Articles by Diana Beechener

Kung Fu Panda 2

Po and his band of martial arts friends make feathers fly in this fun sequel

After becoming the famed Dragon Warrior in his last film, tubby panda warrior Po (Jack Black: Gulliver’s Travels) is living large. He trains, signs autographs and eats, while enjoying a partnership with the legendary Furious Five — Tigress (Angelina Jolie: Salt); Viper (Lucy Liu: East Fifth Bliss); Praying Mantis (Seth Rogen: Paul); Crane (David Cross: Running Wilde); and Monkey (Jackie Chan: The Karate Kid). Their days are spent training and protecting the Valley of Peace. ...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener; 6/2/11

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

A fresh start offers the same old problems

A lonely Spanish fishing boat pulls up a man in its net. Clasping a map and suddenly reanimated, he mumbles something about the Fountain of Youth. To the king! When the British discover that the Spaniards have set off in search of Ponce de Leon’s discovery, they set their own ships after the armada. Led by newly minted king’s privateer Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush: The King’s Speech), the Brits try to recruit the infamous Captain Jack...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener; 5/26/11

This Week’s Creature Feature: Bad Dog!

The Postal Service sinks its teeth into a worthy cause

The Postal Service is sick and tired of dogs monitoring the mail. Last year 5,669 postal workers were attacked by dogs in 1,400 cities throughout the U.S. The problem is bigger than puppies going postal. Each year dogs take a bite out of 4.7 million non-postal Americans, most of whom are children. The problems range from pets not properly contained to over-anxious watchdogs. The threat is out there among us, with Baltimore ranking as...

Article - Creature Feature; by Diana Beechener; 5/19/11

Bridesmaids

Kristen Wiig proves that women can be funny too, when they write the script.

Annie (Kristen Wiig: Paul) isn’t having the best year. Her cake-baking business went under in the recession. She’s in a sex-only relationship with a vapid but handsome user (Jon Hamm: Mad Men). Now childhood friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph: Saturday Night Live) asks Annie to be her maid of honor. This should be good news. But as Annie fumbles through planning bachelorette parties and showers, she discovers that weddings are a nightmare. Already...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener; 5/19/11

Thor

The God of Thunder rumbles through two worlds in this fun comic book adaptation

Life ain’t easy when you’re the son of the Asgardian king. Well, actually, it’s pretty easy, but arrogant young Thor (Chris Hemsworth: Ca$h) makes life hard for himself. A hothead, Thor wants nothing more than to fight and smirk the days away, counting the seconds until he inherits his father’s crown. When this attitude incites a war in Asgard, papa Odin (Anthony Hopkins: The Rite) puts his foot down, casting Thor from the kingdom and stripping him of...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener; 5/12/11

Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil

A fractured fairytale gets more splintered with poor storytelling

If a terrible movie bombs at the box office, does anyone care what a reviewer writes about it? We’re about to find out. In the sequel to 2005’s Hoodwinked, The Weinstein Company managed to produce the ultimate anti-Pixar film: dull, ugly and devoid of humor. This is quite a feat considering that the original garnered praise for its wit and Rashamon-like take on a classic fairytale. This follow-up forgets the original, reinventing established...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener; 5/5/11

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! The director returns to Sita later, face smeared with blood, feeding her hungry cubs. The antelope, curiously, is nowhere to be found. African Cats is an entertaining, if bloodless, look at the lives...

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

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. In the reboot of the Scream franchise, the curmudgeon director sets out to prove that fusing old-school scares and new-school pop culture smarts are his forte. Craven’s got a point. When he focuses on the gore and the fun, he makes a smart, scary flick. Ten years after the last...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener; 4/21/11

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. Sweet little Hanna is a blond-haired, blue-eyed killing machine. Strong as a man, capable of using just about anything around her as a lethal weapon and boasting the endurance of a soldier,...

Article - Movie Reviews; by DIana Beechener; 4/14/11

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. This baby is an important addition to the zoo for another reason: Wattled cranes are listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. Hunting,...

Article - Creature Feature; by Diana Beechener; 4/7/11