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Mediamix a Quick Take on New Releases C M Y K N6 SOURCE 10-12-08 DC EE N6 CMYK N6 Sunday, October 12, 2008 x The Washington Post RoadTrip Jump Into Bridge Day in West Virginia Pop Vulture Pac-Man Inspires Yellow Fever WHERE: Fayetteville, W.Va. tries leap from the 876-foot-high bridge, the second-tallest in the country. (On any other he original video game icon WHY: Bridge-ho, gorgeous gorges and get- day of the year, it’s illegal to jump off the T (sorry, Super Mario!) was little stuffed pizza. bridge.) In addition, rappelling teams will more than a yellow circle, opening dangle from the span, a zip line will hurl and closing what was ostensibly a HOW FAR: About five miles from start to fin- folks from the bridge to the banks, and 200 mouth and eating, well, smaller ish, and about 300 miles from Washington. local vendors will set up crafts, food stands circles. Now Pac-Man, which debuted in 1980, is and climbing walls. finding new small-screen fame online. Perhaps it is n Saturday, pigs will fly in Fayette- For the main event, adventurers drop like his improbably simple design that makes so many ville. stones for up to five seconds before releasing amateur filmmakers keen on challenging During Bridge Day, the world’s their parachutes and landing safely in the themselves with live-action versions of his largest BASE jumping event, men New River Gorge. Many will do repeat per- “adventures.” YouTube is simply awash in Pac-Man Oand women dressed as swine and other char- formances, for an expected total of more movies, several of them sharing the title “Pac-Man: acters will free-fall and parachute from the than 800 jumps. “When you see it,” says or- The Movie.” If you need a power-pellet fix, here’s a At last year’s Bridge Day, BASE gejumpers Bridge soar, which through spans the 3,030 air after feet. New River Gorge Bridge. These daredevils ganizer Cindy Dragan, “your heart jumps the New River Gor rundown of some of the more interesting Pac-Vids. are far from chicken. into your throat.” leaping off (For the links, visit www.washingtonpost.com/ Costumes aren’t required for this adrena- — Ben Chapman popvulture.) 19 The action movie: line rush, but courage is. BASE is an acro- Bridge Day is Saturday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., at the New L This faux trailer gets the award N A N nym for building, antenna, span and earth, e S for best production values. Deciding I River Gorge Bridge, on U.S. Route 19 at the New w N G the platforms the athletes use as launching Get in gear at Waterstone R E against a more literal translation of River Gorge in Fayetteville, W.Va. 800-927-0263. D i v M Outdoors, which carries e pads. The extreme activity was galvanized r O the character, the filmmakers simply www.officialbridgeday.com. Free. $2 shuttle rides N sporting goods for climbers, D by cinematographer Carl Boenish, who in R put their vigilante hero in a yellow from free parking lots. paddlers, backpackers and O A 1978 filmed jumpers from the 3,000-foot-tall chic urban adventurers. D motorcycle helmet as he defends his El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite Na- city from an onslaught of murderous tional Park for “National Geographic Ex- Road Trip maps are available at Learn about one of the continent’s ghosts (imagine the same sort of www.washingtonpost.com/ 16 plorer.” The sport quickly caught on. C oldest rivers at the New River ragged mop-head ghosts from the video game, only O U The Fayetteville event started two years roadtrip, as are addresses and hours of R Gorge’s Canyon Rim Visitor fanged and rabid). Best scene: While in pursuit of a T S operation. (Be sure to check before you T Center, which has exhibits, a later, with five parachutists. This year, near- R ghost, Pac-Man stops mid-stride to pick two E E video and killer water views. ly 200,000 spectators are expected to watch go.) Have an idea for a trip? E-mail T cherries off the ground and take a bite. 450 jumpers from more than a dozen coun- [email protected]. NEW RIVER GORGE NATIONAL RIVER The espionage thriller: This is an endearingly NUE AVE low-budget spy flick that features a solitary ghost LE VE. H IG MAP Ride the bumps along gorge trails chasing a traditional pie-shaped Pac-Man around H ETTE A LI S VE T. FAY on a mountain bike rented from town (both are portrayed by actors in flimsy S LY TR Rivermen offers whitewater rafting excursions EE EMAN the Marathon Bicycle Co. T costumes). Strangely, in the end, the ghost ends up Fayetteville WIS . from tame to terrifying on the New River. AVE being pushed off the roof of a parking garage. Best LA UR COURT scene: As villain chases hero past a restaurant EL STREET OAD S E EK R T. U RE EN mascot in a giant milkshake costume, the pursuit is C E AV EL PL R A temporarily put on hold so all three can dance to U M 16 BASE jumpers boast about their free falls over LA Kelis’s “Milkshake.” beers at Elliott’s Whitewater Bar & Grill. The music video: British band the Go! Team Learn the ropes with Hard Rock dramatizes its song “Junior Kickstart” by having its D. Climbing Services, which members chase one another through the streets of CK R ITLO WH instructs climbers of all levels New York (in full Ms. Pac-Man and ghost costumes, on nearby limestone faces. of course). Best scene: Even while running for her life, Ms. Pac-Man can’t resist stopping to get her caricature sketched by a street artist in Central Studio B Gallery fills its rooms with photographs, Park. jewelry and paintings by local artists, in addition to 19 The bizarre Japanese show: Swiped from Japanese more than 200 area wines and brews. television, this clip shows costumed players D A O running a true-to-the-source-material Pac-Man R E FAYETTE COUNTY L L maze. The whole ordeal has that typically I V L E inscrutable Japanese game show feel. Best scene: K PENNSYLVANIA C I E ROAD N When the ghosts corner Pac-Man, they beat him to HINKL OHIO 76 79 the ground with big foam sticks. goes beyond pepperoni with 68 Drinking coff The horror spoof: In an imaginative POV switch, Pies & Pints 77 70 ee is almost a such nontraditional toppings as gorgonzola 81 religious experience at this story is told from the perspective an’t settle on one pie? Try the WEST VIRGINIA Cafe, a converted churCathedral of the ghosts (actors with colored and grapes. C ffet on Tuesday evenings. 66 ch complete MD. with soaring all-you-can-eat bu 79 19 D.C. ceilings and stained- garbage bags over their heads). 16 glass windows. Fayetteville Inky, Dinky, Pinky, Blinky and 95 64 64 Clyde are trapped in a maze 77 with a giant carnivorous 81 VIRGINIA spheroid stalking them. Best Fly high with Wild Blue Adventure pilot Chris Kappler 0 1 and his 1940 Boeing Stearman open-cockpit biplane. line: “Dinky’s dead. He’s not MILE coming back.” MAP BY JEROME COOKSON FOR THE WASHINGTON POST; BRIDGE DAY PHOTO BY PRESTON KERES — THE WASHINGTON POST; OTHER PHOTOS BY BEN CHAPMAN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST NAMCO — Christopher Healy MediaMix A Quick Take on New Releases TITLE BASIC STORY SAMPLE GRAB WHAT YOU’LL LOVE WHAT YOU WON’T GRADE The best-selling author revisits her 1988 “I felt like I’d just stepped through the mirror into Talk about the perfect escapist adventure: The Fire Not everyone will have the patience to sift thriller, “The Eight,” with an epic the looking-glass universe and found that Neville’s exotic, labyrinthine conspiracy tale By Katherine through the dusty historical asides and follow-up in which the pieces of a everyone here was walking around on his snakes its way from the island monasteries of Neville convoluted plot threads necessary to understand mystical chess set are scattered around hands.” ancient Albania to the frenzied modern streets of B+ Ballantine « the complicated big picture at book’s end. BOOK the globe as forces of good and evil — The bewildered protagonist tries Washington, with many historical stops (Lord $26 — Reviewed by Sara Cardace battle for control of the game. to make sense of her role in the proceedings Byron’s Greece, post-Soviet Russia) along the way. “The zubben, dear boy, is the flash lingo of the With his eye for period detail and Sea of Poppies The author commands his motley crew East. It’s easy enough to jin if you put your head re-creation of nautical polyglot By Amitav Ghosh This first volume in a projected trilogy charts the with a masterly sense of pacing and to it.” vernacular (there’s an extensive Farrar, Straus reversals of fortune and fate that bring a plot but falters a bit when it comes to — Second mate Zachary Reid, glossary), Ghosh brings 1830s India — and Giroux sprawling cast of characters aboard the ship Ibis illuminating their inner lives. B+ BOOK a mixed-race American, is instructed in the and its attendant issues of caste, race $26 on a harrowing voyage across the Indian Ocean. — Adriana Leshko importance of mastering shipboard pidgin and gender — to palpable life. « « This is the very definition of a Everything admirable about Williams Little Honey “Gettin’ had / Gettin’ roadhouse album: a defiant, The veteran alt-country icon returns with is writ large here.
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