Well, here comes the backlash
Feb 11I’ve been suspicious for awhile now that things were too good in nerd land. The internet had made it possible for genre-inclined individuals to collect their heart’s desires with unprecedented ease and film and television was awash in geeks-growed-up. Kevin Smith continues to make movies filled with swears and comic references and JJ Abrahms is king. Even older-school heavy-weights like Michael Bay are rockin’ socks with Saturday morning awesomeness in full 3D, transforming glory.
A math major who did ILM special effects if our hero Hiro on Heroes!
So, sooner or later the straights would have to make some noise. And as proof, I’d like to draw your attention to this USA Today article by Ryan Pearson.
Let’s just say it starts with an accurate, but backhanded headhline – “Alba dazzles nerds at tech Oscars” – and goes from there.
At the first Academy Award presentations of the year, 20 computer geeks graciously accepted honors for their work on particle flow simulation technology — stuff that makes water scenes in the movies look more realistic.
Rephrasing it as “stuff” is a nice, average-joe, we’re-not-like-them-big-brains, dumbing down.
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts kept its Scientific and Technical Awards dinner Saturday night as charmingly unglamorous as ever. A magician provided the pre-meal entertainment, Jessica Alba showed up to present the awards — and be gawked at — and nerddom was held up as something to celebrate.
Well because it is – it is the Science and Technology portion of the awards after all. And the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science
has been holding these nerds up as something to celebrate since 1930. That’s year three for those of you counting.
And the Academy has never considered them nerds, rather “artisans whose contributions have made it possible for an industry known as ‘The Movies’ to exist.”
Exactly, because without these guys, you don’t have the Oscars, you have the Tony awards.
Pearson’s piece them quickly falls apart into one part “isn’t great the writer’s strike is coming to an end?” and one part attendees being, well… nerds. But there’s nothing wrong with that, and certainly isn’t deserving of Pearson’s scorn.
You can bet your collection of U.S. 1 comics that if Pearson was referring to the Best Makeup nominees as pansies and fags, he’d be hanging from the Y in the Hollywood sign before sunset. And yet the guys who keep the film cranking and Optimus Prime in your face are fair game.
You heard it here first – the backlash is coming.
Wolverine and the X-Men
Feb 09I can still taste the bitter, rusty, make-your-fillings-ache pain of the third movie, and once the Whedon comic series comes to and end (any week now), I’ll have nothing to cling to.
Except this. I’m pinning my hopes on this.
Extra! Extra! Alert Nerdian for February '08!
Feb 08
Download: Alert Nerdian broadside PDF – February 2008
Download: Alert Nerdian broadside PNG – February 2008
Download: Alert Nerdian broadside GIF – February 2008
Well, we’re continuing our experimentation with a Warren Ellis brainchild – or attempting to start a footrace with our favs at Ectoplasmosis (we’s gots two now slowpokes!) Though to be fair, Ectomo had a cool contest, and that takes time.
Here is the second issue of the Alert Nerdian broadside. As always, we encourage you to print a copy or two (or ten) out and share with the world. Leave them in the office lunch room or on a bus seat. It’s up to you!
The plan will be to formally publish a year’s bushel of broadsides along with our upcoming Alert Nerd quarterly ‘zine – which is looking for clever people, it should be said.
Until next month… LOOK OUT! NERDS!
Star Trek: The Tour…Worth Your Latinum?
Feb 06Star Trek has taken so much of my money over the years. Granted, this is mostly my fault — I didn’t really need that shoddy plastic Kira replica with the oddly-sloped shoulders and buggy eyes (she looked nothing like Nana Visitor and almost exactly like a vaguely pissed-off duck with a drinking problem), nor should I have spent my hard-earned pennies on the masses of out-of-focus 8×10 glossies littering the tables at Creation cons. And yet, I still nurse a certain nerdly bitterness regarding the franchise’s fan-bilking ways. After all, if I’m going to dump latinum into Paramount’s overflowing coffers, the least they can do is give me a better show than Enterprise.
Anyway, when I first heard about Star Trek: The Tour, I was skeptical. Admission is $35 (and much more if you want the full VIP Experience!) and for what? What are they going to show me that I haven’t seen before, huh? I envisioned a room full of crappy props connected to an even larger Star Trek shop, the whole thing narrated by a virtual Walter Koenig.
But then my friend John Charles happened to catch a 3 a.m. promo hosted by everyone’s favorite lusty carnival barker, The Shatner, and he got all excited about it. And I decided maybe I was excited about it, too, because another thing Star Trek does really well is, you know, hype. So, with spouses in tow, off we went.
Blah blah blah comics blah (2/6)
Feb 06In this edition: Most of the same titles I write about all the damn time, because I have no interest in picking up random crap just to complain about it online. I can complain just fine about the carefully selected crap I purchase on a regular basis, thank you very much.
