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Show Monday • June 16, 2008 JL6 from REVIEWS - A4 from ENDS • A4 you get the hang of it. Another cool thing about The World Ends With You is the setting. The game takes place in modern day Tokyo, specifically in the Shibuyu shopping district. The story follows a teenager named Neku, who wakes up in the middle of the street and finds himself forcibly competing in a two-man contest called the Reapers' Game. Each day Neku and his partner are given a new objective. Complete the objective and the day ends. But aside from those points, The World Ends With You follows the depressingly analogous storytelling route of its Japanese RPG brethren. Spiky-haired protagonist? Check. Amnesia used as a plot device? Check. Cheesy dialogue and irritating support characters? Check and mate! Instead of the player advancing the story, the story advances the player. This combination of archaic story design mixed with newer gameplay innovations makes for a strangely pungent potpourri, equal parts refreshing and overripe. If you happen to like JRPGs, The World Ends With You is a solid addition to your gaming library. If you're on the fence, I recommend picking it up; the differences alone make it worth at least one play through. If you don't like the JRPG sub-genre, The World Ends With You will probably do little to change your mind. THE HAPPENING io L 'Cenlury Fox Warning I Watching The Happening may make you commit suicide. Youth, humility and brilliance RuRu releases first album - Elizabeth Mel SundquistHj abeth, was released earlier this month at Velour. LoLife editor It's hard to believe how good RuRu is until you see them. Most everyone who has seen the band perform swears by the lead singer's brilliance, but when you take into account that Isaac Russel is only sixteen. But really, the music this kid creates is fantastic. His use of acoustic guitar and banjo is reminiscent of a Damien Rice-Bob Dylan hybrid, but with a certain flair that only youth can provide. The transition between calm and chaos in his songs (specifically in the first track, "Why") is thrilling. RuRu's first album, Eliz- tween songs. When RuRu finally got cal greats Colby Stead and to the stage, he acted polite and coy toward the audience, giving sweet tidbits of information and humor between songs. He performed all of the best songs from the album, with one short, humble encore. The thing that stood out most about the music coming from Velour that Friday was that no one would take credit for it. Humility Weston Colton like this is hard to find in the music business, and it Local musician RuRu, also known should be enjoyed while it as Isaac Russell, released his first lasts. album with North Platte Records Elizabeth is well worth earlier this month. the ten dollars, and is available for purchase at northMarcus Bentley opened, platterecords.com singing RuRu's praises be- Need More Cash? Keep someone s future Earn up to $70 this wlj Donate Plasma to Save Lives Earn up to $240 month for just a fi hours each week! We need your help & are willing to pay you for your time. Millions of people every day rely on the generous donations from people like you to go on living. Must bring ID, proof of residency and social security number. Bring this ad in for an extra $5 your first time. Phone Number: 801.235.9800 Hours: M-F 7 AM to 7 PM Sat. 8 AM to 3 PM 349 East University Pkwy. Corner of University and State, just behind Sizzler and Big 5 Considering its title, there's not much going on Before hearing what I have to say, know that I ' m an M. Night Shyamalan fan. In my opinion, The Sixth Sense is a supernatural thriller which threw everyone for a loop, Unbreakable is a beautiful, personal struggle about learning your strengths, Signs is a testimony of God and divinity, The Village is touching story about the cost of love and loss, and Lady In The Water is a fairytale for adults that gives us a chance to feel like kids again. The trailers for The Happening have been vague, as if hiding a secret as big as The Sixth Sense's ending. All you know beforehand is that an airborne toxin is blowing around, causing people to lose control of their speech, become disoriented, and kill themselves in the quickest way possible. Even if you hate Shyamalan, you have to admit it's an amazing idea for a film. Out of everyone who I know, I'm the only one who has wanted to like this movie. You're reading it from the words of a huge Shyamalan fan: The Happening is the worst movie of the year. Here's what I think: On Yahoo's movie site, there's an exclusive clip of The Happening beginning with a two-minute segment in which Shyamalan explains how he came up with the idea. He gets so excited about how great an idea it was that you feel like he might tell you the whole thing instead of show you the clip. I think Shyamalan came up with such a great idea which it definitely is -- that he wrote and filmed the movie too quickly, not focusing on characters, story or direction. Nearly the entire movie focuses on a small group of people aimlessly wandering around through the Pennsylvania countryside trying to escape an invisible monster. Of the three main characters played by Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel and John Leguizamo, the only one that you care for has the least screen time. The film attempts to bring up emotion between the other two, but you never care about them. And the side characters are so odd and outlandish that, at times, you fear them more than you fear the results of the toxin. In all of his other films, Shyamalan banked on his intensity by never showing you anything. He let your imagination paint the picture. In his introduction to the Yahoo clip, he explains that the only way he could make this film as frightening as it could be was to show you everything, landing it an R-rating. The only problem with that becomes evident as you watch the film - Shyamalan doesn't know how to effectively show you graphic violence. Minor spoilers: In one great scene, you see a cop from the abdomen down. You see his hand retrieve his gun and go off screen. His body falls lifelessly to the ground with a bullet hole in his forehead. As the camera pans back, you see where the gun fell. Feet appear on the screen as another person's hand picks it up. Bang. Another body falls dead into the frame. And again. That scene works. We did not need to see the shot to the head to feel the threat. In another scene, this one less effective, you see a zookeeper walking zombie-like into a lion den. He dangles his arms in front of a female lion, who slowly rips the man's arm off. After seeing the reaction from spectators, we cut back to the onearmed man. Already afflicted with one bleeding stump, he quickly loses his other arm to another lion's gaping maw. It's obvious Shyamalan was trying to make a shocking scene, but instead it feels like a Saturday Night Live sketch mocking his movie. End spoilers: The Happening feels like a made-for-TV disaster movie. While it has an amazing idea, it never even gets close to reaching its potential. And if the critics' harsh reviews of The Village caused Shyamalan to kill a critic character in Lady In The Water, I'm afraid our bad reviews of The Happening may throw him overboard. This time, he's either going to kill a real critic, retire, or go into hiding, write something amazing and, in a few years, blow us all away. Let's hope he chooses the latter. THE INCREDIBLE HULK classifieds help wanted | Excellent Nannies Wanted ! East Coast Save S's while. Watching kids. Top salaries. Paid: .'airfare. Use of car. Reasonable; ;hours. Paid vacations and holidays. [Call Tri-State Nannies at (800) 1549-2132. www.tsnnannies.com Nannies Unlimited! Great Jobs. Nation Wide - Out of State, 1 yr commitment. Caring families, excellent salaries. www.nanniesunlimited.com 801-756-4119 PT janitorial positions availible in Utah County. Call for 'positions and times. 374-6822 CASHIERySALES $9 HR| J3PM-7PM TUES-SAT STUDY/! 'READ WHEN SLOW UNCLE •SAM'S ARMY NAVY OUTIDOOR 1698 S. 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Homeraised with children in loving environment, contact our email sawyertoy@yahoo.com Dance teaching positions at javailable in jazz, hip hop, & tumBAND OR DJ WANTED The jbling-all levels from beginning Mountain Valley Chapter of the }to competition teams. Please American Red Cross is hosting [caH Tresa at 489-8512 or send a picnic to honor our awesome jresume to tresaja@2by2.net volunteers at the State Hospital picnic area on Saturday, June 28, from 11:30 am to about 1:30 pm and we need a volunteer band or DJ to provide music while we are AF Townhome End Unit, eating and playing (before and afbdrm, 1.5 ba, $166,500 ter the awards and a magic show). Justin 801-592-9836 You may give out your cards, and will be given recognition on the Like-new 2 bed/2bath programl Must have your own townhouse in PG. $165,900 sound system. Please call Ed visit http://pem1509.blogHall or Sara Trivedi at 373-8580 spot.com for more details. housing Norton becoming the not-so-Jolly Green Giant. Universal Pictures The "Hulk smash" that we all want to see It's odd that five years after Ang Lee's international flop The Hulk, Universal Pictures would decide to revisit and reboot the franchise. What's even more odd is that they're not advertising it as a reboot. For The Incredible Hulk, Marvel Studios has teamed with Universal to release their second picture. Because their first, Iron Man, was so successful, you're going to hear many people compare them. In reality, they are two different types of flicks. Iron Man is an action and comedy driven blockbuster, while The Incredible Hulk is a story driven drama, tapping mostly into the "wanderer" feel of the television series. Edward Norton, who cowrote the screenplay, plays Bruce Banner - a scientist whose accident-derived curse strips him of the woman he loves (Liv Tyler as Betty Ross) and forces him to run like Harrison Ford from Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive. When another genetic scientist thinks he may be able to cure Banner from the green beast within. Banner comes out of hiding, returns to where it all happened, and searches for the needed missing pieces. More than an action movie, The Incredible Hulk is filled with many dramatic elements. There are more scenes that dive into Banner's dark personal life than there are of Hulk smash. Don't misunderstand: the new Hulk smash is far superior to Lee's. If you're looking for a great drama, then check it out. If you're looking for another Iron Man because you heard that Robert Downey Jr. shows up as Tony Stark, then don't get your hopes up too high. Though Stark does appear in The Incredible Hulk, they are two completely different types of movies. |