Getting down with the dorks
The geek shall inherit the Earth — or at least become the unlikely hero in Kick-Ass. Dark like Watchmen, funny like Superbad and bloody like Kill Bill, the quirky caper featured one such character, Dave Lizewski. Brought to life by British up-and-comer Aaron Johnson, the high school kid goes from Peter-Parkerish nobody to costumed vigilante who manages to take down a New York drug lord.
Directed by Matthew Vaughn — and co-produced with Brad Pitt — the action-comedy is one of this year’s leftfield hits, scoring well with both critics and the public. In fact, a sequel, Kick-Ass 2: Balls To The Wall, is set to hit theaters in 2012.
Ask anyone who’s seen it and the overwhelming consensus is that Kick-Ass effortlessly blended the worlds of film and comics into an intellectual pop culture pastiche; it seemed to live up to the movie’s most quotable line: “With no power comes no responsibility.” And yeah, did you notice the Lost and Scott Pilgrim references?
“It’s as if the economic hegemony of the geek in the 1990s, when high tech and the Internet were driving the economy, has somehow been converted into a cultural hegemony. Rappers and athletes trick out their Hummers with Xboxes. Supermodels insist in interviews that they used to be losers in high school,” wrote Time magazine in 2005. Flash-forward half a decade and it looks as if being a nerd, dork or geek (or even aspiring to look like a nerd, dork or geek – I won’t distinguish one from the other in this case) has become somewhat fashionable.
From Anonymous To Infamous
Realizing that it was languishing in reality TV hell for far too long, MTV has decided to go the scripted route despite its success with The Hills and Jersey Shore. The Hard Times of RJ Berger is the cable network’s first single-cam comedy and is being peddled as The Wonder Years meets — wait for it — Superbad.
Hard Times is a raunchy coming-of-age tale about an unpopular 15-year-old (Paul Iacono, previously in Fame) who achieves notoriety among his peers when his anatomical gift is accidentally exposed to the entire school. Overnight, he goes from anonymous to infamous.
Kicking off on Sunday, June 6, right after the MTV Movie Awards, the first season will consist of 12 episodes, each one incorporating stylized animation sequences inspired by pop culture and video games. It’s odd that the channel is attempting to reinvent itself with a show about a well-endowed outcast. Sex sells, but who knew that nerdy sex did, too?
Golden Geeks
When it comes to the golden standard of geekiness in young Hollywood, two names are neck and pencil-neck: Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg.
The former first became a dweeby darling by playing George Michael Bluth in the cult TV comedy Arrested Development. A string of little-films-that-could — Juno, Superbad and Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist — soon cemented the droll Canadian actor’s cred among the Last.fm set. Out in August, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World will most likely do nothing to change that perception.
On the other hand, there are some — myself included — who think that an actor playing the same awkward teen in every movie is not a sign that he is immensely talented. I’m sure he’s a great guy in real life but I honestly cannot stand Michael Cera — at least not anymore. His templated lovable loser schtick, refreshing the first time around, only makes me want to punch him in the mouth now.
That makes Jesse Eisenberg, in my opinion, the anti-Michael Cera. Awkward but not annoying, he avoided painting himself into a corner with a relatively broader range of film projects: The Squid and the Whale, The Education of Charlie Banks, Adventureland and Zombieland. The last one was such a sleeper smash that a sequel is in the works.
Anyway, if Jesse Eisenberg got in a fight with Michael Cera, who would win? My money’s on Eisenberg, America’s next “hoodie heartthrob” according to Gawker. Cera may be the undisputed king of hipster romcoms but Eisenberg has The Social Network, an upcoming dramedy about the founding of Facebook, on his résumé. Try outgeeking that.
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