Articles by Diana beechener

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/28/11

African Cats

A G rating takes the teeth out of this lion and cheetah documentary

Cheetah mother Sita stalks an antelope in the tall grasses of the Kenyan savannah. She chases her quarry, closing the gap between them with bounding strides. Sita leaps, claws out, and lands upon the antelope’s hindquarters.
And cut!
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Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/21/11

Scream 4

Good slasher fun is marred by lectures about the good old days.

Wes Craven (My Soul to Take) wants you damn kids to get off of his lawn. Also, the director wants the You Tube generation to show some respect for old-school slasher films.
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Article - Movie Reviews; by DIana Beechener - 4/14/11

Hanna

An action fairytale pits a little girl against the big bad wolf.

Once upon a time there was teenager named Hanna (Saoirse Ronan: The Way Back) who lived alone in the woods with her father Erik (Eric Bana: The Time Traveler’s Wife). They spend nights reading by the fire, living off the frigid land of Finland and training in the art of the kill.
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Article - Creature Feature; by Diana Beechener - 4/7/11

It’s No Spring Chicken

A wattled crane is the National Zoo’s newest addition

On March 20, a wattled crane cracked its egg to become the third of its species to hatch in the National Zoo’s history. Unlike mammals, the crane was ready to make an appearance almost immediately, showing off its downy feathers to visitors in the Crane Run.
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Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/7/11

Jane Eyre

An uninteresting lead turns a brooding gothic classic into a tepid tale of inconvenient love

There is a fundamental problem with adapting Jane Eyre into film: Most people know what’s in the attic. To counteract the English Lit 101 plot, the movie has to make you invest in the characters so that you dread what you know will befall them.
At the very least, filmmakers need to make that attic creepy.
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Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 3/31/11

Sucker Punch

Great visuals get KO’ed by an insulting, incoherent script

The world has been hard on 20-year-old Babydoll (Emily Browning: The Uninvited). After being assaulted by her stepfather and accidentally killing her sister, Babydoll is committed to an asylum. In five days, she’s scheduled for a lobotomy.
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Article - Features; by Diana Beechener - 3/24/11

Working Like a Dog

Midshipman Ari Schiff raises funds so wounded veterans can benefit from a warm heart and a cold nose

Twenty-one-year-old Ari Schiff knows the value of a dollar. In high school he earned 60,000 of them. Not for a new car or an expensive spring vacation.
Schiff earned this small fortune so that America’s VetDogs could offer two assistance dogs to help disabled veterans acclimate to life at home.
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Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 3/24/11

Paul

A raunchy alien makes men out of two nerds

Graeme (Simon Pegg: The Chronicles of Narnia) and Clive (Nick Frost: Pirate Radio) are two nerds living the dream. The Brits combine their savings for a trip of a lifetime to California’s Comic Con....

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 3/17/11

Rango

A hilarious western cartoon spoof sure to haunt the dreams of young children

Rango (voiced by Johnny Depp: The Tourist) is a chameleon with an identity crisis. Kept in captivity, he makes himself the hero of elaborate plays, using a Barbie torso, a windup fish and a dead bug as a supporting cast.
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Article - Green Living; by Diana Beechener - 3/17/11

Is Bigger Better?

Anne Arundel County hopes larger containers amount to a greater recycling haul

The bigger, the better. That seems to be the theory behind Anne Arundel County’s push to distribute 65-gallon recycling containers throughout the county.
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Articles by Diana beechener

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