Wesley Fenlon | Not with a bang but a whimper.

I likely haven’t blogged about it before, but I’m a big Stephen King fan.  This can be a difficult position, at times — as an English minor, I’ve taken my fair share of literature classes over the past three years, and rarely does an entire course pass without a teacher or student elevating some particular work of fiction by comparing it favorably against “one of those John Grisham or Stephen King novels.”  My first thought is that they’re speaking out of their asses without giving King a fair shake, but even if that’s not the case, they’re clearly missing something.  Yeah, his work is light on the symbolism, and his novels won’t lead you to any cathartic realizations about the human condition.  In fact, in It (coincidentally, my favorite Stephen King) the character of Bill Denbrough channels the author’s intentions by asking his college class why stories can’t just be stories.

But even that statement sells King a little short, because his appeal doesn’t just lie in the fact that he tells a great yarn; it’s the way he tells his stories, with a mastery of English that regularly bounces between lyrical, evocative and intensely imaginative.  Many of his novels are guided by friendly, likable narrators who describe the settings and the events taking place within them with a nudge and a wink, and the pop culture/literary quotations that pervade his novels show how much King loves the craft, in all its forms.

One of my favorite of King’s works, The Talisman, stars a modern-day Tom Sawyer in a dark fantasy.  Though epic in scope, the novel remains riveted on Jack, and King’s affinity for writing children serves the character extremely well.  I don’t know how much of the writing should be credited to Peter Straub, and how much to King; it reads like a Stephen King novel, but clearly the two worked very well together.

A couple years after finishing The Talisman, I was finally ready to delve into its recent sequel, Black House. And even being familiar with King’s penchant for long-winded, fascinatingly-detailed descriptions of the small towns his novels are often set in, the beginning of Black House was far from what I expected.  Though it’s been awhile, I remember finding The Talisman instantly accessible and quick to thrust Jack into his journey.  The sequel…not so much.  In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book that took some 70 pages to get around to the protagonist, moseying from one minor character to the next and stopping regularly to admire the scenery.  That friendly, nude-nudge narration is as present as ever, but for the first time it’s almost too much, making me wish for a little less chummy commentary and a little more meaty character interaction.  Thankfully, it does begin to pick up and develop a sense of focus, but even past the 200 mark it’s hard to say the novel’s going places.  It has gotten interesting, but so far Black House has quite a weak introduction to overcome to be the sequel The Talisman deserves.

Hayao Miyazaki is, undeniably, one of the most talented and celebrated filmmakers in the history of Japan.  Not that his ability need only be measured against that of his countrymen; short of Walt Disney and the rising star of Pixar, no other animation company in the world exists to match Miyazki’s own Studio Ghibli. My first exposure to his work was Princess Mononoke, and I instantly latched onto it as the best animated film I’d ever seen.  It was visually stunning and thematically complex, altogether different from anything I’d seen before.

And it remained my favorite for at least half a decade, even as I’ve journeyed back through Ghibli’s productions.  Now, I haven’t yet seen them all — there’s something intensely frightening about the prospect of there being no more Miyazaki for me to experience for the very first time.  After watching absolutely wonderful films such as Spirited Away and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, I was just as enraptured by Miyazaki’s creative talent, but growing more secure in the notion that Princess Mononoke was the height of his craft.

Then I saw Lupin.  And, a couple weeks later, I saw it again.  And again, after a few months.  With the exception of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (a hopelessly addicting and energizing work of animation), no other movie or television series has penetrated my mind so thoroughly as to be an evening’s entertainment three times in less than a year.  Now, when I think of Princess Mononoke, I still see it as Miyazaki’s grandest vision, examining the spirit of mankind, celebrating the mysticism of nature, and questioning the interaction of those two worlds, that’s not really what he does best.  His skill, reduced to its purest form, is instilling an incomparable sense of life, soul, and adventure into two dimensional drawings.  My Neighbor Totoro and Lupin III show that Miyazaki is at his best on the smaller scale, and The Castle of Cagliostro is quite possibly the most hilarious, heartwarming, and fun heist film ever made.  Maybe it’s not quite a heist movie, in classic Lupin form, but it is an exercise in pure adventure, with the charismatic thief at the top of his form and at a pinnacle of lovability that he’d never quite reach again.

Unlike his heavily fantasy-laden works, Lupin is a movie more or less grounded in reality.  There are no mystical forest creatures, no airships or magical powers.  Yet somehow, Miyazaki manages to perfectly balance the real-world setting with Lupin’s absurd antics without ruining the believability of the film.  In one of the movie’s greatest — and most ridiculous — moments, Lupin bungles his meticulous plan to use a rope to get from one steep roof precipice of Cagliostro’s castle to another, and ends up leaping the distance in great cartoony bounds, bear hugging the sheer wall and holding on for dear life.  It’s entirely impossible, but by subverting our expectations and showing Lupin succeed in a wholly unexpected way, the warm appeal of Miyazaki’s presentation makes the scene a laugh-out-loud good time rather than an oh, please cringe-inducer.

The Castle of Cagliostro immortalized Lupin and no doubt helped the obscenely popular franchise continue for a solid three decades.  It’s almost a shame that Miyazaki’s work with the character is so brilliantly perfect and charming; when protagonist and director both shine so brightly, you know later efforts may never be able to capture that same quintessence of movie magic.  Of course, Miyazaki has continued to direct incredible works of animation, but with Lupin stealing the favorite slot in my heart, I wish the pair could be reunited once again, just to see what would happen.

The point-and-click adventure genre, once made great by the brilliant minds at Lucasarts, fell on hard times as the 20th century drew to a close.  In the 1980s and 1990s, designers like Tim Schafer poured heart and soul into some of the cleverest, funniest video games in the history of the medium.  As a result, games like Grim Fandango, The Secret of Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, and practically every other graphical adventure released by the company are still fondly remembered to this day.  And Lucasarts was hardly the only company occupying the adventure space — Sierra had been there from mid 1980s, and their long-standing King’s Quest series was a pioneer for the genre.

When Lucasarts abandoned point-and-click adventures after Escape from Monkey Island in 2000, the well had pretty much run dry.  Occasional releases like Syberia help fans get their fix, but it was clear the golden age had passed.  These days, Telltale Games seem to be the unofficial guardians of the genre.  Their approach is a little different — by taking pre-existing licenses and building seasonal, episodic content around them, they’ve managed to release accessible bite-size chunks of adventure gaming at reasonable prices.  In some cases, there’s a definite trade-off; it’s hard not to look back on the classic 2D animation of Sam & Max Hit the Road when playing the decade-newer, but uglier, Telltale adventures.  Still, their heart is in the right place, and the success of Sam & Max, Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, and Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures has paved the way for a miniature adventure renaissance.  And a point-and-click resurgence, no matter how small, is always a good thing.

It becomes a great thing when those adventure games feature lovingly-crafted, luscious hand-drawn backgrounds and classic 2D animation, resplendent in high definition.  That’s why I’m so excited about The Whispered World, a German production that has ripped its beautiful fantasy aesthetic straight out of a fairy-tale.  I’m not sure I’ve ever played a game that looks like it could pass for a Miyazaki film, but The Whispered World looks like it could be a first.  It’s hard to say how the narrative will stack up.  It could be trite, poorly-acted, and wholly disappointing.  Maybe the puzzles will be bland and uninspired.  Maybe the in-game animation, which looks a little jerky in the new German trailer, will be a total letdown next to the incredible background artwork.

Or maybe The Whispered World will be a modern classic, a fitting tribute to a legendary genre, a game that emphatically demonstrates how to bring fantasy to life in playable form.  At any rate, that’s what I’m hoping for.

Growing up a diehard Star Wars fan enamored with the grave and thoroughly cool Boba Fett, the glamorous profession of the bounty hunter wasn’t to be taken lightly. It’s not a job for the likes of Duane “Dog” Chapman — it’s serious, alien-scum-catching business, where no job is too tough when there are credits to be had. Maybe that’s why I’ve always approached Metroid with a degree of skepticism. For all the similarities they share — armor, slotted visor, deadly gadgets, an air of mystery, and a propensity for conversational brevity — Boba Fett and Samus Aran don’t quite line up. Where Fett intimidates with that gravelly voice and charges astronomical fees to exact harsh justice, Samus…saves the galaxy?

The E3 announcement of Team Ninja-developed Metroid: Other M coupled with my recent completion of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption has resulted in a lot of Samus on the brain. The more I think about Samus, the harder it is to consider her a bounty hunter — but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Under Nintendo’s direction, the Metroid franchise sported a paper-thin storyline, with hardly a scrap of background information given to flesh out the wholly original galaxy Samus traverses. Retro Studios, on the other hand, has pushed Metroid in a cinematic direction, introducing more cutscenes to the series and using the scan visor to provide a wealth of knowledge on the species and history created for their games. Metroid Prime 3 employed voice acting in the series for the first time — but more importantly, it gave life to the Galactic Federation, with soldiers, battleships, fighters, and plenty of reading material about their history and technology.

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It took me a solid five months, but I finally (finally) finished Atlas Shrugged at the end of May.  My enjoyment of the book definitely took a downwards turn in the second half; after Dagny left the valley, it was a slow crawl to an inexorable conclusion.  Ayn Rand came up briefly in my Editing and Design class earlier in the semester, and the professor joked that she was an author seriously in need of an editor.  And he was exactly right: Atlas Shrugged struggles under the weight of its own vision, a novel incapable of supporting Rand’s philosophy while simultaneously carrying an appealing narrative.

I’m curious how many people have actually dragged their brains through John Galt’s 80 page speech that endlessly extols the true virtues of man and condemns the mindless parasites of society.  I suppose, in a way, I’m almost proud to have read the entire thing, but by that point I was far past interest and moving forward on sheer stubborn determination.

Now that I’m finished with Ayn Rand, I’ve moved onto lighter, more fun things; I started reading the complete works of Dashiell Hammett, who’s probably most famous for The Maltese Falcon.  Not only is it great pulp fiction from the early years of the 20th century, it’s great fodder for Based on Books.  After Atlas Shrugged, Hammett’s tight, fast-paced narrative and sharp dialogue are a welcome, welcome change.

Remember Mission to Mars and Red Planet, the two films Hollywood cranked out in 2000 that coincidentally starred imperiled astronauts on desperate trips to our closest galactic neighbor? If not, I can’t blame you — despite solid casts, both movies managed to be utterly blase. That’s what I was expecting when one of my friends showed up with Red Faction: Guerrilla last week. I’d hardly even been aware that the game existed. Maybe I’d skimmed over a demo on Xbox Live, but I quickly assumed Red Faction: Guerrilla was just another third-person shooter, an average action game with nothing but the setting of the rocky Martian surface separating it from its contemporaries.

Boy, was I wrong.

The open-world, third-person action game genre remains as flooded as ever; this year may be even more jammed than the last, with Infamous, Prototype, and Red Faction: Guerrilla all competing for sales in the month of June alone. Compared to the anticipation I’d seen on the web for Sucker Punch’s first Playstation 3 outing and the ultraviolent screenshots of Prototype, Red Faction hardly garned a bit of hype. But after a couple hours of playing Guerrilla — followed by a couple days of playing Guerrilla — I realized this sandbox action game is much more Total Recall than it is Mission to Mars. Totally ridiculous, but in such a good, good way.

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For as long as I’ve loved movies, I’ve hated horror. What was there to like? It’s a genre of cheap tricks, manipulating the cinematic space to produce scares and generally throwing plot and character development to the wind in favor of blood, gore and one absurd murder after another. But like all generalizations, mine has proven it’s not quite a perfect fit. The most popular horror films almost always appeal to the worst in us — slasher flicks were all the rages for years, with franchises like Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street persisting year after year. More recently, so-called torture porn like Saw, Hostel, and The Hills Have Eyes has pushed the glorification of gore and violence to its limits, doing its best to scare the audience with a grisly sensory overload. And that’s not the horror worth paying attention to.

Tonight I watched Rosemary’s Baby, a deeply disturbing film perfectly crafted by Roman Polanski. There are no cheap scares produced by actors suddenly jumping into frame; there are no rivers of blood, eviscerated corpses or immortal murderers. There’s just the story of a young woman entangled in a surreal web of the occult, not comprehending or believing the terror of her situation until it’s far too late. Perfect pacing creates a taught, constantly unsettling film that grows more and more eerie as it goes. Polanski drops enough hints, employs just enough subtle music, to gradually increase the suspense to the bursting point. That’s what great horror is about — withholding information as long as possible, unnerving the audience and ultimately facing them with something relentless, impossible to overcome, something that strikes at the soul rather than the body.

Aside from the suspenseful filmmaking itself, Polanski accomplished this in Rosemary’s Baby by tapping into a primal instinct and subverting it — the innocence of a child. It’s because they should be so innocent that the reverse becomes so horrifying. It’s been used to great effect in classics like Village of the Damned and The Omen. Of course, plenty of not-so-great films try to employ the same concept — The Good Son, for example — but even then, the psychological angle still works better than any Jason or Freddy movie.

Where each film starring the terror of Camp Crystal Lake relishing in showing every kill, the most suspenseful horror films drawing out the scene and subverting your expectations. The Hitcher might seem like it has more in common with slashers than Hitchcock, but it’s another example of a horror movie that triumphs by attacking the mind of its characters, rather than impaling them on a fishhook or giving them the old meat cleaver; it’s relentless insanity, presented against a serene and beautiful backdrop that makes Rutger Hauer’s chilling hitchhiker a scarier incarnation of evil than Freddy or Michael Myers.

Remakes of classic or cult classic horror films almost unanimously lack some quality of their forbearers; the new Hitcher passes up the grit and mental intensity of the original for more glamorous violence. Maybe it’s just the current trend, a newfound bloodlust in the wake of torture porn’s popularity. At least there are still movies every so often that are more about building tension than shocking the audience. Sunshine was a noble and entertaining effort in the sci-fi realm, though it was certainly no Alien. Maybe it’s time I got around to seeing The Descent…or maybe I’ll just explore the depths of Hitchcock, instead.

Alan Wake has clearly been a troubled project. Remedy Entertainment last released a game in 2003 with the crime drama The Fall of Max Payne. Six years is a long, long time between projects, and Alan Wake has been on the horizon of upcoming Xbox 360 games for half that time. Sadly, those three years have come and gone with fewer and fewer public appearances from the mysterious game; every E3 has brought with it another Microsoft press conference making no mention of Wake. But now, at long last, the game has resurfaced with a (hopefully final) release window of next spring, and Wake still looks to offer something original despite how long it’s been since the project’s inception.

This year’s gameplay demonstration gave me hope for a genuinely unique take on the survival horror genre. Remedy are doing their best to blur the line between thriller novels and the scary sector of video games: Wake stars a writer whose tales of the macabre come to life, and it seems to feature a chapter-esque episodic structure. It may essentially work out to be little more than a traditional mission system, but the twist is interesting nonetheless.

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Gotta catch ‘em all. It seems so innocuous, doesn’t it? There are lots of these little Pokémon fellas, and your challenge is to grab each and every one. But no, it’s not quite that innocent. Nintendo’s catchphrase invokes a youthful enthusiasm by deliberately tapping into the psychology behind game design, a never-ending, insidious cycle of collection and reward that we wholly by into with no reservations. Practically every game on the market entices us with collectable coins that lead to secret unlockables, or trophies to chart our progress — something to tap into that unconscious addiction to collect ‘em all.

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I played Resident Evil 4 for the first time about a year after its release in January 2005. And in early 2006, I was still utterly floored by how damn good it was. That year couldn’t diminish the impact of the immaculate presentation, exhilarating combat, extensive weapon system, or lengthy quest. Admittedly, I never cared much for survival horror as a genre, so I was eager to see Resident Evil stray from its roots and delve deeper into no-holds-barred gunplay. A few facets of the previous games remained, and movement still felt constrained for an action game. But compared to the Resident Evil of old, it was easy to give the controls a pass and embrace them as a step in the right direction.

I’m not quite so late to the Resident Evil party, this time around — it’s only been a couple months since Resident Evil 5 made its global debut. Around that same time I wrote a post about how much I love co-op in videogames. And after devoting most of the past week to Resident Evil 5, I’m pretty darn sad to realize that just about every aspect of the game falls short of the lofty bar its predecessor set 4 years ago, in part due to the focus on cooperative gameplay. I’ve even spent 99% of my play time with another human being backing me up — relying on the AI would’ve made things much worse.

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