For the Memorial Day weekend, Trey took Leslie and me to Ohio. Our first stop was Sandusky's Cedar Point amusement park, still the most awesome place on Earth. Trey and Leslie had never been before, and I'm sure they enjoyed themselves as much as I did. For the record, I'm not getting too old for this.

As I did for my last visit to the park in 2010, here's a trip summary in postcard-sized chunks:

The new "ride" in 2012 is "Dinosaurs Alive!", the old riverboat retooled with dinosaur animatronics replacing animal animatronics.

Magnum heads up its lift hill into the clouds.

The Midway as seen from a shady picnic table behind the Dodgem pavilion.

New since last visit: Pink's on the Midway.

A last look at the Millennium Force before nightfall.

Passing by the remains of the Wildcat. The space is being cleared for an outdoor "Luminosity" laser show.

After we left Sandusky, we headed south to Columbus, Trey's real destination. More on that later.

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Movies, week of May 13-19.

120. The Triplets of Belleville (2003)
I liked the way this movie looked, but I enjoyed it even more after I discussed it with my brother who had coincidentally also watched it last week. It is in all ways broader than Sylvain Chomet's follow-up, The Illusionist (more caricature, a wider scope of humor and drama, less bound by reality), but less deep. Don't get me wrong: it's good. It's just a different sort of movie.

121. Bikini Beach (1964)
Mom loves these beach movies, but she had to admit that this one is not very good, even by the standards of the genre. Drag racing, driving monkeys, and a parody of the British Invasion (with Frankie Avalon in two roles!) combine to put you to sleep.

122. Get Yourself a College Girl (1964)
The skimpy plot was right out of an Elvis movie, and like an Elvis movie, the plot only served to link the musical segments. I think the highlight was Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto performing "The Girl from Ipanema." I love that song.

123. Down to Earth (2001)
The movie, based firmly on Warren Beatty's Heaven Can Wait, is just an excuse to shoehorn some Chris Rock stand-up routines into an extra paycheck. Funny, but unnecessary.

124. Grandma's Boy (2006)
My friend Chris loves this film about the semi-complicated life of a video game tester. In its own way, it's just like my mother's beach movies: a simple, unrealistic story designed to be something to hang some jokes and good times on in order to kill a few hours of time. Differnet generation, same concept.

125. The Lost Squadron (1932)
More Richard Dix! The climax of this film about former WWI pilots-turned-Hollywood stuntmen forces the protagonists to do something completely stupid for no apparent reason other than provide a dramatic ending to the story. Very disappointing.

126. The Phenix City Story (1955)
My grandmother was from Columbus, Georgia, and frequently called Phenix City, Alabama, as "the wrong side of the tracks." This movie explains why. It is surprisingly entertaining to watch some of the stupidest gangsters ever ruin their own racket by being really, recklessly stupid.

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This past weekend I attended another wedding. More than attended, actually, as I was in the wedding party. The older I get, the more I wonder what's the point of having friends if they are going to keep dragging me into their rituals?

Chad and Meagan were married in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Chattahoochee National Forest. The wedding itself was held at an elevation of about 2100 feet on Snake Mountain. (The name made my brother nervous, as he was frequently looking over his shoulder for an appearance by Skeletor.) This is the second time I attended a mountain wedding, once in the Sierra Nevada and now on the southern end of the Appalachian. I suppose everyone I know wants to start their marriage with their head literally in the clouds.

Blue Ridge, GA is a strange place, more Tennessee than Georgia country. It seems that everyone calls their home a "cabin" and maintains a gravel road in order that they might still drive during frequent winter freezings. At least the people seemed nice enough, especially when compared to their neighbors in Tennessee.

Trey and I had a good time on the drive up, especially after we spotted that bear statue that looked very unhappy to be chained to an American flag. (There's an allegory in that, somewhere.) And everyone had a great time at the bachelor party I organized. We drank Coke and played video games until the groom hurt his elbow playing Foosball. Never tell me I don't know how to party!

Thank goodness it's all over. Here's hoping no one else I know ever ties the knot; I'm getting too old for this shit.

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Now that I finally have Mom conditioned to watch movies and not television shows, I seem to be making significant headway in my quest to 150 as many movies as I can watch in 2012. To keep from posting huge lists twice a month, I'm going to start regularly posting what I've seen in the past week. Since I've already got a backlog, let's get started. I watched the following movies the first week of April:

76. Meet Dave (2008)
After blogging about it in 2008, I finally had to watch this "family comedy" -- the only kind of movie Eddie Murphy makes anymore. I got the impression that the actors were really trying but had nothing to work with either via script or director Brian Robbin's instructions. (Robbins only directs television shows for kids and Eddie Murphy films, and it shows.) At one point, Eddie Murphy smiles into the camera as he shits money. That's fun for kids of all ages! To be perfectly clear: don't watch this film.

77. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)
Believe it or not, I'd never seen this before. Two words summarize why it is a classic: unintentionally hilarious.

78. Bridesmaids (2011)
I had started this film alone but quickly decided that it was a film that Mom would enjoy, so I started it over. Kristen Wiig knows funny.

79. Meteor (1979)
This movie predicts future events, showing a flying object slamming into the upper floors of the World Trade Center. Does that mean that one day Sean Connery will really be a divorced rocket scientist trying to save Earth from an idiotic NASA beurocracy?

80. How the West Was Won (1962)
Slowly, I'm working my way through all those mid-1960s epics that have a running time of three hours and mid-movie intermissions. This film was originally presented in Cinerama, which apparently was a gimmick placing three screens side-by-side. Because of the camera design required to capture such a wide aspect ratio, there's no shot approaching a close-up in the entire story, which may explain why the studio cast only stars in even the minor roles. Seriously, Lee Van Cleef shows up for 30 seconds as a member of a gang of pirates. I'm not convinced that this type of epic story with an all-star cast and Imax-style visuals has any place in modern Hollywood, and that's part of the film's appeal, I think.

81. Columbiana (2011)
A brainless revenge flick that wasn't worth the time it took to watch it. I'd rather watch nothing but 3-hour epics than any number of boring 90-minute wastes of celluloid like this.

82. Thor (2011)
This was the Marvel movie I was looking forward to in 2011, and I'm pleased to say that it lived up to my expectations. Far better than Captain America, Green Lantern, and Green Hornet combined.

83. The Smurfs (2011)
Trey can attest that I spent most of this movie complaining about Scottish Smurf. However, I really enjoyed Azrael the cat and Hank Azaria's Gargamel. Dont' get me wrong: I don't want to see it again, but I'm not in hate with it.

There was one more film this week (Trey knows what it is), and I'll get to it soon.

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March movies concluded.

59. An American Werewolf in London (1981)
I generally don't like werewolf films, but since I was planning to watch New Moon, I figured I owed this horror classic the old college try. To my surprise, I hadn't missed anything. To sum up: a boy is bitten by a werewolf but survives, told by his dead friend that he will become a werewolf, turns into a werewolf, and is killed. The SFX are good, but someone really should have tried to squeeze a little plot under all that makeup.

60. The H-Man (1958)
This movie has a significantly better user rating on imdb.com than New Moon, proving the adage that you shouldn't believe everything you read. Even if you hated New Moon, there's nothing here that's remotely better. The special effects of melting people -- every bit as creepy if slightly more mysterious than the melting Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark -- are the highlight of this pedestrian Japanese morality tale of the dangers of the radiation tests. That's two movies in a row where special effects are used to cover weak stories. It's a trend!

63. Die, Monster, Die! (1965)
After H-Man, this horrible movie looks like an award winner. Dialogue is long and pointless, characters are wooden, and sets are cluttered. There is a scene in this film where the protagonists discover a hothouse filled with truly horrific creatures that could be demons or mutants, and they act as though they were seeing something as ordinary as chickens. (The female lead inexplicably saves her screams for far more mundane thunderstorms and locked doors.) At least the film does have a significantly creepy and mysterious atmosphere, which was enough to keep me watching.

64. 30 Minutes or Less (2011)
I am so sick of Jesse Eisenberg and Danny McBride. Fortunately Fred Ward and Aziz Ansari appeared just often enough to keep the timer going on this "comedy."

65. Suddenly (1954)
I told my friend Chris that he was probably the only person I knew who would be even slightly interested in the fact that I had just watched a b-movie in which hired assassin Frank Sinatra kills a television repairman. Without hesitation Chris replied, "hey, I own Suddenly!"

66. Priest (2011)
In a past life, my brother worked in Hollywood where he developed a mancrush on actor Paul Bettany. Since then, Trey insists that I watch all things Bettany does. Trey was quite pissed to learn that I had watched Twilight despite my aversion to vampire-themed fiction and demanded that I finally watch Bettany's vampire-themed Priest. Don't tell Trey, but this movie co-stars Cam Gigandet, the villain from Twilight. (And he's delightful!)

68. Superheroes (2011)
A documentary about the people who dress up like superheroes and fight "crime," by which they typically mean homelessness.

69. Zero Hour! (1957)
I watched this knowing that it is the film that Airplane! is based on. What I did not know was that the two movies share the same script: Zero Hour! is Airplane! without the punchlines. Save yourself the trouble and just watch Airplane!.

70. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
A fantastic movie. Sometimes, casting does make all the difference, but it really helps when they have a great script to work with.

71. The Big Sleep (1946)
This bit of film noir provided several scenes for Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, but fails to be anything more than a vehicle for Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. For die-hard film noir (or Bogart) fans only.

72. Friends with Benefits (2011)
Why try so hard to convince the audience that you aren't just another romantic comedy while being just another romantic comedy? I liked it despite this flaw, mostly because Justin Timberlake is so willing to make a fool of himself for my entertainment.

73. Dirigible (1931)
Frank Capra directed this film, but I watched it because it of its subject matter (the dirigibles, not the cliche polar expedition disaster). I marvel that Ralph Graves had a career as a romantic leading man: his kisses look like assaults. After he "assaulted" Fay Wray early in the movie, I kept cheering for him to die. However, Frank Capra provides the expected saccharin ending, more disappointing than ever when the wrong boy gets the girl in the end.

74. Game Change (2012)
Again, I almost didn't watch this because it was a biopic, but the allure of Woody Harrelson proved too great. Yes, the film is a hit job on Sarah Palin (the woman simply can't be that demented in real life), but it has the side effect of making John McCain look like a modern Teddy Roosevelt. I'm voting for Ed Harris in 2012!

75. The Mechanic (2011)
The sex scenes in this remake seem to define "gratuitous nudity" and left me wondering if the original film showed Charlie Bronson having vigorous sex with topless girls half his age. I guess I need to see the 1972 original and find out.

After watching 75 new-to-me movies by the end of March, I'm already halfway to my goal of 150 on the year. I think I'll take it easy in April. It sure can be hard work trying to watch a movie every day. I'm sacrificing considerable video game time.

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February movies continued:

28. Rubber (2010)
Seinfeld used to brag that it was a television show about nothing. Wrong. This movie was about nothing. I really didn't know that anyone was still working in the Theater of the Absurd, but there it is. It's not bad for experimental theater, but then making it better would also have made it less experimental, I suppose.

29. Kiss Me Kill Me (1973)
A little sex, a little super-natural conspiracy, a little art-house: this movie was made for drive-ins. Satisfying in oh so many ways. This film was also released as Baba Yaga, Devil Witch, so maybe I should count it as two movies?

30. I Killed That Man (1941)
This is a b-movie detective story that would have run as a movie-house undercard back in the day. Really, it's not too different than modern television police procedurals.

31. The Wasp Woman (1959)
In a sentence: trying to recapture her lost youth, the head of a cosmetics company takes an experimental drug that turns her into a giant wasp. It is what you think it is.

32. Marty (1955)
Another Best Picture winner, and the film that made Ernest Borgnine. It watches like a 1950s television drama because it was adapted from a television drama. If you like that sort of thing, you'll love this; as good as 1950s television drama gets.

33. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
I like Dustin Hoffman, but I avoided watching this for years because I figured that it wasn't the type of movie I like to watch. It's very, very good. But it isn't the type of movie I like to watch. This was the fourth Best Picture Oscar winner that I watched this month, and it wasn't the last.

34. Religulous (2008)
Bill Maher's assault on religion would have been more entertaining if it wasn't so damn belligerent. Bill, if your argument is so strong, you shouldn't have to try so hard to make it.

35. The Protector (2005)
Friend Brian recommended this movie years ago, and he was totally right. (That will be the first and only time I say that, Coop, so enjoy it.) The kung-fu action is simply top-notch.

36. 8½ (1963)
This is the first film I watched in 2012 that had me thinking about it for days after watching it. I'm still not sure whether I like it, but I think that very aspect of it is why so many critics call it such a great film.

37. Planet Terror (2007)
This was the second movie I watched this month that made me actively angry after it was over. I knew going in that I hate zombie movies, and this film contains every reason why with excessive gore and violence, impossible fantasy presented as science, stupid characters, and everyone losing in the end as civilization collapses. Ugh. Take note, Trey: this is the second movie this month that kills a dog. Unlike Paul, which killed a dog in order to motivate the characters, this movie kills a dog just to kill a dog. That's unforgivable, even in a film that pretends not to be taking itself seriously. The movie kills a child -- self-inflicted gunshot wound -- for the same reason. There is no message in this movie, so is this non-stop meaningless death is supposed to be entertainment? Zookeeper was better than this. I swear, I will never watch another zombie movie ever. EVER.

38. The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
They really, really don't make films like this anymore. It's a good film with an entertaining mix of adventure and romance, but these days there would have to be some foolish sidekick, a chase scene, and far more violence -- this film has none to speak of. This film has been remade several times, and I look forward to seeing if the more recent versions aren't more of what I expected from Hollywood.

39. The Help (2011)
Mom voted that we watch this film rather than watch the Academy Awards. I'm glad we did. (I love you, Emma Stone.)

40. Kisses for My President (1964)
The last time I saw Fred MacMurry, he was an adulterer in The Apartment. In this film, he is the devoted husband of the first female U.S. President. If you are familiar with My Three Sons of The Shaggy D.A., you know what this film is. The best part of this light comedy is the archaic attitude towards women in power. Unless, of course, you are a Rush Limbaugh supporter.

If you've been counting, you'll note that, yes, there are two more films I watched in February that aren't on this list. I'll get to them in a later post.

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Trey berated me for falling off the pace of 150 movies in January. I only watched 12 instead of the 13 I need to average each month to see 150 new-to-me movies this year. Figuring that come September, most of my time will be devoted to football, he's probably right. So I doubled my efforts in February and watched 30 movies!

Since 30 movies is a lot to cover, I'm going to break this up into multiple posts, partly because I can't spend a lot of time typing this: I'm behind on a few projects now.

13. Faster (2010)
I think there is supposed to be a shocking twist ending in this revenge fantasy, but it was pretty obvious in the first 5 minutes of the movie. I still enjoyed the film, but I felt I should have checked my brain at the door.

14. Up in the Air (2009)
A fantastic film. I'm sure some people will find it to be a downer, but I found this movie about a professional hatchet-man who walks through life as through he was wearing a platinum-coated plastic bubble quite life affirming. Highly recommended.

15. The Book of Eli (2010)
Speaking of movies with unnecessary twists, I didn't realize that there was supposed to be a twist in the ending of this film until Trey told me afterwards. I admit that I was distracted while most of this film was running, partially because I had such a hard time buying into the premise. The action scenes were greatly entertaining but the directors seemed far less confident working the dramatic character scenes. I watched the "reveal" twice because I suspected I was missing the closure for Gary Oldman's weakly-defined character. (When Oldman is forced to play a pastiche of previous, better characters, you know the director and writer aren't giving him much help.) Apparently, since the mind-blowing twist wasn't necessary to the film, I wasn't missing anything.

16. Freakonomics (2010)
I stumbled into this documentary anthology about applied economics figuring that I could listen to it while do something else. That worked great for several segments, but the extended bit about the corruption in sumo wrestling had Japanese dialogue and subtitles, forcing me to pay full attention. I don't regret watching it, I just should have chosen something else knowing what I know now.

17. Strange Wilderness (2008)
Steve Zahn, Jonah Hill, Justin Long, Ernest Borgnine: how can you go wrong with this cast in a Happy Madison movie? This movie tries. (It's still funny, but I did feel that an opportunity for greatness was wasted.)

18. Rio (2011)
Really, I think I'm sick of Jesse Eisenberg, and I haven't even watched Social Network yet. (It's on the DVR, but I haven't yet worked up the nerve to watch it.) He seemed totally wrong in the lead role here.

19. Zookeeper (2011)
I was working in the basement when Mom started laughing hysterically upstairs. I rushed upstairs to see what the fun was, and she was watching this movie. Later that week, Dad called me and told me that he had just watched the funniest movie ever: this movie. So I gave in and watched this movie. America, you need help.

20. Grand Hotel (1932)
To recover from Zookeeper, I watched a Hollywood classic. I feel the same way about Grand Hotel that I feel about Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays: by the time it got to me, I'd seen so many derivatives that were superior that the original felt lackluster. The original is not always the best.

21. Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus (2010)
Okay, so not every movie I watch is going to be a classic. I can live with that. There's still satisfaction in watching Urkel fight a size-changing crocodile with an assualt rifle.

22. Paul (2011)
Trey says that no movie in which a dog is killed is worth watching, so he'd best not watch Paul. The dog is killed at the beginning of the film simply as an excuse to explain why the alien has to get from point A to point B so that there are ample opportunities for misadventures. It's a little irritating once you realize what's going on.
On another note, my favorite part of this movie was Jason Bateman. Last month, Keith asked why I bothered to watch The Switch. My answer was Jason Bateman. He may have let me down there, but he was the main reason I kept watching Paul to the end.

23. The Back-Up Plan (2010)
This is the first movie that I watched that left me in a bad mood. Angry, even. Damn, thinking about it still pisses me off. I yelled at Mother afterwards for selecting this film. (Sorry, Mom. You didn't write, direct, or star in this turd.) Never, ever watch this movie.

24. Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
The antidote to The Back-Up Plan. Cute, engaging entertainment.

25. The Apartment (1960)
I was surprised when this movie made a direct reference to Grand Hotel in the first 20 minutes. Both won Best Picture Oscars, and after digesting this honest film about dishonesty for a few days, I can see why.

26. The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
I really enjoyed this film. It's like a courtroom drama set in the Old West where the jury is replaced by a lynch mob. Like The Apartment, the years have been kind to it.

27. Cat Ballou (1965)
Jane Fonda is the star of this comedy/musical/western, which isn't as clever as it would like you to think it is going to be. When the entire movie is stolen by a horse that crosses its legs in the last 5 minutes of film, it can't really be called a success. I'm sure some people find this film hysterical, but then again, some people seem to think there's nothing funnier than Zookeeper, either.

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My latest work, for my brother's high school improv troupe. Sorry, but no, I don't know why. I just know that he told me to "make sure all the swirls don't make a 666." I guess some people are on the lookout for such things.

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Trey and I just watched The Master of Disguise, a 2002 film starring Dana Carvey. And when I say "starring," I mean "ended the career of." The film has a 2% "freshness" rating at RottenTomatoes.com, a rating of 12/100 at metacritic.com, and a rating of 3.0/10 from users on IMDB.com. To sum up: it is not popular.

To be fair, the film isn't quite as bad as its reputation would imply. Please don't mistake that backhanded compliment as a recommendation. It's not good. It's really, really not good.

It is pretty clear that the scriptwriters didn't know where to take the plot, despite some amusing but misguided set-ups. The film suffers terribly from being simply under-written, and the unfettered improv "comedy" wanders far from the beaten path in its desperate search for a laugh.

It is even more clear that first-time director Perry Andelin Blake had no business behind the camera. The film's pacing is every bit as erratic as the hit-or-miss comedy bits. It's no surprise that Blake has never been asked to direct another movie.

We watched the film because it was recommended to Trey by one of his drama students who described it as her favorite movie. The next time I hear someone imploring me to "please, think of the children," I am going to think of this girl and this movie. And I'm going to remember that the children of America are probably getting what they deserve.

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Christmas went well: everyone got along all day. We opened presents, we ate a great meal, we enjoyed some football. It is an unusual holiday for us when no one raises their voice: my family gatherings usually end like a Greek tragedy. Naturally, that couldn't last.

The season's good mood came unraveled yesterday evening, when Mom finally threw Dad out of her house after Trey and Dad got into a fight over Dad's open-mindedness concerning our religious beliefs and Dad damned me to burn in Hell for calling him "full of shit." At least now it feels more like Christmas.

Look out 2012, here we come.

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