Week in the Media 6/15/08

The Regulators:

Ideally, I won’t write about books, or anything for that matter, that came out over ten years ago. However, I read what interests me, and often times that means I read older books. I recently finished Richard Bachman’s The Regulators, which was released in 1996. It’s about a number of families who live on a suburban block in Ohio and the attack they must face together. In the book, the cozy block is attacked by violent Power Ranger types called MotoKops. The thing is the MotoKops aren’t real, they’re TV characters. And if they were real, they presumably wouldn’t be killing innocent people. Then, little by little, the block changes into an entirely different setting.

I won’t go into any further detail about the book itself except to say I liked it. It’s what I would expect of a Bachman book, but this is by far his most mystical. His other works (Roadwork, The Long Walk, The Running man) are all based in physical universe. Nothing unexplainable happens there. Nothing spiritual or magical happens. The Regulators is the opposite. A large piece of the plot is based in the existence in of another realm. This doesn’t make it bad, just different. And in this case, different is good.

House M.D., season 4:

I’m a fair pace behind everybody in terms of TV because I have to watch it on the internet. So it wasn’t until recently I was able to finish off the newest (4^th) season of House M.D. The season as a whole was pretty good, but not fantastic. I liked the game show he ran in order to get his new crew. It let us get to know a number of characters, and since most of them were eliminated, the game show setup kept us wondering who’d be gone next. I was happy with the team he eventually picked. Kutner and 13 were my two top picks, and I preferred Taub to Cutthroat Bitch.

I’m glad the former team members aren’t completely gone. I’ve always been ambivalent to Chase, but the fact Cameron and Foreman are still there is a huge bonus for me. Especially Foreman; he’s my favorite of them all.

The cases were as interesting as ever and this season satisfied me. It just lacked the drama I was hoping for. It’s tied with the 2^nd season for my second place, and season three will forever be my favorite.

The Happening:

A lot of people do not like M. Night Shyamalan. Like, at all. I don’t get it. I think he’s a great director, even if a few of his films aren’t so great. So, when I talk about The Happening, keep in mind I don’t hate the guy.

Compared to the rest of his film catalogue, I’d place The Happening smack dab in the middle. It would place underneath Unbreakable and Signs, but above The Village and The 6^th Sense.

As far as acting goes, everybody was great. Mark Wahlberg, who is in about 90% of the movie, played a science teacher. Wahlberg, more than anything else, is funny in the movie. It’s a dramatic movie, and there’s plenty of drama, but he is a funny character. First, he’s funny in a comical sense. He teases his students and proves his sanity in unique ways. But then he is also funny in a weird way. His character doesn’t seem quite normal. He’s a little quirky.

Zooey Deschanel and John Leguizamo co-star in the film and they’re both good, too. Deschanel is quickly being typecast as a neurotic woman, a role she plays well, but I’d hate to see her limited in such a way. Leguizamo plays a math teacher who works with Wahlberg. He’s pretty funny, too. Funny-funny and weird-funny.

There’s a scene in the movie that I found amazing. It’s been shown on national television, so I don’t feel as though I’m spoiling anything by writing about it. When the group Wahlberg and Deschanel are with travels through a field, they hear another, larger group behind them. The other group is positioned behind a hill, so Wahlberg and company can’t see them. All they can do is hear paced gunfire. Wahlberg’s group stops and tries to figure out what to do, and they all put pressure on Wahlberg to decide. The camera focuses on Wahlberg’s face while his group is panicking and while the gun fires as steadily as a metronome. This scene is my favorite in the movie because I could feel the pressure and stress being put on to Wahlberg’s character. And not being able to see what was happening on the other side of the hill was a lot more thrilling than if the camera had shown it. It was a perfect scene in a pretty average movie.

House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return:

I love rail shooters. They aren’t the deepest games in the world, but they are fun, and a large part of my childhood was spent playing Area 51 and House of the Dead. And now, thanks to the controls of the Wii, rail shooters can make a good showing at home. I had never played House of the Dead 2 or 3 before playing the Wii version. They’re both pretty fun, though.

House of the Dead 2 has some of the cheesiest dialogue in video game history. The characters I save I would rather kill just because of how bad the voice acting is. The graphics are barely better than House of the Dead, if at all. The appeal is in the fact that the game is so cheesy, it’s fun.

House of the Dead 3 is a bit different. The graphics are a lot better in this installment, and a lot of the cheesiness has been taken out. A perk for me is that instead of using a handgun like in the two previous games, you have to use a shotgun, possibly one of my favorite guns to use in a video game. Like House of the Dead 2, I don’t pay attention to the story, though. It’s not worth it. The story is like a poor man’s Resident Evil. If I want a zombie story, I’ll go to the franchise that does it the best.

The games are fun, though. I play them using the Wii zapper. It doesn’t require the nun chuck attachment, so all you need to do is pop in the Wii remote and begin playing. Also, like in the arcade versions, you have to point off the screen in order to reload. This was a particularly nice feature for me, as it adds to the nostalgia factor.