This is the real deal now.

Earlier this calendar year, I decided I needed to lose some weight. I hadn't been on a scale in awhile, but I knew it was going to be bad news. I was counting monthly gym visits using my thumbs, and sadly recalled a trip to pick up Chinese take-out...where I stopped at Wendy's on the way. The heaviest I ever knew myself to be was somewhere around 226 pounds, and standing at a mere six feet tall, that wasn't exactly a good look.

On January 13th, 2017, I stomped onto the scale for a little friendly competition at work.

I weighed 233.2 pounds. 

After blowing their fragile little minds with the stellar (and thoroughly captivating) documentary Blackfish [review], I decided to show my Honor's class something a bit more tangible: Corbin Billings' 2014 doc, Bite Size. This flick, from 2014 and currently streaming on Netflix, isn't about the dangers of swimming with vindictive orcas, no. Instead, it's about something much less exciting, but perhaps even more life-threatening: It's about eating. Poorly.

Following the lives of four middle-schoolers, my students found Bite Size immediately compelling. Tracking the lives of drastically overweight kids the same age as they are, I quickly realized I would have their full attention. What I wasn't sure I was going to get was their respect.

Using quick-goat thinking, I had to preface the film by addressing the knowledge and curiosity level (and frankly, maturity) of my students in regard to their health and diets. While none of my current students could be considered overweight, many of them were aware that living on nothing but soda and candy was likely going to catch up with them eventually. And, Hell, let's be honest, no matter what their body-type is in middle school, deep down they could all relate to kids getting picked on, frustrated and devastated by some aspect of their physical appearance.

I mean, take it from me, it doesn't get much easier in your thirties either, you know?

Thank God you're pretty.

Many months ago, and despite my love of bad movies and great racks, a certain film was announced and truthfully, I couldn't have given a single f--k. It was based on a TV show that I never really watched, didn't even hold any level of sympathetic nostalgia for. But then certain actors were attached, and all of a sudden, the Boner Meter (or, Bonometer) not only sprang to life, but went from beloved animal funeral to college Halloween party in record time. All the show had going for it was hot chicks running around in bathing suits, right? And now we were getting a movie version of that?

How could they f--k that up?

Well, turns out, they didn't.  The shitty show...well, shocking no one, became a shitty movie.

Aw, Hell. I summered in my pants again.

Looking back at my (pathetic) life before I laid eyes on the mostly-lame movie-adaptation of Baywatch, I seriously have to ask myself, well, what the f--k were you expecting? Did you really think it would be two hours of Alexandra Daddarrio tying up Zac Efron True Detective-style? No.

I just thought it would be funny.

And there might be some boobs. Like, any boobs. 

Turns out, I was wrong on both counts. Yeah, sandwiched in between flat jokes and round (but clothed) titties, director Seth Gordon's Baywatch movie, instead sets its sights on a dumbf--k mystery absolutely no one gives a salty shit about. It doesn't even go full-parody either, and plays entirely too much of its one hundred and sixteen minute runtime a half-assed version of serious. A welcome level of self-awareness surfaces occasionally, only to be dragged under by f--king moronic themes of family and trust.

While the nine credited writers and lone director should all be drowned in a sea full of dicks floating in whale semen, the casting department and the guy in charge of the high-speed film should both be doing the backstroke in Scrooge McDuck's money bin. The cast bounces and jiggles in all the right ways, and somehow manage to all escape this film as charming as they entered it.

That's the spirit.

Sure, I've talked some shit about it before, but in all seriousness, it's really great being a dad.

Backed by an innate sense of love and protecting our offspring, us dads are afforded the opportunity to guide these little creatures from such delicate beginnings, all the way to the madness of adulthood. And it's then, long after all the wondrous efforts that go into creating them (uh, easily my favorite part of the process), when you finally reach that incredible moment when you know your work is done. You can sit back and smile with pride, as these once-little monsters you've created go out there and just f--king devour the world.

Like, literally.

After not really knowing what the f--k happened in Prometheus [review] (even after a super-smart chick once explained it to me), Alien: Covenant thankfully dumbs it down tremendously. While that might not sound like a ringing endorsement, as someone who publicly admits James Cameron's Aliens is the best in the series, it was exactly what the space-doctor ordered.

Set years after the events of Prometheus, Ridley Scott's latest tells an, at least initially, unconnected story. This time out, the ragtag crew of racially-diverse space people we're hurtling through the galaxy with has a fairly straightforward mission: get to a remote planet named Origae-6, and f--k like rabbits. Okay, not really, but the goal is to populate that shit with the two thousand (hypersleeping) peeps on board, plus the one thousand embryos just waiting to be hatched (that's how babies are made, right?). Sounds easy enough...

Well, it would have been, had some freaky shit not happened and killed a few fairly clutch crew members, you know? Oh, and not talking about acid-drooling xenomorphs, either - at least not yet. No, the real nefarious f--ker that sets this shit in motion? Uh...turns out to be an energy blast that happened at the universally worst possible time for anything bad to happen: when everybody was sleeping.

Well, everyone except Walter. The droid.

I'm Mary Poppins, y'all!

If you were my girlfriend in middle school (or high school, or college), or, more realistically, the girl I was too much of a pussy to ask out (an thus we ended up, like, best friends), there's a good chance that I would have you made you a pretty rad mix-tape at some point in our...friendship.

The first track (on each side, perhaps) would have been that one song that we both were currently obsessed with (or at least you would have been, as I might have [secretly] hated that shit), followed up by a steady drip of similar stuff by similar bands. I mean, you can't do the exact same thing over and over again, sure, but uh...between you and me, why f--k around with a good thing?

Now, I'm not equating the clearly-talented James Gunn with a pathetic eighth grade boy or anything, but as the writer/director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, this dude's not f--king around with a proven formula. Side Two, er, Volume 2, isn't as
(incredibly) strong as the first [review], but it's still a hellluva jam, full of tasty beats and epic riffs.

After one of the best opening numbers in recent years, the second road trip with Peter Quill/Star-Lord and crew, finds the Guardians balls deep/tits up in interstellar turmoil. After completing the job they were hired to do by some golden, elitist a-holes known as the Sovereign race, Rocket not only offends their leader Ayesha, but steals some of the shit they were hired to protect on the way out. Instantly, our gang is up against droves of Sovereign fighters, until some mysterious freakshow bails them out from a distance. Oh, okay then. Thanks, stranger.

Turns out, this eccentric cowboy-type is actually named Ego, and he's pretty much Star-Lord's father. Oh, and a planet. Wait, what? See, this guy is essentially a god-like being, and he's been searching the galaxy (uh, that he created?) for his son, for like, ever. And while Ego's trying to protect Peter and maybe play catch with his boy, ol' Ayehsa has hired Yondu and his unsavory squad to have Peter catch something else instead. Something less like a baseball, and more like that rad-as-f--k spear thing, he controls by whistling.

Let's find a home for his spirit.

The last time I set foot in another country, I was seven years old.

The last trip to a place I'd never been to before, was f--king Seattle. Not exactly Timbuktu, you know?

I'm thirty-seven years old, don't even own a passport, and I'm deathly afraid that I've more or less seen as much of the world as I ever will. I once considered teaching abroad (primarily in Japan), but the one-year commitment is simply too daunting. Since I wouldn't even consider uprooting my family, I'd have to spend those twelve months a stranger in a strange place...alone. And while it would be hard enough not to see my wife on a daily basis...the real reason why I'll probably never go anywhere?

My kids, Matthew and Violet.

Not only could I never leave them behind (for more than a long weekend, I suppose), but at this rate, I probably couldn't afford to take them with me.

So I go to the movies instead, which is where I happened to stroll into a solo-viewing (of all things) of a little (/giant) flick called The Lost City of Z. Having never seen a trailer, or even glimpsed a (poorly-written) synopsis, I headed into writer/director James Gray's latest film not knowing what lay before me. Cinematically speaking, this was uncharted territory, and I totally forgot my machete.

And my cool hat.

And rad mustache.

Oh, and a half-naked native dude. You totally need one of those, right?

Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam, kicking all kinds of ass) is a good man, undone by a bad name. A bad family name, that is. Passed over for promotion after promotion, seemingly because of something his father once did, Fawcett is a gentleman of the finest sort. Hell bent on improving his lot in the world, he enthusiastically throws himself into any situation he's tasked with, no matter how daunting. In 1906, a few years after we initially meet him, he's assigned to lead an expedition into South America. There, his map-making abilities will hopefully quell an impending border disagreement between Brazil and Bolivia. Apparently there's money to be made down there, as long as war is prevented.

I'll tell you what: I'm never eating at Benihana again. I don't care whose birthday it is.

The things we do in the middle of the night.

Sometimes we regret them in the morning, but sometimes...they change our lives forever.

Six years ago tonight, Two Dollar Cinema was born in the darkest of dark alleys. It was an unremarkable delivery, with a hairy little post barely making a sound upon its arrival into the world. It weighed in at a mere 270 words, and sadly, it looked just like its father.

Unfortunately, no one was present to see it. Luckily, times have certainly changed.

While we're trying not to separate anything patting ourselves on the back, this is the one night a year that I reflect on the year that was. Sure, it's a bit of a (douchey) tradition (check out TDC's first, second, third, fourth and fifth birthdays), but a party's still a party. Even if you throw it for yourself.

Alright, let's cut the shit, shall we? In the last twelve months of this blog, the following thirteen (yes, thirteen...f--ker) films were my favorite. And yes, Observant Reader, I didn't say best. Oh, and don't stress too much about the order, okay? We're six years old, for f--k's sake. We're not really paying attention to anything.

If you do your shtick the whole time, then it will no longer be a shtick.

Even if I only reach one...

As a teacher, there are times that you know your lesson is a dog. You realize that most of your students will not only be unable to appreciate or understand the material you're presenting, but that they simply won't give a damn. Yes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him appreciate how that water will make him a more-balanced horse that could potentially grow up and do things to help all the other horses, or at least not be a f--king drag on everybody else in the stable.

And so you tell yourself, in between taking shots of paint thinner and calculating the years til retirement, it'll all be worth it, if one of the kids milling around your classroom, just one...actually gets it.

I had a plan going into last Monday morning. It was a week where we were finally finishing up standardized testing, and to keep things moving  (and dare I say, not academic), I was going to show the kids a documentary called Batkid Begins [review]. It was going to be great. I printed out some higher-level questions, made a cool graphic for my home slide, and was literally making sure the assignment stacks were looking good, when I realized that I had already shown the documentary this year. To these kids. Aw, shit.

So, with less than five minutes before it was go-time, I pulled Most Valuable Players out of my sweaty ass. Even before understanding what it was all about, I headed to Common Sense Media (the best website alive for a slacker teacher) to check the content. Some brief talk about gay students, someone says 'maybe we're bitches?' and the use of the word kick-ass topped the list of questionable occurrences, and away we went. Now all I had to do was make it fit.