4/16/23-4/22/23
Resident Evil 3
If you’re a regular reader of this column (you are not), you’ll recall how I just finished the Resident Evil 2 remake with the $5 cheater mode. Unfortunately, there was no way to obtain a rocket launcher with infinite ammo without working for it, so I played through the entirety of this game entirely legitimately. So, how was this type of game now that I had to deal with inventory management?
I fucking loved it.
Look, I know. I’m going to get so much shit for saying that this is my favorite Resident Evil game, but so far it is. There is a chance that RE4 tops it at some point. But it’s not likely, considering I don’t have the remake and that I found the control scheme so weird and fucked up, that I gave up after dying in the village in the original game (the “original” being the HD version they ported to PC as played on a Steam Deck).
What I really like about RE3make
is that it is blatantly dumb. They’ve thrown most of the horror in
the trash and now it’s just an action movie about Millia
Jovovich
Jill
Valentine kicking ass, escaping the zombie apocalypse, and
getting
revenge
on those bastards at Umbrella.
Sure, there are still some puzzles, and inventory management can
still be a pain in the ass, but when Nemesis showed up every now and
then, I was less panicked
than
I would be when Mr. X showed up; instead I
was
more annoyed than
anything else.
Although
it is
funny that hard shell supply cases just sort of fly out of him every
now and then.
Capcom went all in on making this game more fun than anything else. I never felt like I didn’t have the tools to deal with whatever it was that was coming at me, but I had a damn blast handling the situation. If Resident Evil 2 is Alien, Resident Evil 3 feels like Aliens. And that works a lot better in a game than a movie, let me tell you.
The Full Monty
I don’t know on this one. It’s a little too goofy for its own good, and despite touching on depression (social and economic), it really doesn’t feel like it has much to say about… well, just about anything. Maybe body positivity? It’s not a bad movie, but with a plot hinging on a strip show where men strip down to the buff, the fact that they don’t show the movie-watching audience the dick is a travesty. They have that one hot guy who is supposed to have a giant dick, but they don’t show it? Cowards.
Contact
I can’t help but be a fan of anything sort of science fiction that focuses almost entirely on the minutiae of a niche discipline. I’ve been wanting to see this movie for a while (while also confusing for Cocoon, weirdly), and I find SETI and the Very Large Array to be an inherently interesting subject.
Robert Zemeckis is always an uncertain factor in basically any movie he’s attached to, but he remains grounded for most of the movie, with CGI used more sparingly than you might find his later animated abominations.
Jodie Foster does a great job as a capable woman who’s determined to reach her goal and is constantly underestimated by the men around her, just not in the same oppressive a way as they were in Silence of the Lambs. Matthew McCounaghy is around and serves to give the movie and extremely tiresome theme of where faith factors in when it comes toe world of science. The theme itself isn’t inherently bad, but it’s just done in such an overt way that I feel like it takes away from the ending the film which is all about faith.
The real star of the show is John Hurt who shows up a few times as the reclusive and enigmatic billionaire who funds Jodie Foster’s project. His presence often seems otherworldly and the fact that he always shows up to provide hope and keys to the secrets of the aliens paints him in a more extraterrestrial role. Unfortunately real space-faring billionaires are not nearly as interesting, humanistic, nor helpful.
What strikes me though, is that the ending feels hopeful in a way that seems genuine and sincere. Sincerity is hard to capture, and more often than not a message of hope feels jammed into a work to please an audience more than expressing a genuine thought. Good on ya, Bobby Z, you deserve to be forgiven for Forrest Gump.
Also, if there are any Jake Busey fans out there, watch out for this one, because your man has an outsized role in the film.
SOUNDTRAXXX
Mummification and Prayer by Prurient
History of Aids by Prurient
Fossil by Prurient
Pleasure Ground by Prurient
The Golden Chamber by Prurient
Colonialist Nature and Misanthropy by Prurient
The Black Post Society by Prurient
And Still, Wanting by Prurient
Cocaine Death by Prurient
Annihilationist by Prurient
Oxidation by Prurient
Worship Is the Cleansing of the Imagination by JK Flesh and Prurient
Of the Memories of Friends by Prurient
Through the Window by Prurient
Rainbow Mirror by Prurient
Garden of the Mutilated Paratroopers by Prurient
Black Crows Cyborg by Merzbow and Prurient
As is likely extremely obvious, I’ve been listening to almost the entirety of Prurient’s back catalog, spurred on by the excellent album Creationist. I really don’t know what to make of it, thought. Some of these albums are beautiful, challenging, and far too interesting for their own good and I like track after track, but others are grating, annoying, and full of whiny scream-o vocals. If there was a distinct trajectory that Prurient was following it would be easy to say whether I definitively like his music or not, but he’s definitely one of the more interesting artists I’ve come across in recent memory.
Profound Mysteries III by Röyksopp
I liked this a lot more than PMII, so I don’t know what to make of that.
WRAITH by Teeth of the Sea
I was testing out a new pair of headphones, and this was the first TOTS album I listened to, so I found myself going back to it. I still love it. It’s weird, dark, ethereal. Something like a cyberpunk noir soundtrack, with some wonderful trumpet solos peppering some great ambient work. Good stuff!
Dubnobasswithmyheadman (20th Anniversary Edition) by Underworld
Again, I was testing headphones, and I figured I’d throw this on. Still fucking great. Almost wall-to-wall bangers, and definitely one of the most important electronic albums ever.