Fog, Balance, Freedom, and a Red Bow Tie

I’m not sure how I didn’t know about this until now, but what is one of the best horror games ever created in my opinion, “Silent Hill,” is being translated into film. Of course, just the fact that it is a movie made from a game should frighten everyone, but we can still hope that even more fear will be induced by the story and the effects. “Silent Hill,” the game, for those who haven’t played/watched it, is quite a departure from most other “survival-horror” games pioneered by “Resident Evil.” As I said before, it’s more of just a horror game in that the combat is simple and sparse. “Silent Hill” is much more about atmosphere, and it fulfills its goal of using sound and the unknown everything that hides within the immense fog to its advantage. If you haven’t played the game, try to find the first one. Of the three it is still my favorite, with the third installment a close second. Stay away from number 2, though, as it’s too short and not even that scary.

This weeks edition of DVDuesday brought us the latest chapter in the Star Wars universe, “Revenge of the Sith.” As avid a Star Wars fan as I am, my investment into the new trilogy was severely beaten down by George Lucas’ love for the digital, and was delivered its final crushing blow with the emotionless negative exclamation by a brilliantly terrible Hayden Christiansen at the end of the third film. Looking at the story from a somewhat scholarly standpoint, however, does reveal the value of the six-part saga's completion. If your down-trodden opinion of the Star Wars film needs a little resuscitation, read this article.

My family and I are currently looking into portable media devices for ourselves. My perfectly legal CD collection reached its peak months ago, and now it is a struggle to fit everything I want in my case that holds 92 discs. Sure I should just be able to choose what I want and minimize the clutter of albums, but what if I feel like listening to that music inspired by Lord of the Rings? Best to keep it on hand, just in case. Since I use iTunes already, it seemed like the easiest thing would be to just get an iPod, and now with the iPod Video I could even watch “Lost” on the go. An open source media player is in the works, however, and now I just don’t know what to do. I have advocated other open source projects before, Firefox being the most noted, and I’ve often thought about the switch to the Windows alternative, Linux (and not just because I like penguins.) I don’t know much about this one yet, and I also don’t know how much messing around with hardware it will take, but it’s worth looking into. Check out an article here.

Finally, our grey-suited childhood friend wants to make a comeback. Paul Reubens, better known as Pee-wee Herman, recently revealed two scripts that he has written as continuations of the Pee-wee saga. We last saw him in a semi-disturbingly romantic circus atmosphere, or maybe it was in that little house where he cohabitated with chairs, clocks, maps, and ugly puppets that talked. Actually, come to think of it, he didn’t live there. It was just his playhouse, and he used to ride that weird scooter thing off a cliff at the end of each episode. Well anyway, the two scripts take different directions, and it will be interesting to see if either of them are picked up. Something tells me that the success of “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” was at least partially due to Tim Burton. So unless he’s involved, and even if he is, I expect to be very wary of this potential movie.

-J