A stomach turner at the food court

After eating Chinese takeout in the food court of Destiny USA the other day before taking in the movie for my weekly film review blog for the Syracuse New Times site, an odd new addition to the space caught my eye. What might be that big ball over there, wondered I? I had to take…

A different place to put the front garden

I’ve noticed an interesting little garden one block over in our Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. As I walk with Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle, I try to keep her away from this one particular front yard garden, because it’s the only one of its type I’ve seen in these parts. This particular neighbor has…

The offspring of Depp, Smith get juicy roles

Kevin Smith wrote it. Johnny Depp stars in it. “Yoga Hosers” sounds pretty cool right off the bat, does it not? I saw the name of the film and thought: What the … It’s the story of two 15-year-old yoga lovers, both named Colleen, who work at a Manitoba convenience story. They’re played by the…

We kept getting drawn to the red one

My dear wife Karen and I have been watching Daryl drive his Honda Civic for a lot of years. Pretty car. Almost new car when grandpa helped him out back then. Sturdy car. A car that did its duty well, far more than 100,000 miles worth. With summer winding down, though, my fine stepson wasn’t…

‘Let’s Be Cops’ is fun, unfortunately

Some movies are so bad so fast. In “Let’s Be Cops,” I immediately blamed the character Ryan. Played by Jake Johnson, the smirky guy was too smug, too dopey, too … too much for me to take. Then I blamed the plot. Pretend that you are policemen in Los Angeles? How dangerous is that? Please…