Jessica Chastain

One of the most recognizable names in the world of theater criticism is stepping down. John Lahr, the senior theater critic for the New Yorker for close to 20 years, is quitting regular reviewing for the magazine to concentrate on profile writing and book projects.  The New Yorker made the announcement this week on its arts blog, Culture Desk. Lahr joined the magazine in 1992 during the Tina Brown era and has contributed numerous pieces of criticism as well as longer profiles on famous cultural figures including Ingmar Bergman , Woody Allen, Judi Dench and Helen Mirren.

One of the first out of the gate at the Lincoln Center tents, menswear designer Todd Snyder presented his Fall 2013 "Rebel Gentlemen" collection at Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week on Thursday. Inspiration: The foundation of Snyder's collection was a favorite black, 1950s leather motorcycle jacket he'd found a decade ago in a Leeds (England) vintage shop. The look: Retro-sporty gentleman outlaw -- the kind who might rob a bank and escape across the desert on a motorcycle and look rakish doing it. In addition to a lovingly distressed asymmetrical zip leather jacket there were equally luxe-looking outerwear pieces with a functional feel including riffs on the peacoat (one in black pony hair, another in horsehide with a generous shearling collar)

Jake Gyllenhaal is set to star in an off-Broadway play from the Roundabout Theatre Company. The Oscar-nominated actor will appear in the ensemble comedy-drama "If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet" by British playwright Nick Payne. Gyllenhaal has acted on stage in London, but this would be his U.S. stage debut. Organizers said Thursday that the play is scheduled to open Sept. 20 at the Laura Pels Theatre in New York. A summary of the play provided by the Roundabout states that the story revolves around a 15-year-old girl with a weight problem.

Opening in limited release Wednesday, director Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty," a dramatized account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, is already the talk of two towns. In Washington, questions have arisen about whether Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal got access to classified information (the Pentagon says they didn't), and controversy has swirled around the film's depiction of CIA torture. Back in the land of Hollywood, meanwhile, the film is widely viewed as an award season front-runner, and initial reviews are overwhelmingly positive, praising it as a taut, complex and morally ambiguous thriller.

Jessica Chastain, who plays Maya, the dogged undercover CIA operative who spends a decade tracking down Osama bin Laden in “Zero Dark Thirty,” says she has never met the woman whom the role is based on. “If I were to have met her, I would've put her in danger of going to prison,” says Chastain. “It's a very difficult time, and she's an undercover agent who is really good at her job. I feel safer knowing that she's out there taking care of us.” Chastain speaks seriously, only occasionally breaking into a moment of levity, as when she talks about being on an airplane when she found out she had been nominated for an Oscar.

Despite its lofty subject matter and press-averse director, "The Tree of Life" found success at the box office this weekend. The movie from reclusive filmmaker Terrence Malick opened in four theaters and collected a strong $488,920 from Friday through Monday , according to an estimate from distributor Fox Searchlight. On a three-day basis, the film had a per-theater average of $93,230, just slightly less than the $99,834 per-theater average Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" had in its premiere last weekend.

— When Jessica Chastain, the up-and-coming actress who stars opposite Brad Pitt in "The Tree of Life," had a meeting with Ben Stiller a few years ago, the actor caught her off guard with an unexpected request: "Tell Terry I said hi," Stiller told her, referring to "Tree" director Terrence Malick. Chastain assumed that Stiller was kidding. How on Earth would the star of comedies like "Dodgeball" and "Meet the Fockers" be on such casual terms with a reclusive, enigmatic auteur like Malick?

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch died the same day a new documentary about his life and legacy opened in New York. "Koch," which will open in Southern California theaters beginning March 1, offers evidence that the combative mayor had mellowed little in his later years. Filmmaker Neil Barsky conducted extensive interviews with Koch in his Manhattan apartment in 2010 and early 2011, where the former mayor, who ruled New York from 1978 to 1989, spoke of his controversial time in office, offering no restrictions on subject matter or time.

Thursday's Golden Globes nominations for best performance by a lead actress in a motion picture drama nearly mirrored Wednesday's announcement for the Screen Actors Guild lead actress nominees with Jessica Chastain facing off against Marion Cotillard, Helen Mirren and Naomi Watts in both contests. Those actresses are joined in the Golden Globe balloting by Rachel Weisz, honored for her role as a moneyed housewife who falls for an ex-fighter pilot before plunging into suicidal despair.

Comb the list of actors contending for an Oscar this year, and you might think you're seeing double. Award season sometimes brings the occasional star with a pair of movies in the running, but this year no fewer than a half-dozen performers could find their biggest rival staring at them in the mirror. The list of acting award hopefuls with multiple movies is long and diverse: Brad Pitt, Carey Mulligan, Viola Davis, Ryan Gosling, Jessica Chastain, Michael Fassbender and George Clooney, who, with his turn as a grieving father in the low-key drama "The Descendants," will try to win his first lead actor Oscar even as he's pushing "The Ides of March," the political drama he directed, produced, co-wrote and costars in. "I always feel like I'm competing against myself," Clooney told The Times.