Tag Archives: food

American Tragedy (2019)

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January 24

When I saw the synopsis for this documentary for the Genre-ary, I anticipated this film being a difficult watch. Strangely enough, this was not the emotional and gut-punch of a doc that I thought it would be.

This film was about one of the kids who participated in the shootings at Columbine. Surely, this would be a devastating film.

I was not prepared for American Tragedy, which I viewed on Amazon Prime, to be quite as dull as it was.

According to IMDB, “April 20, 1999 Columbine High School was under attack by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Sue Klebold, Dylan’s mother, attempts to reconcile how the son she thought she knew, the son she loved could willingly be a school shooter. ‘If love could have stopped Columbine,’ she says, ‘Columbine would never have happened.’ What would real prevention look like? Is it possible? Is America ready?“

The film spoke to Sue Klebold during the film, but I just did not get the expected feelings from her that I expected. Perhaps it was from years of hardening herself from the anger and the unexpected behavior, but a lot of the sections with Sue felt like the story was being told by someone else. I am sure that is not the way she felt, but it does not translate to the screen in this doc.

There were a few moments that stood out, but they were few and far between.

This is a shame that this doc does not connect with the viewer as much as it should have.

EYG Favorite Comic Covers of the Week

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January 23

A day late, but not a dollar short (Todd took away my four dollars, but that is a long story). So I did not have to go to Comic World twice this week, I waited for Thursday instead of Wednesday. It also helped that there was some snow in the weather. I definitely made the correct decision.

This week’s medalists:

Bronze Medalist

Mark Spears Monsters #1 (3rd Printing)

Cover art by Mark Spears

Mark Spears is hotter than anything right now. I bought a 3rd printing of the first issue because of the cover. This cover is the scene from Monster Squad too. “He’s gonna kill your son!” Cool cover once more.

Silver Medalist

The Tin Can Society #5

Cover art by Francesco Mobili & Chris Chuckry

So much happening on this cover. I love the reflection in the glasses as the other images around the cover stand out. The color of the cover is awesome too. Very stylish.

Gold Medalist

Mystique #4

Cover Art by Declan Shalvey

This is the one that stood out to me with the Mystique face on Nick Fury’s coat and the fire and smoke in the background. This is a truly awesome mash-up cover. Completely stunning.

Cheesy Problems

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Cheesy Problems

                     By: Cheryl Dean the 3rd

Do you cheese roll? Well hi, I’m Derek, and I’m a cheese roller. On July 15th which is tomorrow I will be going to the Summer Olympics for their first year of cheese rolling. I have been cheese rolling since I was 8. I am now 19 and I live in Albert Lea, Minnesota. I am currently staying at the 2034 Olympian Hotel in Paris. I will be going tomorrow at 7:30 am to get prepared to race at 4:30. My judge (Jill) will then weigh me, measure me, and much more. I’m going to bed at 7:30 to be prepared for the race tomorrow. It is now 7:02 and I’m going to brush my teeth, shower, and go to bed. Goodnight.

The next morning I’m going to training with my instructor (Jackson), and my coach (Owen). I’m at my warm ups but Owen is not here. Even worse, neither is Jackson. I’m starting to worry. (13 minutes go by). I know they stayed in the same hotel room. Maybe I’ll try calling them. Ring ring ring. Owen didn’t answer so I’ll try calling Jackson and if he doesn’t answer we have a problem.

I go to the front desk to talk to them. I found out their room number 304 and I got a room key since I came with them. 

Swoosh 

I go up the elevator to the 3rd floor. I found their room and I opened the door. I walk in to find them still asleep. I wake them up. 

“What are you doing in here Derek” 

I’m waking you up for training? 

“You didn’t get the email?” 

Huh?

 “It’s rescheduled for tomorrow Judge Meredith is sick”

 Ok. 

I leave. 

I guess I will check my emails for more info. Wait, I don’t have an email? Maybe it just didn’t go through. I’m going to try to email her to get more info. Oh! She emailed me back and said that she was confused. I asked her what she was confused about. 

 “I’m confused because we’re still having the race today and I’m not sick,” she said.

I go down the elevator. 

Swoosh. 

I go to room 304, use the room key, and walk in. No one is in there. So I go down to the front desk and ask them if they know anything about them or have seen them. They say

 “yeah they checked out about 30 minutes ago”. 

I am now confused because we were supposed to warm up, and they lied to me about today and told me it was tomorrow. Were they trying to make me miss it? I look out the window at the parking lot. The van was gone. I’m stuck here. No vehicle. 

I start getting hungry. I end up calling an uber. I go to Mcdonalds and there is a fight. I don’t think too much of it. Until I realize it’s my instructor fighting the chef and worker yelling “GIVE ME MY FRIES, MILKSHAKE, AND DR. PEPPER!” 

I leave.

After that I try to get an uber but it will be 35 minutes until I can. So I decided to go on a walk in Paris since I’ve never been here before. The eiffel tower was only a few blocks away. I’m sweating. I’m thirsty. I’m nervous. I don’t think I’m ready. Since my coach and instructor left, it’s just me. I decided to run a few blocks to the eiffel tower. And for extra preparation run to the hotel.

I am dripping sweat. I got ready for the race, including showering again. It is a 3:28 race that starts in one hour. I arrived at 3:34 and now they are weighing me, measuring me, and everything else. They’re are a lot of people. I’m anxious. I’m excited. I have a good feeling about this race. Even though my coach isn’t here to support me I will prove to him I’m fine without him and I’m better than ever.

“Alrighty ladies and gentlemen welcome our first contestant for cheese rolling!” 

They are about to introduce me!

 “6 ‘2’, 154 pound, male Derek Shepard!”

 Omg that’s me! 

Being announced at the olympics has always been my dream! And I am here to chase it. I am also here to chase that rolling cheese!

“And the race starts on 20, 19, 18”

 Oh my gosh I better have stretched well. 

“17, 16, 15, 14” 

It’s getting to me but nothing is stopping me.

 “5, 4” 

It’s the last few seconds! I got this and I’m more ready than ever. 

“ 3, 2, 1, GO!” 

I am running faster than ever.

 “And Derek Shpeard took the lead in 1st place!”

Ok i’m doing good. I’m almost there. I finished! Did I just win? We’re about to find out! Fingers crossed!

“Ok everybody we have our first place championship winner! Great job to…Derek Shepherd!”

Omg I just won 1st place at the olympics! I can’t believe this! Wait, are my coach and instructor in the audience? Why are they here? Well it’s kinda a good thing because I was able to prove I’m better off without them and maybe it’s a good thing they never showed up to practice. I just cannot believe they tried to convince me my big day was cancelled. I dont know whats going on with them but I don’t care because I just won 1st place at the world wide olympics!

After today I finally did some research and I would like you to meet my new instructor Alex, and my new coach Mark. They have really shown me what it looks like when people are really trying to put in their effort and help show me and tell me how I can improve and accomplish my goals.

Cheese Boy Champion

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“Cheese Boy Champion”

By Purple Grape

Tom is the number one cheese roller in the state. He is a five-time Olympian champion and he is only 21 years old. “Tom started when he was 16 and is still going on to win the title of the 6th-time champion. The competition for qualifying for the Olympics is Saturday. He goes on a five-mile run but goes easy for the first 4, then goes hard on the last one to train. The competition starts at 7 am and at 5pm he goes on a 3-mile run at the local park. Then he goes to his local bagel bar and gets a very protein-loaded bagel to ensure he gets the protein for his competition. Then, the first whistle blows and he starts running and then he starts rolling and then all of a sudden he is in the hospital. 

Then the doctors tell him that he has hurt his neck and broken his leg so badly that he needs surgery on his leg. He goes into surgery a day after and it all comes out good. The day after that he just rests and thinks about the day and then realizes that they did not make him sign a consent to say that the damages are against him. Then the next day he calls his lawyer and they talk for a while

“Hi, how is your day going?” Tom Said

“Hi, What can I help you with?” Mr Williams Said

“I was wondering if you were busy next week, I was thinking about entering a case to the courthouse.” said, Tom

“I should be free, just tell me what time,” said Mr Williams.

“ Ok, thanks,” Said Tom

“ No problem”, said Mr. Williams

Tom sued the competition and is going into trial in three days, so he must get to business. He is now on trial and is pleading his case to try and win the case. Two hours later, he is done and has been rewarded $536,000. He was awarded this much because of the hospital bill and then was awarded an extra $500,000.

That year he was awarded this much money and is hoping to go to the Olympics next year. That next day he decided that he was going to run 5 miles every day to get ready to win the Olympics the next year because the Olympics were canceled due to weather conditions. These weather conditions ruined the track and took off the paint that was supposed to mark how far they ran or threw. He goes on a run on a cold Sunday morning and all of a sudden he runs into someone and apparently blacked out and then when he woke up he was in the hospital again. He ran into a tree and did not know where he was so they took him to the hospital.

His qualifying match is only a week away. Now instead of 5 miles, he is running 8 miles everyday to get into the body he wants to race in and the body he feels good in. Now the race is tomorrow and he is running 6 miles today.  He is very tired but is gonna pull through. He is done running and it is 9 am so he is going to a bagel shop to get a protein-filled bagel. He has plans to go out with some friends for lunch at 12. At lunch, he eats wings because he thinks he needs to get his carbs in for the day. Then he goes to bed early because he has to wake up early to make it to the competition. 

The next morning he wakes up at 5 and then goes on a 3-mile run at 5:30 am to prepare for the day ahead of him. He then goes to the bagel shop and gets the same thing he got the previous day. Next, he goes home, changes into his race clothes, and then starts driving to the competition because it starts at 9 and it is 6 and it is an hour and 30-minute drive to the competition. He is ready to go at the start line at 8:45 because he wants one of the front spots. Then the race is over he figures out that he and another person are tied for first.

He gets a call. He answers it, it is the person from the competition.

“Hi, this is Mrs Rodriguez.”

“Hi, this is Tom,”

“We are from the competition that you were in last weekend, we have some news for you,” said Mrs Rodriguez

“So what is this news?,” said Tom

“So you know how there was a tie for first place, Well after watching the tape, we saw that you crossed it first so you won the competition, and are going to the Olympics! ” Said Mrs Rodriguez

“Thank you so much for this great news!”  Said Tom

He goes to the Olympics and competes twice and he won both of the rounds. He is now on the podium and gets  the gold medal and is now a 6-time Olympic gold medalist. 

Goosebumps: The Vanishing S1 E1, E2

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Spoilers

“Stay Out of the Basement Part I”

“Stay Out of the Basement Part II”

I was not that interested in the new Goosebumps series on Disney +. I had watched the previous one a couple of years ago, and I liked it enough, but it did not blow me away. It was clear that this was going to be a new cast in what appeared to be an anthology type show starring David Schwimmer of friends fame. I had a moment to watch episode one Sunday night so I gave it a shot.

Holy cow! I was knocked over with the show. I was able to watch episode two tonight and things only got creepier as the show seemed to go full Audrey II.

I loved these first two episodes. I was completely invested with the new characters and the new scary story.

It kicked off with a flashback to a group of kids who disappeared and were assumed to be dead years before. One of those kids turned out to be the brother of David Schwimmer’s character, Anthony. It is a family mystery that is still very relevant for them.

Anthony’s twin children, Devin and Cece, came to visit him for the summer, kicking off plenty of weirdness and wild encounters. Devin has had several issues immediately, trying to impress an old friend/flame, Frankie. She was dating Trey, a real jerk of a guy who lived across the street from Anthony’s place and kept parking his car in his driveway. It was a deal he had made with Anthony’s mom while she was there. Unfortunately, she has been taken to a home with dementia.

The family element was stronger than I expected with the actors involved playing things deeper than a show like this would normal have. Schwimmer was excellent with the sadness and the confusion on how to deal with the problems he is facing.

Anthony is a botanist and that leads him to find a spore (or so he thought) on his brother’s clothes, which had just now been released by the police. That spore turned out to be an animal and a carnivore. So Anthony did his best Seymour Krelborn imitation and started feeding it dead mice from the pet store. Guess what… it started growing. Feed Me Seymour.

Trey gets eaten too… or transformed… or something.

All of the episodes are currently on Disney +, but I do not have the time to binge the rest. Maybe some time in the next week I will get to the remainder of this show, and I am excited because I really liked the first couple.

ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke (2019)

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January 10

Another ReMastered documentary on Netflix was today’s entry in the Genre-ary. This time, the ReMastered doc is focused on musician Sam Cooke.

Sam Cooke was a black musician who was gaining a lot of power during the 1960s through his amazing music and his desire to help bring about civil rights. Cooke was forming friendships with other powerful black men of the period including Cassius Clay, Malcom X and Jim Brown.

Sam Cooke’s murder was a mess. The story that was in 1964, Cooke picked up a woman and went crazy. She believed that she was about to be raped. Her story was that she grabbed his pants and took off. Cooke went after her and wound up being shot by the hotel manager. The trial was determined to be justifiable homicide.

Most of the people who had been interviewed in the documentary could not believe that this was truth. There was some speculation that there was a conspiracy behind this event as Sam Cooke was becoming a very powerful man and he had created a recoding studio that threatened the industry. The end certainly did not mesh with the the picture that we had been shown about Cooke.

We heard interviews from Smokey Robinson, Quincy Jones, Jim Brown, Dionne Warwick, Lou Adler, and Billy Davis.

The doc was interesting and engaging. It featured a person that I did not know much about and had a amazing, though way too short life.

Doctor Who Special 5: Joy to the World

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Spoilers

Doctor Who returned to Disney + with the fifth special, Joy to the World, a Christmas story featuring Ncuti Gatwa and Nicola Coughlan.

I believed Nicola Coughlan was going to be the next companion, Joy, but that turned out to be incorrect. She becomes even more as she becomes a star and it turned out to be a star shining over Jerusalem in the year 0001.

The Doctor had to figure everything out by rushing through the Time Hotel, where he had to spend a year waiting to be able to access the Time Hotel once again. During that time, he befriended a co-worker at the hotel, Anita, and spent the year befriending her and spending time with her in chairs, something he realized that he did not have on the Tardis.

I loved the section where the Doctor had to wait a year and then just went and told his old self the briefcase code, which he had been told by himself. It was a loop and I loved how clever it was to have him find out the code by having himself tell it.

The whole time travel idea can be difficult, but I did like how this episode removed the potential time paradoxes with the Time Hotel.

This was emotional, joyous and a treat during this holiday season. I have loved Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor and I hope he has a good long run as the character. I am looking forward to the next season and the potential return, at least for some episodes, of Ruby.

4 stars

What If…? S3 E4

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Spoilers

“What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched”

Tell us this is the final season without saying it is the final season.

What If gives us a Howard the Duck/Darcy episode. They’re married and she gave birth to an egg.

What?

What If took one of the worst episodes from season one and gave it a sequel and made it one of the strangest, weirdest episodes of the entire run.

What If, the comic book, would have issues that were really bizarre because they could do anything they wanted, and this is a perfect example of that.

I do love Howard the Duck and I would be all for a Howard the Duck series, live action or animated. This did feel a bit much.

There were a bunch of surprising cameos from the people chasing after this egg including Zeus, Thanos and the Black Order, Nick Fury and Agent Coulson, Dark Elves, the Grandmaster …all in pursuit of this egg.

I will say that I found this to be too silly at times and that a lot of the humor did not work for me, and I am a person whose Marvel’s humor almost always works. This might be an episode that I like more on second watch, but for now, this episode was down my list.

E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?

E3 What If The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier

E1 What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?

E4 What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched?

Battlestar Galactica S1 E4, E5

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Spoilers

“Acts of Contrition”

“You Can’t Go Home Again”

This is a two-part adventure featuring Starbuck that was really epic.

I will state that I had some problems with the first part of the episode knowing what time frame was going on at certain times. As we started with Starbuck in a Viper and spinning out of control, and, as far as I remembered, that was not where we left off with episode three.

Then, they bounced around, kind of like Starbuck was seeing her life flash before her eyes. At least, that is how I took it, though it did not make for easy viewing. Again, I was not sure what was present day and what wasn’t.

However, that did not last for long and once I was able to get my bearing for the episode, this turned into an incredible fight for survival.

Watching Starbuck find that Cylon vessel and figure out how to fly it back to Galactica was exceptional. I do wonder how she wrote her name on the wings of the ship to avoid getting shot by the fleet. I loved how she just kind of flew rings around Apollo while he was mistakenly attempting to destroy the Cylon ship she was piloting.

We learned a lot about our main characters during this attempted rescue mission including Adama. Starbuck confessed her passing of Zach when he should have failed to Adama. Still, you could see how important she was to him and to Apollo as they were willing to put it all at risk to save her.

There was an advancement of Helo on Caprica too as a pair of Cylon machines get into a firefight with him. After this, he cannot find Sharon. This is a still evolving story bit.

I enjoyed this two-part episode even if Starbuck’s ability to fix and pilot the Cylon ship is stretching reality. I just took it as she made herself some great dice rolls (as in D&D). Perhaps some natural 20s.

Or is there more to it?

Bye Bye Birdie (1963)

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The Genre-ary is creeping toward a finish as we reach January 25th, and we pull out the Dick Van Dyke musical, Bye Bye Birdie, based on a stage musical.

According to IMDB, “Conrad Birdie is the biggest rock & roll star of the 60’s ever to be drafted. Aspiring chemist and song writer Albert is convinced he can make his fortune and marry his girlfriend Rosie if he gets Conrad on the Ed Sullivan show to kiss a high school girl goodbye. Albert’s mother will do anything to break him up with Rosie. Kim and Hugo, the high school steadies, live in Sweet Apple, Ohio where most of the action takes place“

Certainly, this is loosely based on Elvis Presley going into the army, as Conrad Birdie is very much like The King. Albert (Dick Van Dyke) is desperate for Birdie to sing a song he was trying to write. Rosie (Janet Leigh) hoped that the song would give Albert the ability to get away from his overbearing mother (Maureen Stapleton) and give Albert the strength to ask Rosie to marry him.

Fun songs throughout the film included “Put on a Happy Face,” “Kids,” and “Bye Bye Birdie.” 

This was quite a fun little movie that was sweet and silly. It works as a family film, but its not the most compelling ever. It was fine.