Cobble Hill Cinemas is a cozy little neighborhood theatre. It has all the charm Brooklyn has to offer, screening new releases as well as selected independent films.
Grand Central is big and beautiful and it also periodically hosts free cultural events - poets at typewriters custom-composing poems on demand - or Alvin Ailey dancers performing in Artist, Nick Cave's horse suits!
My favorite place on Bedford Avenue, this bookstore has both new and used titles. If you're patient and look close enough, you can usually find a book that's worth more than they're asking. Not to mention their stellar selection of magazine titles. Good for design, art, photography, sociology, fiction, and everything in between.