By Drew Grant 7/23/12 5:22pm

Street Art

"Bi-Curious George" (Tomhanksy.tumblr.com)

Art Prankster Hanksy Claims ‘Bi-Curious George’ Graffiti Not a Knock on Clooney Sexuality

With tongue placed firmly in cheek, New York’s street artist Hanksy has built a career out of poking fun at the self-serious subversives in the gallery graffiti circuit. Even his name is a satirical homage to the British Banksy, with Hanksy being a shortened tag for “Tom Hanksy.”

Picking subjects more pop than political, Hanksy has focused his art on animals and celebrity mash-ups: like the hilarious Ferrell Cats, or the pun-y “Pie Hard” stencil in Bushwick.

If Banksy’s monkeys are telling us, “Laugh now, because one day we’ll be in charge,” than Hanksy’s message might be better summarized as, “Laugh now, because this is funny.” Read More

By The Editors 3/21/12 10:26am

Opening Shot

Lawrence of The Hunger Games. (Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

March Madness

We love this time of year. Spring is in the air, we get an extra hour of daylight, and people are placing bets in offices across the country on who they think will win in their favorite division brackets.

No, we’re not talking about March Madness. We’re talking about The Hunger Games, the latest YA book-to-screen sensation that had its premiere in New York and L.A. this week. (For the over-18 crowd, we’re still waiting on Harvey Weinstein to buy the rights to  E L James’ Fifty Shades of Grey.)

If you don’t want to pay $20 for an IMAX ticket (including the price of the KitKat bar and the Nalgene of merlot that you slipped into the theater), you can watch your own version of The Hunger Games play out down at Zuccotti Park. That’s right: Occupy Wall Street has come out of its winter hibernation to clash with the police once more. Read More

By Daniel D'Addario 2/23/12 12:23pm

The Oscars

Jean DuJardin, your Best Actor winner (Getty Images)

Here’s Who Will Win the Oscars

The Academy Awards are this Sunday–and we’ll be liveblogging away at observer.com. So as to be optimally prepared for these mythical “Oscar pools” that exist only in the minds of entertainment writers, or at least to shout the winner a second before it happens, we’ve held the hive-mind of the Internet to our ear so Read More

By Daniel D'Addario 1/30/12 8:30am

The Oscars

Viola Davis at the SAG Awards (Getty Images)

SAG Awards–Clooney and Streep Look a Lot Less Secure

Last night’s Screen Actors Guild Awards shook up the Oscar race insofar as it was able to be shaken up. Sure bets in the supporting categories Octavia Spencer (The Help) and Christopher Plummer (Beginners) cleaned up again, while frontrunning lead actors George Clooney (The Descendants) and Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) were dethroned.

The beneficiaries Read More

By Daniel D'Addario 9:23am

The Oscars

Academy Award Nominee Rooney Mara

Hugo Leads Oscar Race With 11 Nominations

This morning, thousands upon tens of New Yorkers are realizing they have to go see Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, as that film was announced as one of nine Oscar Best Picture nominees.

Big surprises of the morning included that film’s nomination for Best Picture, the inclusion of Best Actor nominees Demian Bichir and Gary Read More

By Daniel D'Addario 1/23/12 11:37am

The Oscars

Charlize Theron (Getty Images)

One ‘Newsweek’ Oscar Panelist Won’t Be Nominated (Mathematically Speaking)

Newsweek‘s current issue features its annual pre-nominations “Oscar roundtable”–and either it’ll look dated when nominations are announced tomorrow, or we need to adjust our predictions! The panelists are likely nominees George Clooney and Viola Davis (the working-it pair both recently appeared together on an Entertainment Weekly cover, too), as well as Read More