Author Archives: Mark Dent

Jan 13 2012
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Endorsements, Movies, Sports

Unsolicited Endorsements: XI

Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.

Movie: Bottle Rocket 


I must confess: This is a cheap way to bring your attention to the trailer for the new Wes Anderson movie, “Moonrise Kingdom.”  In short, I have no idea what Moonrise Kingdom is about. Well, that’s not totally accurate. But just watch. You’re telling me you don’t want to see that movie.
But today, I want to go back in time and pay some attention to what still might be the best Wes Anderson piece of all time, “Bottle Rocket.” It came out before Tenenbaums, before Steve Zissou, and before Rushmore. It stars Luke and Owen Wilson (with short hair), and it features all the idiosyncratic humor of Wes Anderson — with none of the elaborate sets or grand storytelling. Haven’t seen it? Watch it this weekend. — Rustin Dodd
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Book: “Beyond the Phog: Untold Stories From Kansas Basketball’s Most Dominant Decade” Continue reading →

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Jan 10 2012
6 Comments
Humor, Movies

Diary of a Bad Movie Volume Two: Red Riding Hood

For the newcomers to this series, I’ll sum it up quickly: I love bad movies, love watching them as long as I know in advance that they will suck. And a couple months ago, I decided to write about one of them, keeping a live blog, in order to be productive. The end result was a massive net loss of productivity, a loss great enough to make me want to do it again! 

Because the wonderful fairy tale our parents read to us just wasn’t long enough or violent enough or apparently featured enough cleavage,* Warner Bros. decided to unleash a REAL version of “Red Riding Hood” for us, starring Amanda Seyfried. And Amanda Seyfried isn’t just a girl who wants to visit her grandmother. She is trapped in a love triangle that is as arbitrary as it is requisite for the makeup of any bad movie. But it gets better. This isn’t just a love triangle. This is a love QUADRANGLE, because the big bad wolf must get involved at some point. Interest piqued yet? Don’t worry the 89 percent of critics who panned the movie didn’t find anything about it worthwhile, either.

*Length, violence, cleavage – the three nouns most often brought up in Hollywood studio meetings

Now, on to our feature presentation… Continue reading →

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Dec 27 2011
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Essay, Humor, Travel

Two Hours In Olathe

Being home for the Holidays, at least during the daytime at my house, generally presents two options for entertainment: watching Lifetime Original movies with my sister (A Nanny For Christmas) or counting how many individual dog hairs canvass the leather furniture of our family room. I got lucky on Friday, though. My sister, Rachel, who has recently moved back to the United States from Denmark, is in need of a car so that she may start working again in hopes of inflating her bank account, which has a cash flow problem that rivals the country of Greece. Continue reading →

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Dec 16 2011
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Culture, Music

Russians, Adele and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize I Have the Consumerist Soul of a Suburban Woman

GoMusicNow.com is a music website that offers full albums for about two dollars and songs for about 15 cents. It is heaven, and it is likely (HAS TO BE) illegal. And I think it is based out of Russia.

One day in the not too distant future I will almost certainly take three steps out of my apartment and then three KGB agents will grab my arms and legs and cover my mouth with a chloroform rag before transporting me to a secret underground missile silo that doubles as a gulag for punk Americans who think they can cheat the music industry. I know this. Their names will be Dmitri, Boris (pronounced bo-REEEES) and Vladimir. I wait attentively like a minuteman for this regrettable day. Until then, GoMusicNow.com is worth it.

Continue reading →

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Dec 09 2011
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Culture, Music

Konichiwa, Bitches

This weekend, Robyn is the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, Saturday FREAKING Night Live. At Rockefeller Center. On national TV. As part of one of the most famous shows in American history. In terms of excitement level, for me, this pretty much equates finding a $20 bill on the ground with no one else around and then discovering that a Champion replica Bryant “Big Country” Reeves Grizzlies jersey is available for $20 on EBay, so yeah, VERY high excitement levels. Continue reading →

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Nov 29 2011
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Essay, Humor

Feeling Strangely Fast

The announcer on NBA Jam used a plethora of sweet phrases to describe the windmill, one-handed, reverse dunks that players started from the half-court line in that video game. My favorite was always, “IS IT THE SHOES?”

NBA Jam* got this from an old commercial starring Michael Jordan and Mars Blackmon, aka Spike Lee.  The shoes made the man. Or paying an exorbitant amount of money to further stuff the increasingly deep, not to mention imperialistic, pockets of Nike made the man.

*Quick Wikipedia tangent: It appears that the original arcade version of NBA Jam featured Drazen Petrovic for the Nets. He was not included on the Sega/Nintendo versions after his death. WOW. That would be insane to play with Drazen Petrovic. Someone send me an e-mail if they somehow own a video arcade or know the secrets of time travel and the location of a 1992 video arcade.

I bring this up because of the Nike Free shoes. The Nike Free shoes are for running, and they are Nike’s foray into the burgeoning movement of barefoot/minimalist running. They’ve helped me notice that it IS the shoes, and I’m not just talking about running.

Continue reading →

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Nov 22 2011
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Thanking David Beckham (and Gurinder Chadha, Keira Knightley and Parminder Nagra)

This post, which is not about soccer, begins at 6:45 p.m. on the Sunday preceding Thanksgiving, one hour and 15 minutes before David Beckham will don the Los Angeles Galaxy uniform for possibly the last time, trying to emphatically conclude an experiment, marred with record losing streaks, coaching changes, and superstar infighting between him and Landon Donovan, that had come so close to derailing as one of the sports world’s biggest busts just two years ago.

I might watch the game. I’m not sure. I’ve just been paying a lot more attention to Beckham the last few weeks, because I need to thank him.

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About a month ago, as I melted onto my couch in a post-surgical haze, downing bowls of macaroni and cheese and chocolate chip-cookie-dough ice cream because my operated-upon mouth couldn’t handle anything sufficient, I decided to watch a movie.* Continue reading →

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Nov 15 2011
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(Truly) Free WiFi From Starbucks

As someone who is only tangentially in the real world, a journalist, I am unshackled to a cubicle and granted the freedom to work from multiple locations that change on a daily basis. They are governed by the job: sporting events, places for in-person interviews, etc. And they are governed by choice: my home, libraries, coffee shops, and the side of a dark, country road inhabited by people who wear straw hats when I get lost trying to find locations governed by the job.

I especially like coffee shops. Continue reading →

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Nov 08 2011
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Diary of a Bad Movie: “The Roommate”

I like to watch bad movies, that is, I like to watch bad movies if I know the movie will be bad. Such knowledge allows me to laugh at the low moments, the unintentional comedy. I think this goes back to the classic, “Spring Break Shark Attack.” It came out during, get this, spring break, of my senior year of high school. The made-for-TV movie dealt with four subject matters: sharks, chicks, booze and date rape drugs. I laughed til’ I decided to turn off the TV and go to sleep. It was wonderful.

But not all bad movies are equal. A bad movie can drag. It can just be boring. Think “Locusts,” which was on TV about two weeks after Shark Attack. These bad movies suck. I want ridiculous dialogue, subplots that are forgotten or given up and really, anything by M. Night Shyamalan.

On Sunday night, I decided to watch “The Roommate,” a genuine bomb, sitting at four percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and zero percent from the top critics. I wanted to indulge in my guilty pleasure. But I also wanted to be productive. So I settled for this, live blogging during the movie. Continue reading →

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Nov 03 2011
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My New Mouth

When I was in the sixth grade, I participated in the spelling bee, a yearly ritual for me throughout elementary school. It was a confirmation to all that I was a smart kid, that I could one day become successful, you know, become someone who spends his free time writing blogs that make less than one cent per post.

This year was unlike the other years and not because I won or anything. I lost. Might have finished in tenth place or so. No, it was different because I had a metal mouth. Said affliction ruined my word pronunciation, like so:

“HAAACK-ey.” Then I spelled it. And again with the pronunciation: HAAACK-ey. Continue reading →

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