Before we take leave of my “Month of the Nerd II” and, tomorrow, begin my “Month of Rock!” let us pause to acknowledge that nerdiness and nerdy topics are not necessarily at odds with the spirit of rock n’ roll — witness songs like “Monster Hospital” by one of the coolest bands of this decade, [...]
It was jarring to hear a line on King of the Hill this past Sunday caused by friends of mine — specifically Reid Mihalko and Marcia Baczynski, inventors, for good or ill, of cuddle parties. In the sequence, Peggy Hill used Hank’s friends as a test of what things were still hip enough for her [...]
Excellent nerd-film romance note: Sarah Douglas (who played Kryptonian villainess Ursa, the woman who slammed Superman in the gut with a thrown manhole cover after saying “Oh, Superman” in a delightfully taunting fashion in Superman II, possibly turning a lot of young nerds into dominatrix fans in the process and maybe inspiring the career of [...]
No, Lolita Bar isn’t becoming the U.N. for a night (that’s up in the East 40s, we’re on the Lower East Side), but next week we are broaching one of the most controversial geopolitical questions, “Is Zionism Racism?”:
Wednesday, June 3 (8pm):
Blogger at SaifHouse Saif Ammous argues yes.
Blogger at Commentary Abe Greenwald argues no.
Hosted by Todd [...]
Brian Austin Green (from the late, lamented Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) reportedly wanted to play superhero Green Lantern in the movie due out in mid-2011, and he’s producing the movie Fathom (also based on comics) starring his ex Megan Fox as an aquatic superhero who…well, something involving lots of shots of her in a [...]
When Watchmen came out a couple months ago, opinion was divided — some people, like me, loved it, but some people I respect also considered it overly complicated or pretentious, or felt that the classic original comic book was not meant to be adapted to film in the first place, at least not like this.
For [...]
It’s Memorial Day, a fine time to remember brave soldiers and some important political lessons, to wit:
•It’s interesting that (at the moment) Steve Rogers, who was Captain America for decades, is dead, while his old World War II sidekick Bucky, believed for sixty years to be the only comic book character to stay dead, is [...]
As noted yesterday, I don’t know if 2011 will bring Skynet’s destruction of civilization. I do know that it will bring a pair of computer-animated/motion-capture Tintin films co-directed by Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg. Some fans of the original comic books (anti-communist comics, I must note) may already be nervous, but this [...]
Nerd culture isn’t just something that happens in imaginary lands, of course, so it’s worth noting, during this “Month of the Nerd II,” ten real-world (more or less) manifestation I’ve recently noticed:
•On the beautiful Saturday one week ago, in a rather strange combination of events, I walked from my place on the Upper East Side [...]
It’s been just over ten years since the first Matrix movie came out, and though it doesn’t at first appear to have a direct connection to the Terminator movies, there was a fascinating charge that both franchises had been ripped off from the same source. I mentioned the lawsuit on this blog exactly one [...]
With Wolverine, Star Trek, and (tomorrow) Terminator all sort of getting rebooted this month, it’s worth noting that this spring/summer is also a fantastic time to get in on the print relaunches of numerous DC Comics characters, if for some strange reason you want to transform yourself into a comics collector.
DC relaunches (not really planned [...]
ToddSeavey.com Book Selection of the Month (May 2009, Month of the Nerd II): Arthur C. Clarke’s short stories, in particular “The Nine Billion Names of God”
While nostalgia or the desire to master arcana may draw many nerds to sci-fi, the thing that keeps hope alive — despite perpetual disappointment — in the hearts of some [...]
I’d say the 1990s was the time of the geek takeover of culture: Tarantino (who loves comics and referencing older films), the 1997 Star Wars rereleases (which did more to generate good will than the prequels did a couple years later), and then the Matrix films as confirmation geek stuff can also be hip, even [...]
It simply is not the case that newer = better, and civilization would save a lot of time if the youth got that through their heads — but old forms of naivete are undeniably easier for us to spot than our own forms of naivete, so while (some) contemporary sci-fi and comics-derived media are almost [...]
•My friend Dan Greenberg once compared the comic book companies DC and Marvel to the Republicans and Democrats, the former in each pair being (ostensibly) old-timey traditionalists with values seemingly harkening back to the early twentieth century and the latter in each pair ostensibly being in love with the new but mired in a brief [...]