On September 16, author Lynn Marie Smith visited the Main Clearwater Public Library for a talk about her book, Rolling Away: My Agony With Ecstasy.  We have a sampling of her presentation on video.  Due to copyright and privacy issues, the MTV movie and audience participation segments were removed.

 

 Rolling Away - My Agony with Ecstasy [20:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (107)

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By Sandor Hugert

 

I just saw this movie this week on DVD, and it was actually fairly good.  The story line was pretty cool, and the action scenes were amazing.  Nicolas Cage did a really good job portraying the main character.  The whole movie was pretty cool, but somehow it just wasn’t as good as many other action movies that have come out recently.  Every actor and actress in the movie did really good.  Like I said the story line was cool, but I’ve seen better movies that have to do with seeing the future.  The main problem I had with this movie is that it had a horrible ending.   I thought that the movie was really cool, but then the ending just sort of ruined it all.  I don’t want to spoil the ending so all I’m going to say is that it tried too hard to set up a sequel which they probably won’t even make considering that the movie wasn’t that popular.

 

Score:  6 out of 10

Heavenly Sword

By Sandor Hugert

This new game has just been released for the Playstation 3, and it’s really good.  The game is basically exactly like God of War 2, even some of the levels look exactly the same as in God of War 2.  I guess that this is a good thing, but it just sort of shows that makers of the game didn’t really have many new ideas to add.  The fighting in the game seriously looks exactly what you saw in God of War 2.  One really good thing about the game is the graphics, which must be some of the best graphics that I’ve ever seen.  The characters in the game are a little too bizarre for my taste, but I guess that the story line is acceptable.  You get to play with two characters, and the second one is really cool as she shoots these poisonous darts, which is really fun because while the dart is in the air you control its movement by rotating the controller.  This was probably the most enjoyable thing to do in the game.  The game itself was really fun and the graphics were amazing, but I’m just not sure if it was actually better than God of War 2 considering that basically all the ideas for this game came from there.

Score:  8 out of 10

Shadowrun

By Sandor Hugert

I just recently got this game for XBOX 360 and it’s a pretty okay game.  There is nothing necessarily wrong with it except that the game gets a little boring after playing for like two hours.  The game itself is pretty cool, but it’s just a little weird how it’s only online play and there is absolutely no single player campaign in the game other than the training levels.  The online game play is pretty cool as it has all types of magic powers which makes the game a lot more enjoyable especially the teleporting and the flying.  You can also resurrect your teammates if you have that magic which I thought was pretty neat.  The game doesn’t have the best guns though considering that it has only like ten types of guns and they are all pretty weak.  I think that the game would have been way better if it was a third person game instead of a first person shooter, but the cool thing is that it does go to a third person view if you use the katana.  One really cool thing about the game is that you can even play with people playing on Vista.  The game can be really fun if you’re playing with a group of friends.  Overall, I think that the game is pretty average but there are some parts to the online that makes the game stand out.

Score:  7 out of 10    

Balls of Fury

By Sandor Hugert

 

This movie was actually a lot funnier than I thought it would be.  It was probably one of the funniest movies this year.  The story line was probably one of the dumbest ever made, but that just made it even more hilarious.  I thought that the actors actually did a really good job in just playing the role that they were supposed to play.  Some of the characters though were just a little bit too weird, and not necessarily that funny.  The whole movie was sort of focused on Def Leppard a lot, which is pretty cool since they are a really good band.  The movie is basically funny the entire time, which is obviously what made the movie pretty good.  The ping-pong scenes were also funny as you got to see some really funny characters face off each other in ping-pong.  Overall, I would have to say that this was probably the funniest movie of the year so far.

 

Score:  7 out of 10

 

Rush Hour 3

By Sandor Hugert

 

This is the long awaited sequel to Rush Hour 2 that came out in 2001.  This means that it has been six years since the last movie came out.  Not too many people expected the sequel to come out now but it still came out.  Surprisingly I thought the movie really wasn’t that bad.  I’m not sure if it was better than the first one, which is the best one, but it was still pretty funny.  There weren’t that many good action parts in the movie this time around but it did have some really funny parts.  Jackie Chan obviously wasn’t that great in the fighting scenes any more, but that makes perfect since he did get a lot older since last time.  Chris Tucker played the same exact role that he played six years ago so he was still pretty funny.  The movie itself was fairly well done, but the story was pretty weak and the movie was way too short.  Overall, I’d say that this was a pretty mediocre movie, but it wasn’t as bad as most thought it would be.

 

Score:  6 out of 10

Make sure to come to the Clearwater Main Library on Monday September 17^th at 7 p.m.

Lynn Marie Smith will be in the library to discuss her book. Rolling Away:  My Agony With Ecstasy.  She will also lecture on the dangers of drug abuse and addiction.  The address is 100 N. Osceola Ave.

If you need more information you can call 562-4970, ext. 5236.