House Calls

Welcome to another edition of House Calls with DocDoom, I'm running down yet another list of the stuff that will sooth your aches, take two and call me in the morning.


Cinema:


If you're one of those odd people who's decided they don't like Brad Pitt just because he's a hugely successful A-list actor, close this tab right now. Now that those people are gone the rest of you can enjoy the awesomeness that is 12 Monkeys. The movie takes place among a few different times in the life of Bruce Willis, who is sent back in time at the beginning of the movie to stop a terrorist plot from wiping out most of the human population on earth. He finds the task to be daunting, and ends up befriending a slightly insane Brad Pitt. There's a very well-done twist at the end of the movie, and this is one of the few movies I've seen involving time travel that actually makes sense as far as I can tell continuity-wise. A great film, lots of laughs and some of the most solid acting from these two you can find.


Music:


For those of you that listen to the radio, you'll probably remember bowling for soup who put out the song 1985, or maybe you know them as the creators of the Jimmy Neutron Theme Song, I'm here to tell you they're much more than that. All of their albums are pretty solid, but this is hands down one of the best break-up albums you can find. In a Hangover You Don't Deserve, the band explores all of the things you might go through after a split, everything from trying to rebound with some strange to stealing the back seat out of your exes car to spite them. Solid lyrics will have you laughing throughout each song, and the catchy upbeat riffs help to tone up some of the darker songs that might get you feeling a little blue if it weren't for the optimism the album seems to carry as an overall tone.


Gaming:


Despite what most people will say, I don't think that zombie/undead games are overdone, I just think they aren't done correctly. Metro 2033 is an example of a developer coming closer to the right formula. While the game isn't specifically about zombies, but rather humans that have been mutated as a result of nuclear war. You play as a survivor living in the underground subway tunnels of soviet Russia. The game does an efficient job at mixing stealth and action, with an emphasis on conserving ammo whenever possible. The story-line is solid, and the whole experience is very immersive. If you're into the FPS genre or Horror I'd suggest picking this up to try, as a bonus there's also a book by the same name.


Comics:


This is a series I actually stumbled upon by accident in the "also downloaded" bar at the bottom of ComicBT, but I'm glad I did. I've just finished the Welcome to Lovecraft volume of Locke & Key, and am looking forward to reading Head Games and the comics that follow. The main plot is a family's father is murdered, causing them to relocate to the town of lovecraft, MA. There they move in to a huge manor called Keyhouse, which you will learn in short has many hidden secrets and supernatural objects. The most notable is a key known as the Anywhere Key, which will literally take the user to wherever they think of if used to open a door. A bit of an adult comic, as the name would imply.


Literature:


The Talisman is the first in a two-part series co-authored by Stephen King and Peter Straub, but what's interesting is (although not specifically acknowledged in the book) the world of The Talisman actually coincides with the world of Stephen King's critically acclaimed Dark Tower series (a previous entry on this blog). The story follows Jack, a boy out to save his mother who is dying of cancer. He plans to accomplish this by crossing America to get his hands on a crystal known as "The Talisman". What he finds out is that this world is mirrored by another, a parallel world known as "the Territories" and each person has a Twinner who's life, while unique, also mirrors the main events (i.e. birth, great changes, death). It is possible, however rare, that a person's twinner could die but they survive, leaving them with the ability to jump between worlds. Jack is one such person, and uses this ability on his journey. Solid writing, and if you're a fan of the Dark Tower series this is a good supplement to that (you even get to meet someone who might be a gunslinger) and the sequel is great as well.


Please let us know if you've enjoyed any of these things yourself, and feel free to discuss what you liked about each one in the comments!

See you next week!