PASS, RELEASE AND VIEWING

I passed my clerical test for employment, and when the store manager calls me with my final interview with the district manager, my employment will be finalized. The test was a lot harder than I anticipated, and being that it was timed, I found myself well out of practice taking tests. I barely made it, it required a 70% in order to pass, and I had exactly 70% by the grace of God. I had a lot of questions that I didn't get to because of the time constraint, but I excelled at the spelling, grammar and problem solving, so it balanced out my lack of speed on my math questions. Praise God Almighty for the light at the end of the unemployment tunnel.

IRON MAN 2 is released today. Despite my normal aversion to sequels, I am eager to see this release simply because the way they did the first one with the suit and the flight/fight scenes, leads me to believe that this release will definetly be worth seeing.

I viewed DONNIE DARKO this weekend. Now let me preface this entry with a few points. First, the statements on the back of this movie do NOT do it justice, as it makes it sound like just another twisted movie. Secondly, as noted in my previous post, I have not been a Jake Gyllenhaal fan, so I would not have seen this just based on his casting in it. Third, the title alone make it sound like a dark movie, and with the cover art that it has, you are led to believe exactly this. Now that I've made those points, I would like to say I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this movie. When you first watch this movie, you are so confused and struggle just to make sense of what you are watching, that you find yourself getting frustrated with it. I viewed the Directors Cut which has an extra 20 minutes of footage and is apparently much easier to understand than it's counterpart, the theatrical release. I can't even imagine watching the theatrical version, as when the directors cut was through, I sat there in a state of WTF?!?! and something that resembled pain. My mind was literally hurting from trying to figure out this film and it's characters, plot, and over all meaning. I WAS ENTHRALLED! It was like a puzzle that I had managed to get the edge pieces set up for and my mind was racing with all the data that I observed in the movie that I was not consciously processing while viewing it. I have not been so mentally stimulated by a movie in all my days. I was fascinated with the concept of the film, as each element had been carefully placed and played out as to not give away the ending, and much like a suspense/mystery movie, each character had a purpose, each scene played a vital part to the plot. While I sat there in a stupefied silence trying to ascertain what I had just spent 2 hours and 20 minutes watching, I was excitedly realizing that I had every intention of watching it again...IMMEDIATELY. Watching it a second time cleared up a lot of the confusion, but I am excited to say that I still do not have a full understanding of the film, and that THRILLS me! Most of the stuff that comes out of Hollywood is for the most part just mental candy that you view, and then move on from. FOR 2 DAYS my mind has been chewing on this movie and every person that I talk to about it I find that I become more intrigued by it. I will warn you, you will be frustrated, confused and even ready to shut it off, but do yourself a favor...DON'T! Watch it through to the end, and give yourself a moment to process what you just watched, and see if your mind isn't reeling from it. Seeing Donnie Darko reminded me of how I felt when I walked out of the theater after seeing Matrix. It was like the world had been turned upside down. I stood outside the theater with a good friend of mine who suggested seeing it, and for an hour we just imagined what the implications of the film were.

THE WEEKEND OF...MODERN WARFARE 2

Well, I had my first experience with the PS3 this weekend. I played Modern Warfare 2 with my brother and my nephew. And I ROCKED! As you may not know, I have a propensity for the shotgun, automatic shotgun and SPAS-12 (which is a quite divine AUTOMATIC tactical shotgun... ooooh weee!!) while playing first person shooter games. My nephew was amused that I was so good at the game as we completed a number of missions in the Special Ops section (which allows you to play solo or co-op with someone in the same room with you, otherwise you have to play over the net with friends) and once my comprehension of the controls was up to par, quite a few times he remarked how amazed he was at my competence. One of the ops involves being attacked by dogs while you're avoiding fire from 40 aggressors who are converging on your position. I figured out that while we stick together when we hear the dogs, when they attack, they can be shot off of the team member, rather than depending on having to personally remove the animal yourself. I have to confess that the game seemed to be anticipating our moves, and even learning from our behavior, thus making the game quite amazing to play, and near impossible to complete on harder levels. That is until your experience and training provide you with the platform of tactical strategy that you need in order to out-smart them. I have to admit, I was really impressed. I'm not a big 'war-game' type of guy and first person shooters don't really set my sails in the wind, but this game was INCREDIBLE. I so enjoyed playing it that we completely lost track of the time and before we logged off, we were near our 9th straight hour of play. I haven't spent that kind of time on a game in a long time... it was hard to put the paddle down, despite my very sore eyes and pounding head.

MODERN WARFARE 2 (PS3) - 5/5 stars

1 star (game play) Engaging, entertaining and challenging

1 star (replay value) With the seeming intelligence of the enemy, even the same level is lots of fun

1 star (graphics) Absolutely incredible, realistic sounds/textures give you the feeling that YOU ARE THERE

1 star (controls) Easy to learn & well thought out. Keeping your head is easy when you know what buttons to press.

1 star (functionality) Being able to resuscitate your team mate after he takes an onslaught of fire, and having a minute and a half to clear the area makes playing the harder levels less overwhelming.

Good stuff. I can see where this would be a very good frustration relief tool.