Oh yes : > Hello Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett, and special guest "Weird Al" Yankovic.  I saw their live screenings of their Plan 9 From Outer Space commentary live and it was great...and this time they have a legit celebrity with them xD 

Floating

By Reef

I am alone, floating restlessly in a sphere.  I cannot see out, for all I see are my own eyes reflected back at me off the surface of this thing.  There is nothing outside, or so I would lead myself to believe, for I remain enclosed within this questionable thing.  I feel nothing except for the hold of this orb- as if to remind me of the imprisonment I face. 

I ponder the rationality of this whole situation in the greatest detail, yet I come to no clear conclusion, for I do not know where the orb is, how I got in the orb, and why it exists.  This mystery has no answer.  Yet here I am now trying to find the answer to a question without!  What a strange circumstance indeed!  All of it sounds so foolish when one thinks of it in that manner. 

Tick-Tock!

What’s that?  I hear the ticking of a clock in the distance!  Where it is I do not know, for I am still blind.  The sound is so very real!

Tick-Tock!

There it goes again!  Time, time, what is the time?  I do not know the answer, for it had never occurred to me that such a thing as time could exist in a place like this.  Though the clock is beyond my sight I now know that there is time.  Even within the void of this black orb there still exists the common necessity of time.  What the concept of time manages to do is divulge a small shred of hope of escape. 

Tick-Tock!

I need to get out of here while there’s still time! 

The End

Anyways, I have gotten four FREE tickets to see a pre-screening of the new animated movie '9' this coming Tuesday the day before it's released.  I been waiting for a PG-13 contemporary animated film for SO LONG :>

Anyone else plan to see the rehearsal footage of Michael Jackson's 'This Is It' tour when it's theatrically released in October? I know it's being released for a cash-in by Sony, but I've really heard good things about the quality of the videos and his performance. I also want SOMETHING since I was waiting for the This Is It concerts with such eagerness, hoping they'd be televised or recorded on HBO or something.

Reef Overall Rating: 2/5


Halo 3…I have trouble knowing where it is I’m supposed to begin with this game other than to say it is the greatest let-down of my gaming “career.”  Now, to start off I am in no way a Halo hater.  In fact I have been a fan ever since the original game was released on the PC (I have since acquired a Xbox 360 and the original Xbox version of that game and its sequel).  In fact I was so excited by the hype of the third game that I went ahead and pre-ordered the $150 Legendary Edition of the game.  The result of when I finally got the game was that never again to I ever plan to pre-order a game or pay top-dollar for a “Collector’s” edition of a game- unless it’s in a bargain bin a year or two later (In fact that did happen to the Halo 3 - Legendary Edition- saw it for $60 somewhere and shall never forgive myself for my wasted $150). 

Let me break this game down a bit. 

Graphics:  They’re good I suppose, but didn’t Microsoft promise us that this game was practically the reason the 360 was created?  This game’s graphics are nothing special in this day and age.  While the first one was good for its time and the second was great for its time of release this game’s graphics wouldn’t rank in the ‘Top 10’ list of Best 360 Game Graphics- not by a long shot.  Often it feels rushed, as if Microsoft pushed Bungie into finishing this sequel as fast as humanly possible. 

Character designs: The new character designs also are pretty bad.  For starters, all characters seem to have taken steroid injections because whether it’s the Elites or humans, they have all seriously bulked up.  They’ve also become shorter and just seem very awkward in comparison to the designs of the first two games.  I just was not convinced that many of the Covenant species were even capable of walking in this game.

Look:  The entire game seems to have been put through a shiny filter that makes everything reflect colors at the same rate as a mirror- even plant life.  Wasn’t this game supposed to be the most realistic Halo yet?  I remember Bungie officials and various magazine articles telling me that, but when was the last time you walked into a forest and it shined at you?  You could say this is water, but unless there is a thin layer of water coating each and every leaf (which is unbelievable in of itself) than everything seems to be polished.  Now, this isn’t just the forest, but every character and EVERY location of this entire game.  Weapons, characters, plants, shields, ships, and buildings- everything shines like polished silver.

Story:  This plot of Halo 3 is so simple I’m sure the officials at Bungie must have spent a grand total of 5 minutes on it.  Looking back on it I know that Halo 2 suffered in this department as well, but Halo 3 you instantly take note of how poor the story is.  The cut scenes were probably the best parts of both the previous games, but here they become exercises in repetition and cliché.  Everything is overblown and none of it is ever believable.  They try often to make these scenes dramatic, but apparently whoever had a sense of drama in the previous games cut scenes left the project because this game’s cut scenes are about as subtle as a sledgehammer. 

Levels:  Many of the levels are nothing new other than the fact you now have more weapons in which to deal with your pesky foes.  No new forms of enemies to face, nothing really of interest. 

AI:  Every entry in the Halo game series suffers from heavily script-based AI, but this game’s AI is so simpleminded that once you’ve played through the game once on any of the difficulties you’ll know exactly how to get through it on any other difficulty setting.  I swear, if you play this game on Easy and then play on Legendary, aside from the fact that enemies have higher hit points, they will respond to you the exact same way as they do on the other settings and they will never surprise you.  Come on, Bungie- over ten years ago with Half-Life Valve proved that you could write AI that was capable of creating its own strategy.  This is another example in my observation that this game was solely made for the multiplayer aspect and they didn’t care about the single-player campaign. 

Weapons:  Much of this is the same, but we add in the most annoying aspect of this game, and that would be the power-ups.  What were they thinking when they put these in campaign mode?  I could understand silly power-ups being in, say, the multiplayer, but how do they fit into the actual game?  They are worthless addition and it shows that Bungie rushed this game because they obviously belong in the multiplayer and not the actual game mode. 

Multiplayer:  I suppose this is the only good part about this game, but it feels like a simple-minded retread of other multiplayer games such as Unreal Tournament. 

Legendary Edition: Aside from the collectible bust of the Master Chief’s head this is probably the most overprice item I’ve ever purchased.  There is nothing really special about it, and the special features contained within the DVDs don’t really give you much insight into the creation of the games.  You get things like the cut scenes from the first two games, which is kind of cool, but honestly those scenes feel very hollow unless you’re actually playing the game. 

So all and all Halo 3 is an alright multiplayer game, but the story is awful, the graphics are sub-par considering we’ve seen such games as Half-Life², ‘Gears of War’, and ‘Call of Duty 4’ display far superior improvements in the field.  All and all this game is an obviously rushed product that doesn’t have any of the quality control that was displayed in the previous games. 

I am so getting tickets to see this!

And just for the sake a remembering a great TV show...

Many people of the younger generation do not understand the importance of Michael Jackson, letting derogatory shows such as South Park degrade his legacy and center the focus on his controversy, and not his ever-giving spirit. It is because of this constant mockery - even after he was declared innocent in a court of law - that Michael Jackson has been thought of with such negative terms by today’s youth. Few under the age of 15 seem to know of all the good that Michael Jackson has done for the world. From donating millions to charity, and breaking the racial barriers of American music and entertainment, which undoubtedly is one of the things that lead up to the United States appointing an African American as President of These United States. Few young members of America know of how he has tried to preserve the rainforests, and other aspects of our natural world, as well as the millions he donated to the Negro College Fund.

The fact of the matter is Michael Jackson never chose to become a celebrity. He was forced into show business by an abusive father, but in that career, at the age of 5 alongside his brothers, he became a celebrity. When, as a solo-performer, in the 1980s he released the revolutionary Thriller album he changed the music world forever. There, with his new found wealth, he tried to recreate the childhood he never had, retreating to his Neverland Ranch, where he wished to be as Peter Pan was: the boy who never grew up. The point of the matter is that Michael Jackson was not a devious child molester, or whatever other cynical speculations you may hear, because he was just too innocent. He was a child in an adult’s body, and as a result he was out of place in this serious world. He wanted to be a kid, and as a result he was scrutinized and exploited mercilessly by the cruel device we have called the media.

Michael Jackson is a legend who has passed away far too soon, but in some ways I am happy for Michael. No longer will he have to suffer under the cruel view of the media and those who went out to destroy him. He is now free from the prison that was a reality he was too naïve to exist in.

Long live the King of Pop, an icon whose legacy shall be cherished for generations to come.

Public Enemies is an alright docu-crime-thriller that, thought well-made, ends up coming out dry. Many of the scenes are well paced, but in its running time the film feels like a very rushed overview of the final years of John Dillinger. What I mean to say is that this is a good movie, but you probably won't leave the theater feeling like you've learned anything about John Dillinger, other than trivial facts. The movie never really gives Johnny Depp a chance to shape the character into a believable icon because as I previously stated this film feels more like a dramatized overview of Dillinger's career instead of focusing on the man himself.

Now, Johnny Depp is a fine actor, and he reminds us in this movie that he isn’t only a go-to man for quirky, weird, whimsical, and bizarre characters. In Public Enemies Depp reminds us that he is talented as a traditional actor and that he is still one of the best in Hollywood today. The problem is the script he is given for Public Enemies never lets him expand on anything regarding John Dellinger as a person. In Ridley Scott’s ‘American Gangster’ Denzel Washington was given a chance to really emphasize the qualities he felt reflected his view of Frank Lucas. Public enemies, Johnny Depp never truly gets to define what he feels are the most important aspects of his portrayal of Dellinger because often the film gets too caught up in the action and events instead of its characters.

Christian Bale bounces back after a sub-par performance in ‘Terminator: Salvation’ and it’s good to see him working his voice manipulation ability again, because I for one was beginning to think he’d gotten stuck on his Batman-style growl. Playing the FBI agent pursuing Dillinger he is an interesting character due to his dedication and could have been a really interesting character, but like Depp, Bale never really gets a chance to try and expand on his character.

The music isn’t anything you haven’t heard before in previous crime films of this sort, but for the most part it works. I wouldn’t buy the soundtrack to this film, but it certainly didn’t take away from the experience. Also, songs from the 30s are played throughout, and most of the time they manage to fit into the story’s many montage scenes very well.

Director Michael Mann seems a tad bit off when compared to some of his previous films. He often goes for a look that makes the audience feel that they’re in the middle of everything, and that’s good in small stretches, but I felt he used this technique too often and I found myself growing a tad bit dizzy at times, and had a desire to see what was going on in the shootouts. I found it strange, that with his recent films such as ‘Collateral’, where the characters had been the center-focus of the entire film, he could then make a movie about one of the most infamous criminal minds and have it be more about the history than the characters who lived it.

The thing that is most fascinating about this film is the costumes and sets. The men and women behind these really outdid themselves and created a very authentic view of 1930s Chicago. This aspect of the film alone makes it worth seeing! Every costume and set seems to have been made with the upmost attention to detail, and the final result is very pleasing to the eye.

The final product in an okay docu-drama on the life of one of America’s most infamous criminals, but in the end you really don’t discover anything about John Dillinger that you couldn’t have found out by looking him up on Wikipedia. So this is a pretty film to look at, and with Depp and Bale it’s a good way to introduce those unfamiliar with Dillinger to the criminal, but if you were looking for a character study on the bank robber you may find yourself a tad-bit disappointed.

I wouldn’t come close to calling Public Enemies one of the best movies of the summer, or of the year, but when compared to several other films that are currently being screened I would still highly recommend it. With movies like ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ out there your money is best spent on Michael Mann’s Public Enemies.