Happy Birthday, Leapers!

photos courtesy The Backlot and iambrianwong

That means you, Ja Rule and Anthony Robbins! (But not you, Danny Trejo or Brian Wong.)

We at the Observer are big fans of things that only come around every four years: the Olympics; presidential elections; production nights that end before 1 a.m, and, of course, leap years!

Celebrate today’s little cosmic quirk by munching on some fun facts, courtesy of ok50.com.

1. Today our year is 365.2425 days, off from our solar year by .00031, or one day’s error over 4,000 years.

2. If you’re a “Leaper,” you will have beaten the 1,506 odds against being born on Leap Day.

3. Leap Year was the traditional time that women could propose marriage. When the rules of courtship were stricter, women were only allowed to pop the question on one day every four years – February 29th.

4. There is a Greek superstition that claims couples have bad luck if they marry during a leap year. Apparently one in five engaged couples in Greece will avoid planning their wedding during a leap year.

5. Leap Year cocktail – never order a Leap Year cocktail by name. Instead, call out the ingredients: 1.5 oz gin, 0.5 oz Grand Marnier, 0.5 oz sweet vermouth, and a squeeze of lemon. Shake with crushed ice and pour into a chilled cocktail glass.

6. Leap Year Day Babies will never have a “Golden Birthday”. A Golden Birthday is when your age matches the number of the day of the month you were born on. Leap Year Day Babies will have to be 116 before they turn 29 on the 29th!

7. The premise of Gilbert and Sullivan’s musical The Pirates of Penzance is based on the birth of the main character on a leap day. Frederic was, as a child, apprenticed to a band of tenderhearted, orphaned pirates by his nurse who, being hard of hearing, had mistaken her master’s instructions to apprentice the boy to a pilot. Frederic, upon completing his 21st year, rejoices that he has fulfilled his indentures and is now free to return to respectable society. But it turns out that he was born on February 29, Leap Year Day, and he remains apprenticed to the pirates until his 21st birthday (when he’s 84!).

National College Newspaper Convention

Hello from San Francisco! Rob, Gabby, Ashley, Casey and myself have been chosen to represent The Observer at the National College Newspaper Convention in SF this year. We’ll be reporting and updating throughout the weekend.

So far, we have this to report: The Observer staff is definitely one of (or THE) best looking among our journalistic colleagues. Evidence below the jump.

The Envelope Please: 80th Annual Academy Awards

photo courtesy of MyCine

In a year filled with dark films, perhaps the darkest, “No Country for Old Men,” took home the top three honors at last night’s Oscars. The maverick Joel and Ethan Coen won three awards — Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture — during the course of the evening, thanking the academy for “letting us play in our own corner of the sandbox” when they won their first award, and then seeming increasingly emotionless as the night went on.

The acting categories were an international affair, with all four awards going to non-Americans. Javier Bardem, of course, came away victorious in the Supporting Actor race, making sure to joke about his now infamous haircut upon accepting the award. The Supporting Actress trophy went to a stunned Tilda Swinton (“Michael Clayton”), whose performance beat out Cate Blanchett’s gender-bending turn as Bob Dylan (“I’m Not There”) and Amy Ryan’s much lauded work in “Gone Baby Gone.”

In the Lead Actress category the Academy proved that its love of rewarding actors who play real people (think Jamie Fox, Reese Witherspoon) trumps its long-standing disregard for actresses who lip-sync (think Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Wood), by giving French actress Marion Cotillard the Oscar for her portrayal of “the Little Sparrow” Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose,” despite the fact that another actress provided the singing. (“La Vie en Rose” also won the award for Makeup Achievement, beating out “Norbit,” much to everyone’s relief). In the Lead Actor category, it was certainly no surprise when Daniel Day Lewis won his second Oscar for his performance as Daniel Plainview in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood.”
In the other major categories, the Academy acknowledged a wide range of films. Brad Bird (who won three years ago for “The Incredibles”) made a return trip to the podium to accept the Best Animated Feature award for “Ratatouille.” The Documentary Feature prize went to “Taxi to the Dark Side,” a documentary about torture. “There Will Be Blood” won for cinematography, while “Atonement’s” score (which uses the typewriter as an instrument) won the Best Score statuette. A song by the young leads of the independent film “Once” beat out three chirpy Menken-Schwartz production numbers from “Enchanted” to win the Best Original Song Oscar. And, in the Best Original Screenplay Category, Hollywood newcomer (and former stripper) Diablo Cody won the award for her much-quoted “Juno” script.

Obligatory Oscars Roundup

photo courtesy MyCine

So, at this point, we all know most of last night’s Oscars results, and if you’re anything like me, the last thing you need is another long-winded rant about who got robbed and who looked awful. Therefore, I will merely take a quick glance at the night’s major awards, with a five-word maximum for my thoughts on each.

Best Picture: No Country for Old Men — There Will Be a recount.

Best Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men — Should have won for Fargo.

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will be Blood — Makes hoop earrings look cool.

Best Actress: Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose — Stunningly beautiful. The Monster effect.

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men — Mostly remembered for the creephair.

Best Supporting Actress: Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton — Cate, it ain’t you babe.

Full list of winners after the jump…

Not Again! Ralph Nader Announces Another Presidential Run

photo courtesy of patia

Sunday on “Meet the Press,” consumer advocate Ralph Nader announced that he was entering the presidential race. . .again. Nader, a successful consumer advocate who pushed for everything from seatbelts in cars to eliminating misrepresentation in advertising, ran for president for the first time in 1996, but had no impact on a race in which Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole in a landslide.

Nader infamously ran again in 2000, earning over 90,000 votes in Florida (which Al Gore lost by less than 1,000 votes), tipping the balance in that critical state and, in the eyes of many, handing George Bush the White House. Though in an Obama-McCain race, Nader would likely attract barely any votes, in a Clinton-McCain scenario, he would likely be slightly more successful, and either way Nader’s candidacy is simply annoying to the Democratic Party. Nader seems to have learned nothing from the Florida disaster in the ridiculously close 2000 Election, but as Democrats cringe at the possibility that Nader could be a spoiler all over again, they are fervently hoping that the voters have learned their lesson and won’t let history repeat itself.

WeTube So You Don’t Have To: Toddler Star Wars

In this video, a three-year old tries to explain the plot of Star Wars Episode IV. This is the cutest thing you will see all week. Or possibly ever. I am left fairly speechless by how awesome this kid is. Just watch it.

Foo Fighters @ Madison Square Garden

On Tuesday at 5:00 p.m., I got a phone call from my brother, asking what I was doing that evening. I told him I’d be writing a paper, nothing too exciting. He informed me that his reason for asking was that it was his friend’s birthday, and a group of them were going to see the Foo Fighters at MSG. They had an extra ticket, which I could have for free, and he offered to pay for my beer. Now, I had never actually heard a full Foo Fighters album all the way through, but I like free things and I have never hated any of their songs, so I figured, “Why not?”

My decision to put off writing a paper turned out to be a very good one. Despite the fact that I have never been an actual fan of the Foo Fighters, their live show was a good, old-fashioned display of solid arena rock, as proved by Dave Grohl’s frequent metal faces. The songs I did know (“Everlong”, “Best of You”, “Monkey Wrench”, etc.) were great to hear, and I was reminded that these guys, in fact, are some pretty decent songwriters. It didn’t hurt that our originally undesirable spot toward the back of the floor became prime real estate when the band moved to the opposite end of the arena, onto a round metal stage that was lowered from the ceiling.

All in all, the Foo Fighters provided a highly enjoyable concert experience, albeit one that I would have never thought to go to on my own. They are solid pop-rock musicians and Dave Grohl’s famous charisma carried the band through their two-hour set. Bonus: I was sober enough when I got home to get some of the paper written, anyway.

More photos below…

Primary Primer: Wiscowaii Edition

photo courtesy roblord

In Tuesday’s primaries, both Barack Obama and John McCain took steps toward the inevitable showdown that will see those two face off in November’s general election by winning in both Wisconsin and Hawaii. Obama, riding a swell of momentum, took his 10th straight victory, while McCain increased his seemingly insurmountable lead over Mike Huckabee.

For McCain, the victories seem to cement his place as the Republican candidate, a fact that has been widely accepted by most pundits in the past few weeks. For Obama, though, Tuesday may have marked the first point in the Democratic contest in which he could be considered, nearly across the board, as the clear front-runner of the race. This has close to everything to do with the brilliant work of his campaign staffers in recent weeks. Somehow, a feeling has crept up on America. The momentum swing is one that, of course, is marked by a string of successful primaries. The absolute confidence that seems to be surrounding the campaign at this moment, though, goes beyond the delegate count (which Obama is now currently winning 1,302 to 1,235) and ventures into the territory of image. While Hillary Clinton’s campaign has faced shake-ups and has engaged in increased criticism, Obama has been enjoying the fruits of a campaign strategy that may be remembered as one of the most well-planned ever, seemingly designed to maintain a close race before pulling away with amazing performances in the post-Super Tuesday states, having never given him the chance to experience a Dean-like implosion. Case in point: after Tuesday’s results, Obama gave a speech that talked about the future in very foreseeable terms;  Clinton did not mention Wisconsin.

Seven Dead in Another Campus Shooting

A gunman opened fire on a geology class at Northern Illinois University on Thursday, instantly killing four, including himself. At least 15 others were wounded in the shooting. Three have been reported to have died in the hospital, bringing the death toll to seven.

According to various news reports, at about 3 p.m., the gunman appeared from behind the stage curtain of a 200-seat auditorium where the class was being held. Armed with a shotgun and two handguns, he then began firing at the students.

The gunman’s name was not released, but was identified as a former graduate student who was no longer enrolled at the university, and who had no previous police record. He was described as a thin white man wearing a black trench coat. There is no known motive at this time.

This shooting comes just days after a nursing student in Baton Rouge, La., shot and killed two women and then herself, and it comes 10 months after the Virginia Tech Massacre that killed 32.

Yeasayer @ Bowery Ballroom (w/ MGMT & Violens)

Two Brooklyn bands. Two much talked-about debut albums. Two headliners on this current tour. Yet this post will be dedicated to Yeasayer, and I will admittedly ignore MGMT. Why? Because while the latter band (whom I had enjoyed seeing once earlier) entirely phoned it in, the former, even while playing the role of an opener on this night, came out with a burst of psych-infused energy and a live sound that justified any of the praise that their debut album, All Hour Cymbals, has garnered. Yeasayer’s vocalist/synth maestro, Chris Keating, has a dynamic stage presence that also comes off as entirely genuine. The band moved fluidly between blistering guitar meltdowns and bouncy percussive breaks, all the while keeping the audience in tune to the blissful yet foreboding melodies at the heart of each song. About halfway through their set, Yeasayer launched into the crowd-favorite “2080″, and the dichotomy between the joyous audience and the apocalyptic lyrics perfectly summarized the major strength of this band: crafting songs that turn our dark world into something sublime and communal.

More photos below…