The Time Out New York news

Candytopia, an extremely visual, Wonka-inspired playground for kiddos and grownups, opens Wednesday, August 15 at Penn Plaza (145 W 32nd St) in Manhattan. This is another Instagram-oriented experience, similar to the Museum of Ice Cream, at which ticket holders may wander through more than a dozen candy-coated rooms that are partially assembled using candy floss, taffy and more confectionery bliss. But, please, don’t lick the art. If you get peckish while exploring the sugary paradise, there are various gummies, cotton candy, chocolate-covered pretzels and more for you to nibble on. As for the spaces themselves, there's a marshmallow pit you can jump in as well as a confetti fart explosion from a candy pig with wings. (No, we're not making this up.) Every room is interactive, so make sure to have your camera ready. Or don't! Sometimes, memories are meant to be made—not photographed. The traveling attraction originated in Los Angeles last year and drew the attention of celebrities Gwyneth Paltrow and Drew Barrymore. Santa Monica got its own iteration in July, and New York as well as San Francisco (which opens in September) are next on the docket.  Tickets ($26–$34) are still available for the four-month attraction, and judging by the photos we received, the setup looks so sweet, it’s giving us a toothache. Check out the images below and try not to salivate. We dare you.   Photograph: Courtesy Getty Images for Candytopia   Photograph: Courtesy Getty Images for Ca

Just two months after Anthony Bourdain’s death, the celebrity chef’s Manhattan apartment is up for sale. The two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment on the 64th floor of the Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle features a breathtaking view of the Hudson River out of impressive floor-to-ceiling windows. The 1,280-square-foot unit also, not surprisingly, boasts a top-of-the-line kitchen with new appliances and white marble countertops.   The listing, posted two weeks ago by Douglas Elliman on real estate site Streeteasy, also notes that the building features a full-time doorman, concierge service, a health club, spa, resident’s lounge, screening room, landscaped sundeck and garage. The rent for the apartment is currently listed at $14,200 per month.  Bourdain died by suicide in a French hotel room on June 8 while shooting an episode of his CNN food and travel series Parts Unknown. The world premiere of the final season of the docuseries will kick off this year's Food Film Festival in NYC, which runs October 24–28. The premiere episode of the season will be of particular interest to New Yorkers, with a focus on the diverse food scene on the Lower East Side. The episode will follow Bourdain as he explores local culinary treasures (some of which the audience will be able to sample during the screening) as well as the neighborhood's wide-ranging impact on music, film and art. Early bird tickets for the event are on sale now, with single-screening tickets being released on Augu

When film critics play ranking games of the best Hollywood movies, the competition is fierce. Debate all you want about the Oscars and "popular movies," but the list of truly daring classics made by studios is short. You'd have to include the first two Godfathers for sure, Orson Welles's groundbreaking Citizen Kane, and something like Steven Spielberg's Jaws, the first summer blockbuster (and still the best one). But if you're asking this critic what's on top of that list, the answer is Chinatown. The absolute zenith of 1970s Hollywood adventurousness, Roman Polanski’s majestic conspiracy thriller is the ultimate 
Los Angeles movie, finding shady behavior under the glare of the California sun. Starring a rascally Jack Nicholson, an absorbingly skittish 
Faye Dunaway and a fearsome John Huston as the evil Noah Cross, it’s a toxic masterpiece—and still the finest script ever written (by screenwriter Robert Towne, who we once interviewed). Chinatown comes to Film Forum this Friday for a limited one-week run in a brand-new digital restoration. It's immensely worth seeing (or re-seeing), not only for the excellence of the movie, but as a reminder: This is what passed for mainstream entertainment in 1974, a witty, sexy and brainy experience, loaded with political cynicism. Demand more from Hollywood, Chinatown tells us. Our cinematic diet doesn't have to be all Marvel movies. And if you'd like to delve further into the best thrillers of all time (Chinatown is definitely one of t

As Mother Nature continues to enact her vengeance on the metropolitan area at large through the spread of a virus transforming peaceful park-dwelling raccoons into aggressive zombie creatures, two people have now been directly injured by infected animals. According to West Side Rag, a local dog owner attempting to separate her pet from a raving raccoon was bitten by the animal last Wednesday, and a separate dog owner was bitten and scratched on Thursday.   NY1 obtained footage of Thursday’s incident, showing what appears to be an adult Carl Grimes facing off against one of the Crawling Dead. CAPTURED: @Van_Tieu spotted this raccoon as rangers nabbed it Thursday in Central Park. Officials say it bit a woman after her dogs chased it. The city is advising dogs to stay on leashes in the park due to an outbreak of the distemper virus among raccoons. pic.twitter.com/OStKrB5CLi — Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) August 9, 2018 So far, eighty-five raccoons in the park have been sickened or killed as a result of the canine distemper virus outbreak which began in June. The distemper virus has no effect on humans but can possibly be transmitted to unvaccinated dogs. As a result, the city is now advising dog owners to keep their pets leashed while in the park: “NYC Parks and Health Department, in relation to the distemper outbreak affecting raccoons in Central Park, today issued an advisory strongly recommending that visiting dogs be kept on leashes. The two agencies are specifical

New York City can be a pretty miserable place in the summer. The unrelenting heat. The baking trash and urine on the street. The stale, nearly unbreathable air. It’s all awful, and explains why so many people take an out-of-town getaway nearly every chance they get during the sweltering season. But perhaps the nastiest aspect of New York in summer is the scorching heat in the the city’s 283 underground subway stations. Last Thursday, during the middle of a heat wave, the Regional Plan Association (RPA), a local think tank with some serious credibility, went down onto the MTA's ten busiest subway stations to measure the heat. Their findings ought to come as no surprise to any straphanger who’s sweated through a shirt during the summer heat. The high temperature recorded outside that day was 86 degrees. The average heat on the platforms at those major stops? 94.6 degrees. The hottest temperature recorded in the data dig was on the downtown 4/5/6 train platform at 14th Street-Union Square, which registered at a blazing 104 degrees at 1pm on Thursday. The uptown 1 train platform at 59th Street-Columbus Circle also exceeded triple digits, with a recorded temperature of 101 degrees at 10:55am.  Graphic: Courtesy RPA The RPA notes that the sweltering temperatures found in subway stations is not only a poor experience for straphangers—it also poses a health risk. The city’s Health Department issues notices any time heat indices exceed 95 degrees, stating that such temperature

Mysterious, gorgeous flower designs have been showing up unannounced around the city, only to be stumbled upon by New Yorkers delighted by their arrival. Slowly, the flowers are picked off by passersby until the city streets return to themselves, barely a trace of the abundant blossoms remaining. The creative team behind the phenomenon known as the Flower Flash is Lewis Miller Design, a floral and event design group led by Lewis Miller. Miller first came up with the idea last year after searching for a way to feel more deeply connected to his craft, says Irini Arakas, the firm's director of special projects. After many long, therapy-like discussions, Arakas noted that no one had ever done guerrilla or street art with flowers. Soon after, five members from Lewis' team were up at 5am to make it to Central Park before dawn, flowers in hand. They reused dahlias and carnations from a previous event to create a psychedelic halo around the mosaic that reads "Imagine" at the John Lennon memorial. Soon, the internet erupted with joy, and the Miller team has been Flower Flashing us ever since. Gifting flowers to the people of New York City. It's a simple idea that I've been knocking around in my brain for years... Read the full blog of how team LMD achieved it's first public installation of "Flowers for The People" (and this adorable pup!!) now on our website. Link in profile. #lmdblog #lewismillerdesign #randomactsofflowers #flowersforthepeople #giveback #peace #flowerflas

The massive wildfires currently making their way through California may seem like a distant event, but smoke from the damaging blaze has managed to spread 3,000 miles to New York. The National Weather Service has released an updated forecast model that shows just how massive the natural disaster has become, with smoke being picked up by wind and carried all the way across the country. In fact, some smoke has even managed to blow past the East Coast out into the Atlantic Ocean. As Northern California continues to burn, huge wildfire breaks out in Lake Elsinore in SoCal. https://t.co/HBKfmN5jvF pic.twitter.com/pQq6eGsrqv — Jim Roberts (@nycjim) August 10, 2018 Since the relentless blaze began on July 23, over 1,077 homes, 22 commercial structures and 500 other buildings have been destroyed. The Mendocino Complex fire in Northern California is now considered the largest in the state’s history and is only consider 60 percent contained according to officials. Two firefighters have been injured battling the fires, but no fatalities have yet been reported. Firefighters in California may be currently battling an especially epic wildfire, but this is actually not the first time that smoke from the West Coast has made it all the way to NYC. Last September, smoke stretched across the entire country as well. Don’t expect to walk outside and see black wisps curling through the air, however. The smoke is currently a mile above the surface, and when it’s that high above the gr

In June, the world lost someone who expanded our minds and pushed us to explore. The late Anthony Bourdain made our mouths water and our imaginations run wild by spotlighting farflung cuisines, cooking methods and cultural traditions from NYC to parts of Asia and beyond. Thankfully, his excellent food and travel television series, Parts Unknown, lives on, and new episodes are coming our way. The world premiere of what is sadly the final season of the legend’s docuseries Parts Unknown kicks off this year's Food Film Festival, coming to NYC October 24–28. The premiere episode focuses on New York’s former Bargain District: The Lower East Side, and follows Bourdain on a quest through the nabe as he breaks bread and reminisces about the area’s impact on music, film and art with pioneers who influenced the ’hood’s bohemian culture. Groundbreaking guests include Richard Hell, Deborah Harry and Chris Stein, Lydia Lunch, Fab 5 Freddy, Danny Fields, Amos Poe, Jim Jarmusch, Kembra Pfahler, John Lurie, Clayton Patterson and Harley Flanagan. The unavoidable cravings you get while watching Bourdain do a delicious food tour won't be a problem here, as the fest is notorious for giving viewers the chance to taste what they see on screen without ever leaving their seat. (More details about which specific type of food will be served during this screening is coming soon.) You can attend the debut of what will undoubtedly be an amazing viewing of Bourdain doing one of the many things he did best

Between both Hamptons favorite Tate’s Cookies selling to Mondelez and Insomnia Cookies selling to Krispy Kreme for hundreds of millions of dollars, it’s a hot time to be a cookie company. So when we heard about Schmackary’s Cookies new Schmackaroni & Cheese cookies (yes, the name makes me cringe too), I decided to give them a try and see if this Times Square shop is peddling the next big confection. Unfortunately, you can forget about one hundred million dollars: this cookie isn’t even worth the $2.75 it costs. Let me break down why this cookie laced with bacon, pasta and cheese didn’t really satisfy my sweet tooth. I get the addition of sharp cheese in a pastry, whether it be to add a some complexity to a scone or a little zing to apple pie. So, some cheddar and gruyere in this gluten free cornmeal cookie was perfectly pleasant. The real issue was the texture. The combination of a crumbly cookie that fell apart with a slight nudge xombined with the intense chew of dry, baked macaroni left my jaw confused. As the editors gathered around the array of cookies, looks of disappointment washed over everyone’s faces as they chomped on all that crunchy pasta. Luckily, I picked up a variety of their other cookies which were inhaled immediately by the team looking for a sweet redemption. The stack of macaroni and cheese cookies sat on the counter untouched, as no team member dared to indulge. I don’t think we want to see a return of this mac.

They picked Dances with Wolves over Goodfellas, Crash over Brokeback Mountain, and somehow John C. Reilly has never won an Oscar. (Don't fight us on that last one, just make it happen.) But in the entire history of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences—better known as AMPAS, the group that does the voting—no decision has been as boneheaded as the one they announced Wednesday via Twitter: a new 25th award for "achievement in popular film," effective with next February's show. Reaction was swift and unmerciful online, where film journalists and fans likened it to an MTV Movie Awards–style cheapening. To understand where the change is coming from, know that it has to do with business: Best Picture winners such as Moonlight and The Shape of Water scare Hollywood, an industry increasingly geared toward developing various cinematic universes. The nearly four-hour telecast (with its tanking ratings) also worries AMPAS. But this decision—one that can still be undone!—is the wrong one. Gaming it out, here are three reasons why AMPAS is about to reap the whirlwind: Television ratings won't improve because of it. This is a downward trend that's been building for years, even with hugely popular films in the mix (Avatar, the Lord of the Rings movies, Gladiator) and sometimes even winning. The viewing decline is more a function of online competition than anything, so the prospect of watching an Avengers sequel take home an Oscar isn't going to move the needle on a show that al