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Articles by Diana Beechener

Timber!

On a recent blustery day, a thunderous crack and immediate darkness in the kitchen alerted me to a wayward limb obstructing the power lines.     Dangling from our power lines and blocking our road was the top half of a neighbor’s pine tree.     We should call someone, the gathering of alarmed neighbors agreed.     Who do you call when a tree takes a swan dive onto a public road?     As we debated the finer points of tree...

Do you love the 1980s? Then skip this movie.

Poor Matt Franklin (Topher Grace: Predators) is having a bummer of a year. After graduating from MIT, Matt decides to forgo a career working for the corporate machine. Instead, he works at the mall’s Suncoast Video — which is a corporation, but don’t tell Matt — and makes plans for his future.     Matt sees his opportunity to turn his loser luck around when his high school crush, Tori Frederking (Teresa Palmer: I Am Number Four), visits the store. He lies...

Annual festival set for May 21, 22

Sarah Petska has already got the blues, though her festival doesn’t start until May 21. In preparing for The Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival’s 10th anniversary, the event coordinator has been putting in long hours.     Her hard work has been rewarded with an all-star lineup. Saturday, May 21 features the Chesapeake Bay Blues Band with Patty Reese, Marc Wenner, Tommy Lepson and Dean Rosenthal; The Lee Boys; Mac Arnold and Plate Full o’ Blues; The Otis Taylor...

Fast cars, naked women and explosions add up to a surprisingly dull ride

Drive Angry 3D After winning the best actor Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas, Nicolas Cage decided to become an action star. For 14 years, Cage has made a career out of kicking ass and taking names. Yet the actor never seems comfortable playing the badass. His oddly nuanced voice and pregnant pauses come off as uncertainty instead of a quirky character trait.     If Cage can’t convince himself he’s an action star, what chance does he have of convincing the audience?...

Tips for surviving Chesapeake Beach Resort and Spa’s murder mystery weekend

As fans of murder and mayhem, fiancé Jack and I often spend weekends watching thrillers and mysteries. We consider ourselves quite the couch-potato detectives.     We’re also veterans of Chesapeake Beach Resort and Spa’s first Murder on the Chesapeake Weekend. It stood to reason that when we returned for the Resort’s second round of Agatha Christie-style, murder-in-a-hotel drama, we’d have it all figured out by the end of the first night.   ...

A neighborhood walk can be a history lesson

In honor of Black History Month, Bay Weekly tracks down unsung African Americans behind some street signs.     In our capital, many streets are footprints for the African American communities that developed in the late 1800s.     In Annapolis, King’s Apostle Holiness Church sits at the mouth of Kirby Lane, watching over a sleepy street dotted with residences. No more than 500 feet in length, the small stretch of pavement is named after a country teacher....

DC Cupcakes gives you a sweet reason to Go Bananas

Eleven-year-old Kwame and 9-year-old Kojo celebrated their birthdays with cupcakes. As part of Georgetown Cupcakes’ reality show on TLC, DC Cupcakes, the sister-owned business, delivered a giant gorilla sculpture, comprised of cupcakes, to the National Zoo where the two male western lowland gorillas were celebrating their big days.     Sadly, gorillas can’t get the real sweet treat, so zookeepers gave them an approximation of Georgetown Cupcakes’ red velvet...

An excellent cast struggles to elevate a spy thriller that thinks it’s smarter than it is

Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson: The Next Three Days) is having a bad day. After realizing that he’s left his briefcase, containing vital information for a bio-medical conference he’s speaking in, at the Berlin Airport, he leaves his wife (January Jones: Mad Men) at their hotel to retrieve the case. One cab crash and concussion later, Martin wakes from a four-day coma and returns to his wife and the conference.     Only one problem: His wife doesn’t know him....

One reader’s quest to gander a gaggle sent us to the experts

On a recent trip down to my pier, I found a gaggle of interlopers monopolizing the planks and moorings. Geese. Loud, messy and surprisingly aggressive long-necked Canadas were using my pier like a roadside rest area.     I was happy they’d be on their way north in a few weeks.     Reader Bill Seabrook doesn’t share my uncharitable attitude toward these migrating fowl. He wrote in to find out why his recent birding walks in Anne Arundel and Calvert...

Two hitmen make mincemeat out of the company that betrayed them in this highly entertaining shoot-em-up

In a South American cartel compound, a wealthy drug jeffe dives into the blackened waters of his swimming pool. As his guards carelessly look away, he is caught by a scuba-geared assailant and drowned. Changing from scuba gear to a kitchen uniform, the assassin slips past the dozens of armed guards, who stare bewilderedly at their expired leader.     It’s ridiculous, yes, but it’s also pretty damn entertaining.     The Mechanic casts Jason Statham (...