Hotels are slashing prices, lowering rates, and making deals. You can profit from their losses and take advantage of all the sweet deals out there right now. First up: The Kimpton Hotels "Sweet Tax Relief" deal. They're offering tax-free rooms and meals at their onsite restaurants. To make the deal a little sweeter, they're throwing in cute candy in the mix, like Sugar Daddies, 100 Grands, and Paydays. The no-tax deal can add up to a sizable savings, especially since some room taxes can be $30 a night. This offer is good at many of the properties, including Hotel Palomar, Sir Francis Drake Hotel, Hotel Triton, The Muse, Topaz Hotel, Helix Hotel, and Hotel George.

Smyth, the latest offering from the Thompson Hotels group (60 Thompson, Gild Hall, 6 Columbus, Thompson LES, Hollywood Roosevelt, Thompson Beverly Hills, Donovan House) is opening early this January. Look for free wifi, absolutely modern decor, Kiehl's bath products, and some naughty surprises in-room. Luckily enough, it's a particularly inauspicious time to be opening anything, much less a boutique hotel, and so deals definitely abound. You can check out this normally high-priced hotel for the incredible bargain-basement prices of $119 a night.

The most famous rule in all of filmmaking: Never work with kids or animals. But hell, I’m a maverick. And I can see Russia from my house.

The best thing about working with kids is that they don’t know the meaning of the word “pressure” -- it hasn’t come up in their vocabulary lessons yet. And let’s face it -- re-creating Truman Capote’s iconic interview of Marlon Brando is a lot of pressure. Adult actors, limited by what they’ve seen and what they know, would have broken out their best Brando impressions or tried their damnedest to rip off a Philip Seymour Hoffman performance. And nine out of ten of them would have collapsed under the weight of it all.

Welcome to the party, see ya’ around campus…

1. Gild Hall (Lower Manhattan) - The first stylish thing to fall into the South Street Seaport and Financial District orbit since ... uh, ever?
2. The Bowery Hotel (East Village) - Maritime peeps head east with 17-story tower. Upstairs, it’s a loft of your own, crisply appointed with knockout views.
3. Gramercy Park Hotel (Union Square) - Ian Schrager’s remodel trips out on tapestries and velvet, with leather-topped desks for better sex.

Welcome to the second installment of Icon Redux -- the video series from BlackBook and Two Penguins Productions that recasts famous (or infamous) moments in pop culture using contemporary performers and settings. Here, we re-create a seminal 1957 interview between twin eccentrics Marlon Brando and Truman Capote, where the rambling Brando refuses to let the normally loquacious Capote get a word in edgewise. The trick -- in our version, set in a penthouse suite at Manhattan's 6 Columbus hotel, Brando and Capote are portrayed by child actors Tyler Christopher Backer and Spencer Harrison Hall, respectively. Enjoy, and be sure to check out the screen tests for Capote and Brando (and the "Japanese girl") and the behind-the-scenes commentary, plus the first installment of Icon Redux: James Dean.