Pro Weirdo

New on DVD | Apollo 18 (R)

2012-01-04T12:03:00.003-05:00

Moonage Nightmare

In space, no one can hear you scream… unless there are cameras everywhere

At 6 years old I was already a certified junior space geek, familiar and fascinated with roaring rockets and cramped space capsules with control panels covered in tantalizing buttons. That was the year Alien first came out, and when I saw ads for the new movie, which featured all the above elements, I quite naturally assumed together a plot that seemed both incredibly cool and, to my nerdy little mind, a little ridiculous. Space monsters vs. astronauts I was on board with, but crammed into a module the size of a couple of phone booths? What do you take me for, a five-year-old? So imagine my surprise when I heard about Apollo 18, with a concept so similar to the one I so astutely misperceived decades ago—alien menace on a broom closet scale.

Apollo 18 only shares one or two traits with Ridley Scott’s definitive sci-fi thriller; all its remaining traits it borrows or steals outright from The Blair Witch Project. In the same choppy, cinema-vérité fashion, it submits for your approval a previously unknown horror story, assembled from raw “found footage” and narrated by its increasingly frazzled subjects, which has only now been wikileaked into the public consciousness by an anonymous source. In this case, it is a decades-old conspiracy the opposite of the faked moon-landing scenario—a government cover-up of an Apollo mission launched in secret months after the US had already won the Space Race by forfeit.

The film faithfully recreates a lunar mission with realistic film stock, authentic costumes and equipment and the familiar cadenced techno-babble of the era’s pioneering space cowboys. Between those exchanges, the Apollo 18’s earnest, All-American crew, pilot John Grey (Ryan Robbins) and lunar explorers Nathan Walker (Lloyd Owen) and Ben Anderson (Warren Christie), engage in vague banter about families left behind and the official lies they were required to tell to keep their mission from the world. After touching down on the Moon, Anderson and Walker get to work gathering some rocks and setting up camera equipment for the military. It is through these lenses that evidence emerges of something alien and sinister—and perhaps not entirely unknown—waiting for us on the Moon’s surface.

As in Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity and many other recent thrillers, the grainy gaze of “real” cameras is essential to this story. Director Gonzalo López-Gallego uses the now-traditional shaky camera work to disorient the audience and long, uninterrupted static shots to funnel and misdirect their attention for maximum “boo” effect. He overuses some effects, though, and Apollo 18 often suffers from “artifact” overload—a barrage of random noises, static and audio interference, overexposures, film breaks and jump cuts, meant to keep the audience on its toes that, in fact, becomes increasingly intrusive and annoying.

In general, supernatural thrillers aren’t my cup of tea, but I’ll admit that Apollo 18 worked pretty well on me—I felt the tension as it mounted and was genuinely spooked when I was supposed to be. This can’t hope to be a game changer in the vein of Blair Witch or Jaws or The Exorcist—since going to the moon isn’t quite as common a human experience as going camping or swimming or taking a shortcut in Georgetown. But with technical adeptness and a pretty interesting concept (if I do say so my six-year-old self), it succeeds despite, or perhaps because of, its claustrophobic scale.

Apollo 18 is now available on DVD, Blu-Ray and for rental on iTunes and Amazon Instant Video. A version of this review of the theatrical release first appeared on chesapeakefamily.com.

Movie Review | Brüno

2009-07-10T22:40:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I haven't posted in a while. I'm sorry. My life involves a lot of very intense thinking, and it sometimes gets in the way of, you know, doing. It's a thing.

Anyway, Brüno is a movie about penises that I think very few of you will enjoy. Its occasional satirical brilliance is overshadowed by, well, penises. Nonetheless, I managed to write eight hundred words about it without once using the word "penis". Enjoy, and...

forgive my flagging attention

Movie Friday | Star Trek

2009-05-12T12:28:00.000-04:00

It is in the event of films like Star Trek that I remember why I really like being a film critic. Obviously, there're the free, advanced screenings; but mostly it's because I have a venue for being expansive and analytical in an open forum, rather than just spilling the contents of my brain all over whoever is unlucky enough to ask, "What did you think?"

I really liked Star Trek, and though I don't necessarily know you, I think you'll like it to.

thanks for paying attention

Movie Tuesday | 17 Again (Chesapeake Family)

2009-04-21T13:17:00.000-04:00

Permit me a moment to talk about how pretty Leslie Mann is.

She's really, really pretty.

She's in 17 Again, with some other people, one of whom is apparently quite popular with the youngsters. I review the film this week on chesapeakefamily.com.

(Apologies to Judd Apatow, who's having quite the life--lucky bastard.)

thanks for paying attention while i fumble and fawn

TV Review | Frakking Up Is Hard to Do: Battlestar Galactica's Series Finale

2009-03-23T12:45:00.000-04:00

How could a show that was so gritty and challenging descend so quickly into bathos and implausibility? Have them go camping. Check out a few of my many thoughts on the Battlestar Galactica series finale at my new television blog Pan & Scan.

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Film Review | Race to Witch Mountain (Chesapeake Family)

2009-03-20T12:39:00.000-04:00

My review of Race to Witch Mountain, late but not never. More cultural-criticism fun can be had at my new blog Pan & Scan, which focuses on the shrinking television wasteland. Check it all out.

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TV Review | Amateur Hour: Late Night with... who, again?

2009-03-10T20:18:00.000-04:00

I and my friend Kristen have been working slowly (oh so slowly) on a new blog focusing specifically on television, and even more specifically on all the things we know about television that you don't. It's in its infancy, this media empire of ours, but so far we've set a little of our minds out on display, mine in the form of this critique of Jimmy Fallon's faltering go at Late Night.

More cocksure opinionizing to come.

thanks for splitting your attention

Movie Tuesday | Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

2009-03-03T14:33:00.000-05:00

Kick, punch... it's all in the mind. Read the review of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, then skip the movie. (Then read the review again, and a few others, and then maybe click on an ad or two. C'mon, I gotta eat.)

Comments will sweep the leg, Johnny.

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Movie Tuesday | Fired Up!

2009-02-24T21:25:00.000-05:00

Fired Up! is not a cheerleader movie in much the same way that Scarface is not a cocaine movie. It may be that neither item is a subject, per se, but both are the prime motivators of the gluttonous heroes and the objects of single-minded, pathological and, at times, implausible consumption.

I don't have anything nearly as pithy to say in my actual review of the film; I just came up with that now. Oh, well.

Comments will tick tick tick BOOM go the fireworks!

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Movie Tuesday | Coraline

2009-02-10T12:06:00.000-05:00

The last movie I saw in 3-D was Jaws 3, twenty-six years ago. Coraline was better. Read all about it at chesapeakefamily.com/Movie Reviews.

Also, check out Kristen Page-Kirby's clever-clever-clever review of He's Just Not That Into You. (My reduplication there is a sign of my lingering jealousy of anyone who can unclench and just wite a funny review. Okay, therapy over.)

Comments will be loved to death.

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Movie Tuesday | Inkheart

2009-01-31T11:02:00.000-05:00

Up late (totally my fault) on the Movie Tuesday blog is my review of Inkheart.

Comments will be transported to a dream world of magic, Lazy-Sunday-style.

I'll be off next Tuesday. My editor and colleague Kristen Page-Kirby will be reviewing New In Town, starring Renee Zellweger--and believe me, I can't thank her enough for taking that one off my hands.

thanks for paying attention

Chaos quelled

2009-01-31T11:00:00.000-05:00

It appears that many of the links on the Chesapeake Family website have been repaired. The Movie Tuesday blog page now includes several of the most recent reviews, rather than just the most recent. At the bottom of that page is an index containing all the reviews published so far. Do me a solid and please let me know if you ever have any problems accessing reviews.

thanks for keeping attention

Where's Weirdo?

2009-01-28T12:19:00.000-05:00

As you, my legions of fans, may have noticed, there seems to be some trouble with the hot links leading to my latest reviews on the Movie Tuesday blog. Links here on The Weird Turn Pro have also been affected, with many items in my Writings column being redirected to the Chesapeake Family Magazine home page. Please know that our parenting publication juggernaut is working hard to correct the problem, and that soon the world will once again nod in hypnotized union at my droll assessments of contemporary tours-de-force like Inkheart and Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

In the meantime, perhaps you might enjoy perusing the back issues. Posted on the current Movie Tuesday page are several recent reviews stretching back to this past Thanksgiving. At the bottom of the page is a helpful menu with links to every review published so far, allowing you to dive into the stacks and rediscover some of the classics: The Dark Knight, High School Musical 3, Disaster Movie, and many more.

Please don't give up on us; we're still here offering sweet comfort to those who, through half-hearted suggestion, news feed intrusion, or distracted typing error, come upon our blog. So watch this space--there's more to come.

thanks for waning attention

Movie Tuesday | Paul Blart: Mall Cop

2009-01-22T12:41:00.000-05:00

Back like a bad penny to the Movie Tuesday blog this week. This time out it's Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

That's right; this is my job.

Comments will drop the knife and back slowly away from the woman who stopped you mid-stride and tried to sell you hand cream.

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Movie Tuesday | The Tale of Despereaux

2008-12-24T10:37:00.000-05:00

If you see only one politically conscious, soup-oriented rodent fable this year... you'd better hurry, 'cause this year ends, like, next Wednesday. To suss out your options, check out my review of The Tale of Despereaux on the Movie Tuesday blog at ChesapeakeFamily.com.

Comments will put the "boo-yah!" in bouillabaisse.

Have happy holidays.

thanks for paying attention

Movie Tuesday | The Day the Earth Stood Still

2008-12-16T18:05:00.000-05:00

Up now on the Movie Tuesday blog is my review of The Day Keanu Stood Still.

Comments will teach the earth a valuable lesson, or some such crap.

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Stuff I Wish I'd Done | Catch the Frak Up!

2008-12-09T15:47:00.001-05:00

"Catch the Frak Up!" is a video recap of the last four seasons of Battlestar Galactica, and it's Something I Wish I'd Done, damnit.

First of all, get off your high horse--Battlestar Galactica is excellent TV. It is easily the most sophisticated sci-fi series ever made, and like nothing that's been on television before, genre or otherwise. It's what you'd get if you let Joseph Conrad write Star Trek after getting high and watching soap operas with Philip K. Dick. There's no room for whimsy here--no lasers, no growling space bears and no velour onesies. People smoke and drink, lie and fight and play cards. Some dude fucks the wrong girl and the world ends. And then things get really bad. It's frakkin' awesome.

Anyway, the folks at scifi.com put this thing together to help people get a handle on the story. The 13-minute film surveys the entire sixty-five-episode broadcast run, with all of its shifting alliances and snaking storylines. Faster-than-light editing efficiently puts weird names to pretty faces while shuffling us through the sweaty intimacy, quaking cinema-verite and gunmetal hues of the show's palette.

Catch the Frak Up!, Part 1 [8 min. 9 sec.]

The narration (my chief creative woulda-coulda) is deadpan perfection--a caffeinated stream of minimalist snark that manages to evoke the clicking chatfests of the nerderatti with only a touch of technojargon and not one whiff of fanboy elitism.

Catch the Frak Up!, Part 2 [5 min. 2 sec.]

The show's makers, mavens and marketers are shrewdly extending an olive branch to the uninitiated, leaving the screen door cracked for neophytes and stragglers who might have otherwise gone home. Diehard fans might slurp up every drop in one sitting, while new and lapsed viewers are free to linger, unfolding layers of subtlety and gathering precious tokens of geek-chic cred. Catch the Frak Up! works either way, bringing the new and confused down to Earth (hee...) for the big finale.

And I wish I'd done it.

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Movie Review | Australia

2008-12-02T14:40:00.000-05:00

Here is my review of a hefty slab of poundcake called Australia. As Crocodile Dundee might say, it is not a knife--I just couldn't muster the energy necessary to articulately pan the thing. Tryptophan indifference, call it.

Comments will be spared the barbie.

thanks for paying attention (and special thanks to those who paid attention in person at my birthday thingie last night)

Movie Review | Bolt

2008-11-25T14:29:00.000-05:00

My job requires that I take in several cute animal pictures a year. Bolt was cute, and it has a puppy, but the reason to go is the hamster. Read all about it on the Movie Tuesday blog. Also, check out Kristen's droll and insightful analysis of Twilight, admirably achieved from within a crowd of screaming fourteen-year-old girls.

Comments will beg the question, "Who's a good boy? Who's a good, good boy?" (They can't all be winners people.)

giving thanks for paying attention

Links repaired

2008-11-22T23:00:00.000-05:00

I've repaired the "Writings" links in yonder right-hand column. The begrudging perusal and tepid praise of my work may now resume.

thanks for paying attention

Broken links, sorry

2008-11-19T23:11:00.000-05:00

Seems the URLs for my film reviews have changed, invalidating most of the links in both my blog entries and the "Writings" list at right.

For now, if you'd like to look at a review, go to the Movies & DVDs blog at Chesapeake Family; scroll down to find an index of previous reviews, most of which are mine.

I'll do my best over the next few days to fix the links in the list--the entries I'm just going to leave as-is.

sorry for not paying attention

Movie Review | Quantum of Solace

2008-11-18T15:25:00.000-05:00

Bond, James Bond, has a movie, new movie, out--I've reviewed it on the Movie Tuesday blog.

Comments will be seduced and abandoned.

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Movie Review | Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

2008-11-13T16:43:00.000-05:00

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa was kind of funny.

If you'd prefer a little elaboration, you may check out my review on the Movie Tuesday blog at ChesapeakeFamily.com.

Comments will be severely beaten by penguins.

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Movie Review | The Haunting of Molly Hartley (Chesapeake Family Magazine)

2008-11-05T17:29:00.000-05:00

In the din and glow of exalted politcial change, it's hard to remember that movies were shown last week. It's even harder to remember when one of them was The Haunting of Molly Hartley. Here's my review.

Comments will rush suddenly into frame accompanied by a blast of atonal noise and a yelp of simulated fear.

And hey, look around. Whoever you backed, last night we won.

thanks for paying attention

Movie Review | High School Musical 3: Senior Year (Chesapeake Family Magazine)

2008-10-29T10:22:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure what's worse, the grinning innocence of this latest installment of Disney's cheesy franchise, or the fact that I didn't hate it.

Kristen, my editor, and I tried something new this time: a tandem review, conducted on Gmail Chat and designed to take full advantage of the fact that we share a brain. I think it turned out pretty well (though my tone appears a little stiff--nerves on our first run, I guess). It certainly was a ton of fun, and I think you'll see more of this format on the Movie Tuesday blog in the future.

Check it out... and please chime in with critiques and suggestions--they're so helpful in fine-tuning this process for me.

Comments will JAZZ HANDS!

thanks for paying attention

My friends are wicked smaht

2008-10-21T14:56:00.000-04:00

My editor and friend Kristen has the wheel on this week's Movie Tuesday blog, where she has reviewed The Secret Life of Bees. She writes, like, totally as good as me; check it out.

thanks for shifting attention

Movie Review | The Express (Chesapeake Family Magazine)

2008-10-14T11:18:00.000-04:00

Here's my review of The Express, the latest on the Movie Tuesday blog.

Comments will receive a 15-yard penalty for excessive celebration.

I'll be off next week; Kristen Page-Kirby will be reviewing The Secret Life of Bees. I'll return the following Tuesday, October 28, as Kristen and I join forces and steel our resolve to review High School Musical 3: Senior Year. (I just threw up a little.) Wish us luck, and...

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Movie Review | Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (Chesapeake Family Magazine)

2008-10-08T13:05:00.000-04:00

The latest review is of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which was, on balance, enjoyable--if sobering in its implications for my, you know, oldness.

I welcome your feedback. In fact, now that I've been at this a while I especially need to hear it.

Comments will rock it till the break of dawn.

thanks for paying attention

Movie Review | Eagle Eye (Chesapeake Family Magazine)

2008-09-30T12:59:00.000-04:00

This week I review Eagle Eye, a not-terrible techno-thriller starring the overemployed Shia LaBeouf. I hope you'll check it out--and forgive the one or two errors I failed to catch. (I used "who" instead of "whom"--I may have my licence revoked.)

Comments will jump from a moving car at just the right time.

Up next is Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, for Tuesday, October 7. (The clock is ticking on Michael Cera, by the way--he needs to make a move soon or risk becoming the Anthony Edwards of his generation.)

thanks for paying attention

Movie Review | Igor (Chesapeake Family Magazine)

2008-09-23T11:21:00.000-04:00

Up on the Movie Tuesday blog is my latest review, of the computer-animated family film Igor. Feel free to check it out and respond with your opinions, if you like.

Comments will walk this way. No, walk this way.

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Back, baby

2008-09-16T13:37:00.000-04:00

My role in the Intertubes sensation known as Movie Tuesday resumes this week with an overwritten little gem about my first big-screen experience. My review/reminiscence thingy, on Disney's Pinocchio and its effect on my four year-old ass, can be found on the Movie Tuesday blog at chesapeakefamily.com.

Comments will be as a still small voice to tell you right from wrong.

thanks for paying attention

When was your first time?

2008-09-12T15:42:00.000-04:00

What was the first movie you saw in the theater?

It's an interesting question, I think--when and how you first shared in the most unifying cultural experience of the last hundred years. So chime in. I've created a group on Facebook that people can join (or not) and post their reminiscences.

And by the way, I'll be returning to Movie Tuesday Sept. 16 with a love letter to a simpler time, my memories of my first film in the theater, Walt Disney's Pinocchio. See you then.

thanks for paying attention

Taking a break...

2008-09-05T16:15:00.000-04:00

...this week from the Movie Tuesday blog. My friend and editor Kristen Page-Kirby is up next.

Kristen also has a great blog called New Mommy, about her adventures with a small, needy creature who refuses to leave her house.

Please continue checking out Movie Tuesday and the magazine itself--it's a great site, and getting better all the time. And it looks especially good to the staff when people link to them through my blog--the better I am for business, the better I am for business, you know?

I'll be back up Tuesday, September 16, when both Kristen and I will be reviewing and reminiscing about the very first movie we saw in the theater (me = Pinocchio; her = The Muppet Movie). Thanks to everyone for their support, and...

thanks for paying attention

Movie Review: Disaster Movie (Chesapeake Family Magazine)

2008-09-02T16:02:00.000-04:00

Achieved only with great and terrible suffering, my review of Disaster Movie is now up on the Movie Tuesday blog.

Comments will wander a post-apocalyptic horrorscape where the living envy the dead.

thanks for paying attention

I'm keepin' my baby

2008-09-01T16:19:00.000-04:00

So I came home with an infant on Saturday night. These things happen.

Actually, I won the little fellow in a raffle. My friend Lucan had a big birthday bash-slash-Obama fundraiser this past weekend, and among the prizes on offer was this bundle of joy:

He's about 13 inches long and weighs about 3 oz. I've named him Mortimer, and I've decided to raise him Zoroastrian.

Okay, straight up: It's a tape sculpture, made by D.C-based artist Mark Jenkins. Mark is an internationally renowned visual artist whose Storker Project involves "dropping" these ephemeral pieces in public spaces around the world. Check out his amazing work at http://www.xmarkjenkinsx.com/.

My thanks to Lucan Klyne, Mark Jenkins and all the Obama supporters and well-wishers at LUCANfest three-oh.

thanks for paying attention

It was my job...

2008-09-01T01:07:00.000-04:00

...to see Disaster Movie this weekend. This one makes The House Bunny look like Peer Gynt.

Can't.... get... clean...

The review comes out Wednesday.

thanks for paying attention

Movie Review: The House Bunny (Chesapeake Family)

2008-08-26T15:47:00.000-04:00

Read my review of The House Bunny on Chesapeake Family's Movie Tuesday blog. Then take a shower and go see Vicki Cristina Barcelona, or The Dark Knight again.

Comments will be, like, totally made over.

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Movie Review: The Clone Wars (Chesapeake Family)

2008-08-19T17:58:00.000-04:00

Check out my review of Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Chesapeake Family Magazine's Movie Tuesday blog.

Comments will make the Kessel run in under twelve parsecs.

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Movie Review: The Mummy 3 (Chesapeake Family Magazine)

2008-08-07T19:38:00.000-04:00

My review of the latest Mummy debacle can be found on Chesapeake Family Magazine's Movie Tuesday blog.

Deep. Hurting.

Comments will be rescued just in time by abominable snowmen. So check it out and let me know, you know?

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Article: "Attack of the Supersized Comic Book!" (Chesapeake Family Magazine)

2008-08-02T22:46:00.000-04:00

My first print article, about graphic novels in education and mainstream culture, has been published in Chesapeake Family Magazine. It's pared down from a slightly more ambitious--and probably unreadably florid--effort. I am nonetheless proud of it. I'm grateful for the opportunity provided by Chesapeake Family and its editor, Kristen Page-Kirby.

So check it out, and chime in. Comments will be slipped into pH-neutral melamine sleeves and allowed to appreciate in value.

thanks for paying attention

The Hulk is back

2008-07-29T22:16:00.000-04:00

[published Tuesday, July 29, 2008 on doctorbippie.blogspot.com]

The Incredible Hulk review is back up here, and at the Movie Tuesday index.

Movie Review: The X-Files 2 (Chesapeake Family Magazine)

2008-07-29T11:11:00.000-04:00

[Published Tuesday, July 29, 2008, at doctorbippie.blogspot.com]

My review of The X-Files: I Want To Believe is now up on the Movie Tuesday Blog.

Comments will be waved at from a rowboat. (Watch the end credits and you'll understand.)

thanks for paying attention

The Dark Knight: Some Scraps

2008-07-22T23:39:00.000-04:00

[Published Tuesday, July 22, 2008, at doctorbippie.blogspot.com]

Sometimes in my rapture I write a tad more than I should. What follows are some bits and pieces I'm a little proud of that couldn't possibly fit into my little 600-word confection.

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The look of the movie adds much to its exploration of the blurry boundaries between light and dark. Batman prefers to work at night, of course, gliding through the negative spaces of Gotham's sprawl. But a fair part of the action takes place during business hours, in the spare, rectangular domains of financial and civic power. Nolan and his production team juxtapose night's hard shadows with a flat, gray light that seems to coat rather than illuminate. It hums from the drop ceilings of government offices or oozes in through the windows of ivory tower boardrooms. Not even the Batcave escapes the quotidian glare. With Wayne Manor under renovation, Batman is forced to hide his toys in a single football field-sized room buried somewhere in the inner city. Lined with fashionably polished concrete and lit with bands of fluorescent light, it resembles a huge empty desk drawer. But who has time to decorate?

---

The Joker wants nothing except our fear. He has no beliefs, no allegiances and no agenda. And while he knows exactly what he’s doing, he scoffs at the notion that he has a plan. “Nobody panics when things go according to a plan,” he coos, adding, “even if the plan is horrifying.” It’s one of many instances where the ostensibly simple and silly comic-book world echoes the murky complexities on the other side of the theater walls. A look inside the mind of this fictional hyper-terrorist just might remind the audience of the thorny thicket of our own continuing response to terror, and of the hard lesson that crazy men who want to kill us may not be half as frightening as sane men who want to watch us lose our minds.

---

At two and a half dark and stormy hours, the film might have benefitted from some trimming. Not fat, mind you; the movie is all muscle. But there are some pretty long stretches of dialogue, and much of what would otherwise have been subtext finds its way onto someone’s lips eventually.

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Oh, how I do love the sound of my own voice.

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Movie Review: The Dark Knight (Chesapeake Family Magazine)

2008-07-21T12:54:00.000-04:00

My review of The Dark Knight is now on Chesapeake Family's Movie Tuesday blog. This movie kicked ass. I have way more than 600 words to spill over it--I'll see if I can't get some of them in a dustpan and find a spot for them here.

In the meantime, comments will be disarmed in one fluid motion while I simultaneously kick a guy in the chest.

thanks for paying attention.

Movie Review: WALL-E (Chesapeake Family Magazine)

2008-07-15T02:24:00.000-04:00

[Published Monday, July 14, 2008, at doctorbippie.blogspot.com]

Feel free to check out my review of WALL-E for Chesapeake Family Magazine's Movie Tuesday blog.

Comments will be cooed at in an adorable robotic tremolo.

(Due up is The Dark Knight, scheduled for Tues. July 22.)

thanks for paying attention

A note: The website has been redesigned--a tabbed drop-down menu of blog categories is now accessible at the top of any page (mine are all in Movie & DVDs.)

Movie Review: The Incredible Hulk (Chesapeake Family Magazine)

2008-06-30T21:41:00.000-04:00

[Published Monday, June 30, 2008, at doctorbippie.blogspot.com]

Here's the link to my review of The Incredible Hulk for Chesapeake Family Magazine's Movie Tuedsay blog: http://www.chesapeakefamily.com/20080729285/Movie-and-DVD-Reviews/Movie-Tuesday-The-Incredible-Hulk-PG-13.html.

Comments won't like me when I'm angry.

Next up should be WALL-E for Tuesday, July 8.

thanks for paying attention

Movie Review: Speed Racer (Chesapeake Family Magazine)

2008-06-10T20:01:00.000-04:00

[Published Tuesday, June 17, 2008, at doctorbippie.blogspot.com]

Here's a link to my review of Speed Racer for Chesapeake Family Magazine's Movie Tuesday blog: http://www.chesapeakefamily.com/20080512204/Movie-and-DVD-Reviews/Movie-Tuesday-Speed-Racer.html.

This one came out a little clunky. As with most things I botch, I blame sleep deprivation. Nevertheless, verdicts yea, nay or meh will be sheepishly accepted.

The next one should be The Incredible Hulk, on Tuesday, June 17.

thanks for paying attention.

Mr. P Recommends…

2007-08-29T23:54:00.000-04:00

[Published Wednesday, August 29, 2007, at doctorbippie.blogspot.com and proweirdo.wordpress.com]

This is a little something I used to send off with my seniors on their last day. One year, some students had asked what I read in high school and what I liked, so I put together a list, then annotated it--perhaps as a final dash of salt in the wounds of students trying to escape homework once and for all. In any case, here are a couple of entries I made.

---

Books

Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger

When I was a freshman in college my sister, still a sophomore in high school, sent me a hard-bound copy of Franny and Zooey as a birthday gift. It rang like a bell in my brain for weeks. I have since accepted that my little sister is never wrong about books.

In two separate novellas we are introduced to two of the unique siblings Glass. Only Franny could have a legitimate existential crisis over a pair of frogs legs, and only her brother Zooey could help her find her way by summoning their dead brother Seymour for a transcendental pep talk. If you were a precocious child or a searching adolescent, after reading this you’ll likely follow the Glass family to the ends of the earth.

Salinger’s prose is perfection, his style inimitable—but, boy, did I try. To this day, no one (except my father, and maybe David Letterman) has had a greater effect on the way I speak.

By the way, Salinger is still alive today (as far as we know), holed up on a farm in New Hampshire where he receives no visitors and stubbornly persists in not publishing; he hasn’t released anything since 1961. Making contact with him has become a modern literary Quest for the Holy Grail. If you ever end up meeting him, you will have earned the extra credit to end all extra credit. C'mon, I dare you.

The Diaries of Adam and Eve, “translated” by Mark Twain

You’ll recall we read a bit of this during the Virginia Woolf unit, as a springboard to a discussion about gender and voice. But I hope it became clear that, while Twain plays on and derives humor from some familiar gender stereotypes, this is in no way a one-joke piece. If anything, the book’s “gimmick”—the translation of previously undiscovered texts direct from the Garden of Eden—provides it with the fuel for genius. The man and the woman, while playing their traditional, stereotypical roles to perfection, also happen to be the first of their sexes. As a result, Adam and Eve are able to play out the battle of the sexes unhampered by the cultural baggage of gender politics (including that of Twain’s era, more than a century ago) is set aside. They are freed from blame for their behavior (at least for a time), and thus we readers are freed from having to blame them. After all, it was not them but their types that became stereotypical.

And so Eve and her reluctant mate emerge as so much more than mere caricatures. Instead, they can be seen and enjoyed as two young people in a new, uneasy relationship not only with each other but with the universe and their creator. Adam’s exasperation with (or obliviousness to) Eve’s complexity, which would thud rather than resonate in any well-heeled romance, only strengthens our desire to see Eve win him over. And she does—at a price.As the book jacket of this edition reminds us, the Diaries represent the only instance in Twain’s prolific career where he narrates in a woman’s voice. And I can honestly say that Eve is one of the most compellingly sweet and deliciously complex female voices I’ve ever read. This book is a tiny gem—well worth a trip to the library or bookstore.

High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby

Good movie, better book. Everyone says that, but there’s a reason they do.

Guys will especially enjoy this. As for the ladies, well… All I can say is, Yes, this is the way we think. And I’m sorry.

(Forging) My "Weird" License

2007-08-29T15:06:00.001-04:00

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
Hunter S. Thompson wrote that. Or mumbled it under his breath through a cigarette holder, I’m not sure.
For me it is a call to action. Not, as the author might see it, to booze and pills and guns and golf. (Though I must say that, for some reason, I respect the hell out of that.) Rather, a call to join the working week of the creative class, among people who try to induce change in the minds of some kind of audience, letting their tweaked inner life out in a droplet or a flood for the public’s fickle tasting.
I left teaching in part because I was looking for a creative outlet, for a part in the “means of production” of the culture I was introducing to teenagers with better things to do. I mean, I was always creative, so that wasn’t new. And I’ve always been a teacher; I have that way about me.
But the job, the day in and out, was for me an endless internship for a position I didn’t know how to seek, a perptual practicum in professional weirdness. I embraced the work–too hard, it seems. I burned out and I fell apart. I laid low for a while.
But I’m back, and I’m going pro.