The Voice‘s Page 13 Editor John Sapunor will be liveblogging the Oscars tonight starting at 6:45 p.m. Check back then to get your pop culture fix and to submit comments.

If you’re enrolled in the MSB right now, you’re doing yourself a big favor.  Not only will you heighten your appeal to future employers, but your time at Georgetown will be exponentially more…comfortable than the rest of the student body.  Here’s a laundry list of why your SFS friends will be unfathomably jealous of your freshman year:

The Building

The Rafik B. Hariri building is the pride of the McDonough School of Business.  This state of the art structure is littered with fully equipped classrooms (you never have to worry about finding a power outlet), capacious study spaces to save you from the macabre behemoth known as Lauinger Library, and an undergraduate commons area stocked with printers and scanners.  Which brings us to the next perk:

1000 Free* Prints per Semester

As your buddies will soon tell you, printing in Lauinger is a pain in the derriere.  Fortunately, under the auspices of MSB’s Tech Center, business students can  print up to 1000 free (*and by free, I mean it’s included as a Lab Fee in your tuition, but you can keep that fact from your peers) pages in the familiar halls of Harriri.

Bagels with the Dean

Once a week, the benevolent MSB deans pile loads of bagels and coffee onto a table for a schmooze-sesh with the undergrads.  Trust me, this is a big deal.

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In the film industry, there’s failure, and then there’s straight-to-DVD failure.  The list of gems that have, for myriad reasons, failed to make it to the big screen can be counted on one hand, with Mike Judge’s instant classic Idiocracy standing out among the most recent bunch. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have some good news: a new DVD release can be added to that minuscule list of gems.

Margaret, which had an extremely limited 2011 run in theaters, has had an utterly disastrous marketing campaign, coming far short of its first million in revenues (the ballpark budget was $14,000,000.  It’s made back about $50,000).  Despite its delays, multiple edits, and box office failure, the final cut of Margaret has emerged as a diamond in the rough.  In fact, despite never seeing the light of day, it would not be stretch to deem Margaret a contemporary masterpiece.

Riding the critical acclaim of his 2001 directorial debut You Can Count on Me, writer/director/playwright Kenneth Lonergan wrote a 360 page script for Margaret, laying down the framework for what would become a Sisyphean post-production process.   With a cast of well-known actors such as Anna Paquin, Matt Damon, Matthew Broderick, and his regular collaborator Mark Ruffalo, Lonergan had the tides of good fortune on his side.  Package the movie, prominently feature the big names on some billboards, and the movie would surely be solvent.  I mean, seriously, we’re talking about Matt Damon here.

Enter post-production.  There’s a fallout between Lonergan and his producers over the length of the final cut; Lonergan wants a three-hour edit, but Fox Searchlight opts for a two-and-a-half-hour cut that included the assistance of Martin Scorsese.

Four years later, Margaret had a feeble run in a tragically limited release.  Still, critics liked what they saw.  In fact, they liked it so much, an online petition spearheaded by critics plead Lonergan to release his intended cut.  Last week, the Lonergan cut was released on Blu-ray and DVD.  That’s five years after its intended release date.

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Judging a Wes Anderson movie after a single viewing is no easy task.  First of all, Anderson fills his movies with visual and dramatic subtleties.  This means after the third or fourth viewing (if you, like many Wes fans, can put up with 372 minutes of Rushmore), his films form an entirely new image in the audience’s mind.  As a Moonrise Kingdom virgin, then, I was apprehensive about judging the film upon my first sight of the closing credits.  That said, my mind eventually settled on a fact that I will not find myself disputing on my fifth Moonrise screening: it was weird, but weird in a good way.  Am I making any sense? No?  Let me explain.

The hero of Moonrise Kingdom is Sam, a precocious orphan on the run from his “Khaki Scout” troop.  Carrying nothing but his thick-framed glasses and a backpack full of camping equipment, this escapee sets out to meet his childhood sweetheart, Suzy, an ill-tempered loner who eagerly accepts Sam’s invitation to run away.  As the pair evades the scoutmaster (Ed Norton) and local law enforcement (Bruce Willis), they pick up a few life lessons.  Yes, that includes pondering about their nascent sexuality, and yes, it is as awkward as it sounds.    To round off the cast, Bill Murray and Frances McDormand play Suzy’s quarreling parents whose dwindling marriage serves as the bane of Suzy’s childhood.

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Friday

“You lack the season of all natures, sleep.” If you’re as enamored by Shakespeare’s prescience as Vox, hop over to Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society’s presentation of Macbeth Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 8 p.m. in Gonda Theatre.

Calling all astronauts! Wait, do we even have any astronauts since the demise of the Shuttle program? Either way, if you missed Discovery’s flyover on the back of a 747, take a look at it’s new home in the Welcome Discovery Festival at Dulles Airport.

If you’re not inebriated enough to get a tattoo on Friday night, GPB’s screenings of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo should satisfy your cravings for ink, minus the pain. It screens at 9:30 p.m. and midnight in the ICC Auditorium.

Saturday

In a spring slump? Vox has the perfect pick-me-up: laugh your derriere off at Georgetown Improv‘s last show of the year. The jokes start at 9 p.m. in Bulldog Alley.

The Georgetown Water Street Project is hosting a Record Store Day showcase from  8 p.m. to 2 a.m. Local bands Los Rhinoceros, Young Rapids, Shark Week (wait, there’s a band called Shark Week?!?!), and Akshan fill this concert with enough power to run LXR’s perennially screwed up air conditioning unit.

GenderFunk, Georgetown’s annual drag ball, is going down at the Village C Alumni Lounge from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Who will be the next RuPaul? Come and find out!

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Sure, we failed to recruit Nerlen, but Katie Conry highlights Georgetown’s real forte: puppy recruiting.

As Jack Jr. stared at Jack Senior’s inflatable, he couldn’t muster up the strength to say, “if they’ll bring inflatables to my grand welcoming, why can’t the administration do the same thing for Georgetown Day?”

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Friday

There’s no better way to show your love for ol’ William Shakespeare than sitting in the front row of Mask & Bauble’s presentation of Macbeth. The performance starts at 8 p.m. in Gonda Theatre.

Do you miss the young Leonardo DiCaprio as much as Vox does? Well thanks to groundbreaking technology, James Cameron has resurrected young Leo!! Titanic 3D is playing at the Georgetown AMC Theater all weekend. All proceeds go to James Cameron’s submarine fund.

If you’re not in the mood for tearjerkers, GPB is screening Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in the ICC Auditorium. Screenings start at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Saturday

Are you terrified of a robot apocalypse? Or, like Vox, do you think it’s about time your dystopian fantasies come true? Get the lowdown on robotic warfare from Dr. Peter Singer. The lecture is in the Healy Hall Philodemic Room (Healy 208) at 5 p.m.

At 2 p.m. in the Red Square outdoor amphitheatre, Nomadic Theatre will perform Still Me, a collection of coming out stories adapted for the stage by Sabrina Katz. Fortunately, Rick Santorum will not be attending, as he is currently lying in a fetal position on his bathroom floor.

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Michelle Pliskin brings up an important discrepancy in Easter traditions. Still, the biggest Easter mystery has to be the popularity of Peeps.

University spokeswoman Stacy Kerr may be trying to get Americans jealous over England’s royal marriage festivities. Nice try: we’d much rather watch the Masters over some antiquated event filled with unnecessary pomp and circumstance that adds yet another person to an overwhelmingly white group of old golfers. Read the rest of this entry »

Friday

Don’t miss one one of the last opportunities to see the Cherry Blossom Festival! Catch a cruise from the Gangplank Marina to get some of the best views in the city.

Like Belle & Sebastian? Then you’re going to want to see B & S member Stevie Jackson play some tunes at the Artisphere. The concert starts at 7:30 p.m.

If you have the time, run over to College Park Aviation Museum for Paper Airplane Day! It’s all about speed and distance in this dog eat dog tournament,. which runs from noon to four.

Saturday

The Southwest Waterfront will be holding a fireworks festival. It starts at 8:30 p.m., and the event’s security will be screening for guests with histories of pyromania.

Your feathers will get ruffled at the International Pillow Fight Day 2012! Bring your pillow over to the Smithsonian Castle at 1:30 p.m. to fight for the title of king of the pillow warriors.

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When Jason Clark is elected into the NBA Hall of Fame, let it be known that this was the moment everything changed.

Sounds like Sarah Amos hasn’t experienced that moment when you realize you don’t actually have to study during study abroad after you thought you actually had to study during study abroad.

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