Burning Questions: War of the Five (Nerd) Kings

Hey everybody, Michael C. here. There are certain phrases entertainment writers are fond of throwing around until they lose all meaning. If pop culture pundits are to believed at any given moment there are around a dozen “Best Shows on Television” and twice that many “It Girls”. 

One phrase run into the ground this past summer was declaring such and such person “King of the Nerds -every week saw a new monarch crowned by the media. So in an effort to save everyone the confusion I propose we settle the matter here and now:

Who is the current King of the Nerds?

If we were to put things into Game of Thrones terms (and why wouldn’t we?) George Lucas is the Mad King who used to be the unquestioned ruler but had to be deposed when he lost his mind and started dragging his own films out onto the throne room floor to be destroyed. Peter Jackson would be the Robert Baratheon who was swept into power on the glory of the Lord of the Rings trilogy but whose subsequent projects became increasingly bloated until he was but a shadow of the leader he was when he first took the crown.

Now into the power vacuum wades these potential heirs to the throne and their fervent armies of fans:

JOSS WHEDON – The Popular Favorite

Hand of the King: Nathan Fillion

Claim to the Throne: Tough to beat his combination of mainstream success and cult adoration. Currently at the helm of The Avengers franchise, which, in case you failed to notice, was box office champ of the summer for the second year in a row. Its television spin-off Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. debuts a week from Tuesday. Fans don’t come more loyal than his legion of followers. 

Achilles Heel: Does he desire the title? Low-budget black and white Shakespeare adaptations? Internet musicals? Talk of doing a ballet? He seems more like a theater dork at heart.

SIMON PEGG – The People’s King

Hand of the King: Nick Frost

Claim to the Throne: Listen to him talk for 5 minutes (or glance at the cover of his book) and it’s clear that he is the real nerd deal. When he isn’t improving mega franchises with his presence, he is spearheading the Cornetto trilogy, the cult success of the last decade.

Achilles Heel: Can't really break out of cult status as a leading man, but then again, maybe that’s a plus for a Nerd King.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH - The Knight of Flowers

Hand of the King: Martin Freeman

Claim to the Throne: Provokes the opposite of Affleck casting tantrums. Welcomed with open arms every time he shows up in a new geek-friendly franchise, which lately feels like all of them.

Achilles Heel – Sic Transit Gloria. In a year or two his roles in the The Hobbit, Star Trek, and Sherlock will all be in the rear view mirror.

JJ ABRAMS – World Conqueror

Hand of the King: A Pile of Money

Claim to the throne: All your franchise are belong to him. Accomplished the obscene fantasy of landing both the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises. Who can top that?

Achilles Heel: He has the power but does he have the love of the people? Star Wars and Star Trek aren’t what they once were and he his films have the habit of leaving vocally disgruntled fans in their wake. The masses could rise up against him.

GUILLERMO DEL TORO – The Connoisseur’s Choice

Hand of the King: Ron Perlman

Claim to Throne: One of the few guys creating original visions for the screen instead of rebooting and rehashing old ones. Lackluster response to Peter Jackson's The Hobbit, a project he was originally attached to, has only increased his cred, “If only Guillermo had done it…”

Achilles heel: Pacific Rim suggests he loses some of his mojo when reaching for mass appeal. More suited to work on the fringes than to sit on the throne.

 

It doesn’t feel right for me to make such a momentous judgment on my own, so I leave it to you. Declare which army you would join below or make a case for a different candidate altogether in the comments. 

poll by twiigs.com

Previous Burning Questions
You can follow Michael C. on Twitter at @SeriousFilm. Or read his blog Serious Film

The Link Is Not Yet Rated

Vulture features a fascinating memoir about a troubled 70s childhood and the not-optimistic catharsis of TV's 70s superhero show The Incredible Hulk
Awards Daily Sasha never misses a beat with director David Fincher and his new muse Rooney Mara. Have you seen their Calvin Klein ad? What's most shocking about the ad (to me) is that Rooney SMILES in it. Can you imagine? Not the smiling sort at the cinema, you know.
Variety Halle Berry developing an indie comedy called Mother. Her frequent producer is directing but his filmography is suspect!

Zap2It "Giant Colin Firth statue emerges from lake in London's Hyde Park" a most clickable headline, don't you agree?
Awards Circuit wonders where we're not looking for Oscar contenders for this year's race. Any under the radar guesses?
Salon's description of US Weekly in this article about their "zoom-in" interactivity with paparazzi photos of Angelina Jolie's cleavage made me LOL
My New Plaid Pants "do, dump or marry" with the men of Pacific Rim: Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnan and Rob Kazinsky
Salon speaks about and to Guillermo del Toro as Pacific Rim, his first film in 5 years if you can believe it given how ubiquitous his name has been in that time frame, nears release

Finally have you heard that Los Angeles banned this Project Runway ad from appearing on billboards? I don't get it.

This nudity is so safe. This is only side cheek nudity. The models aren't even in sexually suggestive poses. But hey, Project Runway has got to do something to get people talking now that it's 12 seasons old. (I hated "TEAMS" so much, I can't even. It really turned me against the show). I think this would have been a much braver funnier and more successful ad if they had all of the new contestants naked and worshipping the hosts. It would have also been more controversial since imperfect regular-person bodies really alarm people. Partially because you don't see them in the media very often. But, tell me, why was this ad banned? I've seen much worse on public display. I didn't even feel the need to hide it "after the jump". But sex, like violence, is a terribly inconsistent thing when it comes to public policy and censorship. TV has adopted film's extremely forgiving and casual relationship with violence now (they'll regularly show things you couldn't see in an anything other than an R rated movie just a couple of decades ago) and I can't any longer get a hold on what you can or can't say in terms of profanity on the small screen. But sex -- it's always sex -- still manages to get people flustered and "that's obscene!" even when it isn't. A few nights ago while channel surfing I chanced upon some sort of reality show wherein the contestants were dropped naked onto deserted islands - like an "Extreme!" riff on Survivor. They even had "Naked"  in the title. And the nakedness was blurred out.

Beasts of the Southern Secret Garden

JA from MNPP here, taking a look at the news of the day - newly Oscar nominated writer Lucy Alibar, who adapted her play into the movie Beasts of the Southern Wild, has just been announced as the writer of a new movie adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's much loved (not to mention much adapted) 1911 serial-turned-novel The Secret Garden. For a hot minute it seemed as if Guillermo Del Toro was going to direct it, but he's too busy making giant robots fight giant monsters so he's just gonna produce.

The Secret Garden is about, well, a largely orphaned girl who gets left to her own devices amid overgrown nature, where she allows her imagination to run wild. Sound familiar? I just can't imagine how Alibar got the gig. Apparently the action is being shifted from England to "the American South at the turn of the 20th Century," as well.

The Secret Garden's already been adapted several times - I remember liking the 1993 version with Maggie Smith, although it's been a very long time since I've seen it.

Raven Haired "Mama"

Jose here. By the time this weekend's over, Jessica Chastain will have finished taking over the world her latest movies in the first and second spots of the box office (help me out here, has this happened before?), which might not mean she's a money-making sensation (at least not yet) but will undoubtedly expose her brilliance to a broader audience. The Oscar nominated Zero Dark Thirty, whose commercial success is undoubtedly owed to the torture controversy, dropped to second place, while the horror movie Mama is set to open as number one with a figure in the mid-twenty millions

http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2013/1/20/raven-haired-mama.html

The Guillermo del Toro-produced movie seems to be a good 'ole "mediocre January horror flick" but it's actually not half bad. I saw it earlier today and was shocked upon realizing I hadn't rolled my eyes a single time. The Chastainite in me wants to say the movie owes itself to her, but in reality, the direction and cinematography seem like a breath of fresh air compared to what this genre has given us lately. [More Chastain after the jump...]

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Oscar Horrors: Setting The Table for The Pale Man

Oscar Horrors continues with Michael on everyone's favorite Guillermo del Toro film

HERE LIES... Pan’s Labyrinth, winner of the 2006 Oscar for Best Art Direction.

I could go through Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth a scene at a time picking out all the brilliant little details that makes its imagery so indelible, but for this post, let’s limit our focus to the film’s most famous scene: The Pale Man. The monster that has a table full of delicious food but only feeds, to use del Toro’s words, “on the blood of the innocent.” There have been thousands of scenes where one form of monster or another stalks the story’s protagonist. It is one of the basic equations of the horror genre. So what do set decorator Pilar Revuelta and art director Eugenio Cabellero do with this one that shakes the viewer on such an elemental level? 

Of course it helps to start with one of the all time horrifying creatures in all of cinema. Del Toro instructed the team to imagine an old obese man who quickly lost a lot of weight, and when that proved insufficiently nightmare-inducing proceeded to erase the face of their designs.

But beyond the surface there are many elements to the scene most viewers will only register subconsciously. Like... 

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