]ilm crews were permitted establishing shots, skyline shots, outdoor location shots only as close as Canal Street. The rest was newsreel footage, CGI graphics and whatever real pain they could fake in the studios in L.A.....I now report these Hollywood people out for a buck should have left us alone."

Cf. David Denby in the New Yorker, calling United 93 "a hundred percent professional filmmaking" and "true existential filmmaking," in the belief that settles anything.  read more »

Plus, a restaurant manager kissed her! And a waiter!

Today's score:

The Times reports that Eliot Spitzer will take on the Newtown Creek oil clean up case; and a few things that lawmakers can agree on.

In the Post, Cindy Adams dedicates her column to KT McFarland.

The Albany Times Union reports the State Legislature will try again today to strike a deal.

—Nicole Brydson

From A PRINCE OF A GUY IF THERE'S PUBLICITY, by Cindy Adams, The New York Post, February 9, 2006:

VALENTINE gifts: When your guy/gal/significant other/wife/husband/other person's wife/husband isn't around to scratch your back, there's a back scratcher that extends to 26 feet with a six-finger head for fast itch relief. Call Healthy Living 1-800-800-0100 . . . If you can't get to Atlantic City, how's a mini machine to play all casino games including the sound effects of a card shuffle, dealer talk, crowds yelling? Call "Things You Never Knew Existed," 1-800-843-0762. The Virtual Casino costs $29.95, batteries not included . . . No? So how about a lamp replica of a female leg complete with fishnet stocking that lights up. Call Spilsbury 1-800-772-1760 . . . Or just go get your feet massaged by Dr. Joe Horan.

Reminder: Pulitzer Prizes Guidelines & Forms —Matt Haber

It seems that now, on New Year’s Eve, everything shifts east.  read more »

Who's winning the battle of the front pages?

"Dirty Harry" would be clever if the Post had bothered to include a subhead mentioning the movie is PG-13; "CARD TRICK" feels like a desperate attempt to keep up with the non-developments in the FAKE BRAVEST 'SEX FIEND' story.  read more »

But the Post could have run dummy text and a photo of Cindy Adams' dog's bunghole and it still couldn't have been worse than the feeble, embarrassing spectacle of the Daily News trying glom onto Alex Rodriguez's MVP win as an opportunity to promote a rehash of a scoop nobody was interested in the first time around.

Winner: New York Post Overall standings: Daily News 10, New York Post 8

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Early one gray afternoon recently, Cindy Adams, the New York Post columnist, wore a red hat in the s  read more »