Edwards Drops Out of Race

photo courtesy alexdecarvalho 

On the heels of Rudy Giuliani’s exit from the presidential race, eternally-third-place-finishing Democrat John Edwards is ending his campaign. The former North Carolina senator is set to make a speech shortly after 1 p.m. today, although he has already informed his aides of the decision. In an unsurprisingly classy move, Edwards, according to his aides, will hold off on any endorsements and instead ask both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to put an increased focus on poverty. According to Edwards’ website, his speech in New Orleans today will focus on that same issue. It is also mentioned that he will work on a Habitat for Humanity project while he is there.

Kudos for Edwards for staying out of the mud battles and keeping his focus on forgotten America. While Edwards’ political career may or may not be drawing to a close (keep in mind, he is still quite young, and as McCain is showing, getting back on your presidential campaign horse is quite possible), it would not be unrealistic to imagine him pulling an Al Gore and focusing on humanitarian work and spreading his message outside the directly political world. Let’s hope his presence can keep the remaining candidates focused on what matters.

Primary Primer: Florida Edition

photo courtesy anamariecox

 

The fine voters of Florida have spoken, and they’ve said, “Yes, indeed, America, John McCain is the Republican frontrunner!” McCain won with 36 percent of the vote, giving him an impressive 57 delegates from the state, while Mitt Romney placed second with 31 percent and Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee lagged a good deal behind with 15 and 14 percent, respectively. It is being reported that, after this, another poor showing, Giuliani will make an announcement on Wednesday that he is dropping out of the race and supporting McCain. Can the quickly-deflating Huckabee be far behind?

 

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton won easily with 50 percent. Why, you ask? Well, because, like Michigan, Florida’s Dems decided to push their primary up, and, as with the Great Lakes State, the party decided to punish this overzealousness with an awarding of zero delegates. And, once again, Hillary was the only Dem to ignore the attempt at solidarity and seriously campaign. Nice job, Hil. Maybe you can hold your own version of the Oscars, as well. 

 

Hillary’s victory was nicely and oh-so-sharply summed up by Barack Obama’s communications director, Robert Gibbs:

“Mike Gravel is going to get the same number of delegates as Clinton.” 

 

Zinger. 

Mets Land Johan!

 
photo courtesy twinsgirl733

Good news, Mets fans! The Amazins have acquired the holy grail of this year’s offseason prospects. Today, the USA Today broke the news that the Mets and Twins agreed to a trade that will send ace lefty Johan Santana to Queens, while outfielder Carlos Gomez and pitchers Phil Humber, Deolis Guerra and Kevin Mulvey will be settling down in Minnesota. The only other serious candidates in the Santana bonanza had been the Yankees and the Red Sox, but the latter team appeared to be out of the race some time ago. The deal seems to be a great pickup for the Mets, who had been in somewhat desperate need of a premiere starter. In addition, Santana has a .60 ERA in Shea Stadium, a fact that seems to point to a high level of comfort pitching in the Big Apple. The only downside: Santana, whose no-trade clause can only be waived at his request, will most likely ask for contract in the range of $150 million for six years. All things considered, though, this may be a small price to pay for the chance to put the final piece into the World Series-winning puzzle that has evaded the Mets for so long.

Fordham Professor to Choose Subjects for Stamps

Photo Courtesy shadamai

The only word I can think of to describe this story is “Kooky.”

“Clara E. Rodríguez, professor of sociology and former dean of Fordham’s College of Liberal Studies, has been appointed by Postmaster General John E. Potter to serve on the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee, which recommends subjects to appear on U.S. postage stamps.”

Just giving the blog some school spirit.

In the comments, leave who you would like to see on postage stamps. Maybe Professor Rodriguez reads the Observer Blog.

Kanye West and Dinosaurs, Finally Together

photos by Charlotte Coleman

As you have maybe gathered from the title of this post (or any of the other Internet coverage), Kanye West played a short, surprise set Friday at the Museum of Natural History during the One Step Beyond show featuring some other talented Chicago natives–A-Trak, Kid Sister and The Cool Kids (aka Why Hip-Hop Is Good). If you want to hear about the set, what songs he played, how amped the crowd was or what kind of fur his coat might have been, you must search elsewhere. Adam and I missed his entire performance because we were in the planetarium. We blew it. We know this. I don’t want to speak of it again. We do have some great pictures to offer, however, taken by FCLC’s own Charlotte Coleman. So, please, follow us after the jump for more. (Adam thinks these pictures are better than Pitchfork’s).

Hil’s Campaign Workers Agree: Bill “Needs to Stop”

photo courtesy Jonathan Brown

CNN’s Ticker blog is reporting that a number of anonymous Hillary Clinton campaign advisers have come out to say that Bill’s recent, very verbal stumping for his wife has been hurting her campaign, specifically in South Carolina, where Hillary lost handily to Barack Obama. In this writer’s opinion, Bill’s mud-throwing, especially with its racial (not racist) undertones, may be the very thing that makes the Hillary campaign implode in the days leading to Super Tuesday.

Maybe Bill should just make good on this Onion article.

MGMT @ Mercury Lounge

On Wednesday night, superhyped Brooklyn band MGMT played a packed record release show at Mercury Lounge. Attendees were either invited or were lucky and aware enough to reply to a web-circulating notice that promised a pair of tickets to the first twenty-five people to respond via e-mail. Luckily, my dear friend Kate had her ear to the ground and, therefore, we got to see these recent Columbia Records signees in a more intimate setting than they can expect to play from this point forward. MGMT tightly blazed through songs from their new disc, Oracular Spectacular, leaving the industry-heavy crowd obviously impressed. Favorites such as “Time to Pretend” and “Weekend Wars” sounded sharp and focused and the band was nary afraid to let their guitar chops show via several blistering jams. While capes were (unfortunately) not donned, the band’s performance proved that any and all post-Letterman (watch the video) attention is well-deserved. Do yourself a favor and try to Craigslist-snag a couple sold-out tickets to one of their upcoming shows with Yeasayer at Bowery Ballroom or the Music Hall of Williamsburg.

More photos below…

Don’t Forget Norbit

Photo courtesy etchasketchist

While it’s obvious what Tuesday’s most important film news was, there was another story of note (be it a far less devastating note) buried in the understandably overlooked Oscar nominations: Norbit was nominated for an Academy Award.

Coming on the tail of an impressive, if not admirable, five Razzie nominations, the Eddie Murphy film has now earned an Oscar nomination for Achievement in Makeup. Quite simply, this is plain silly. The movie has a 9% on Rotten Tomatoes and 27 on Metacritic, but maybe more aggravating is that the film came out last February. The Academy never bothers to remember good movies from that early in the year, but they had no problem recalling how hilarious Eddie Murphy looked in all those different costumes?

I would be failing you if I didn’t mention that the two men nominated for the award, Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji, have been up for Osacrs before: Tsuji once, for Click, and Baker a staggering ten times, with six wins. I’m not trying to knock the skill of these two men, but it’s just a little strange to visit the official Oscar Web site and see Norbit listed two spots away from No Country For Old Men.

It does raise a few interesting questions about the Academy, namely: Did any of them really watch Norbit? And: Are we really prepared for that answer?

And The Nominees Are…

photo courtesy of oscars.org

Although the Oscar ceremony is in jeopardy because of the still-raging standoff between the Writers Guild and the movie producers, the nominating process went on as it does every late January. On January 22nd, in the wee hours of the morning, the Academy Awards nominations were revealed in Los Angeles. Here then is news about some of the most interesting and hotly contested nominations for the 80th Academy Awards:

Best Picture: “Atonement” surprised everyone by ending a bad awards season run, broken only by a Golden Globe win, with a nomination in this category. “Juno” also snagged a nod, but it is basically just your requisite indie comedy entry. The real contest though seems to be between “No Country for Old Men,” “There Will Be Blood” and “Michael Clayton.”

Supporting Actor/Actress: Though these two categories have been all but locked up by powerhouse frontrunners – Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men” and Cate Blanchett in “I’m Not There”-- this nomination morning belonged to two veterans who got their first nods. Eighty-three year old Ruby Dee for her role as Frank Lucas’s mother in “American Gangster” and eighty-two year old Hal Holbrook for his brief but heartbreaking performance in “Into the Wild” are sentimental favorites in their two categories.

Best Actor: George Clooney, Viggo Mortensen, and Tommy Lee Jones all scored nods, but it is Daniel Day-Lewis who really stands to win the trophy. Day-Lewis rarely takes film roles anymore, but when he does, they almost always earn him Oscar nods. He is the odds-on favorite to win this award for his performance in “There Will Be Blood,” but you never know – maybe Johnny Depp’s willingness to sport a hairdo like Cruella De Vil’s and sing an impossibly hard score will finally win him the statuette (though heaven knows that sashaying bizarrely, wearing eye-liner, dancing with a bear and making Willy Wonka seem creepily like Michael Jackson have all failed to win Johnny the coveted little gold man in the past).

Best Actress: Yes, this is a strong year for this category, which has three very competitive nominees – Ellen Page for “Juno,” Julie Christie for “Away from Her” and Marion Cotillard for “La Vie En Rose”—although the battle will probably end up being waged between Christie and Cotillard (the two Golden Globe winners), with the precocious Page  Cate Blanchett and the off-the-radar Laura Linney to fill out the category? I guess the Academy wasn’t impressed by Nikki Blonsky or Angelia Jolie, or even Keira Knightly.

Best Original Screenplay: The big news in this category is that three of the five nominees – Diablo Cody for “Juno,” Nancy Oliver for “Lars and the Real Girl” and Tamara Jenkins for the “The Savages” – are women. This is one of those Oscar categories that has been dominated by men; in fact, there have been only a very small handful of women who have been nominated for this award, including Sofia Coppola who won for her script of “Lost in Translation.”

Best Director: Julian Schnabel for his work on “The Diving Bell and Butterfly” was the surprise winner at the Golden Globes, but the Coen brothers, who are said to be at the top of their game with “No Country for Old Men,” have won a fair share of the hardware this season and are still in the hunt to end their long winless streak at the Oscars. But let’s not forget how Oscar works – if “Michael Clayton,” “Juno” or “There Will Be Blood” wins Best Picture, the smart money would be on it to also win this prize as well.

Heath Ledger Found Dead

photo courtesy Howie_Berlin

Sewell Chan is reporting on The New York Times’ City Room blog that 28-year-old actor Heath Ledger has been found dead in an apartment at 421 Broome Street in SoHo. Details are scarce, but Chan writes that:

“At 3:31 p.m., a masseuse arrived at Apartment 5A in the building for an appointment with Mr. Ledger, the police said. The masseuse was let in to the home by a housekeeper, who then knocked on the door of Mr. Ledger’s bedroom. When no one answered, the housekeeper and the masseuse opened the bedroom and found Mr. Ledger unconscious. They shook him, but he did not respond. They immediately called the authorities. The police said they did not suspect foul play. Officials said pills fear found near the body.”

A sad day for movies, as this death will no doubt overshadow the Oscar nominations that were announced this morning. Ledger was a fine young talent and our best wishes go out to his family.

UPDATE (5:29 p.m.) Chan is now reporting that the SoHo apartment belonged to Mary-Kate Olsen, who is currently out of town.

UPDATE (7:06 p.m.) The above information is now being denied, and Chan’s article no longer states such. It has been added, though, that the pills found were over-the-counter sleeping pills.