By Susan Thea Posnock
1. McLovin: Superbad’s side story involving supergeek Fogell (played by newcomer Christopher Mintz-Plasse) got me reminiscing about how this particular character—the geek who is so fully self-assured in his geekiness that he’s actually (to some degree) cooler than the marginally geeky leads—shows up regularly in film. From Jerry Lewis in anything to Charles Martin Smith in American Graffiti to Napoleon Dynamite, geeks (or nerds) are part of movie history.
Some of my favorite forerunners to McLovin (a name that’s so perfect I wish the trailer hadn’t spoiled it beforehand) include Anthony Michael Hall’s three-peat geeks in Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science, Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore, and even Jake Gyllenhaal’s oddball Donnie Darko. Who are some of your favorite movie-character geeks?
2. Who’s your nanny? The Nanny Diaries opened this past weekend with queen of blasé Scarlett Johansson chasing spoiled tykes and dealing with Upper East Side bitchery. I missed it. I’m waiting for another nanny movie, Shoot ‘Em Up, to debut. Personally, I’d much rather watch star Clive Owen display impressive child-rearing/gun-toting skills whilst seducing the tot’s mom, played by Monica Belluci: “I’m a British nanny and I’m dangerous,” he warns. One can only hope so.
3. Mumblecore versus Dumbledore: DIY cinema may be all the rage, but if you type “mumblecore” into a Google search it asks “Did you mean Dumbledore?” Let the countdown to the new “Dumbledore” cinema begin. I’ve always felt the more they deviate from the books, the better the Harry Potter films are. Now some hot shot 20-something filmmaker can throw out the entire story and shift the action to New York City, where Harry’s got a dead-end job, commitment issues, and a crowded subway commute from Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Dumbledore would be the old homeless guy on the L train, spewing snippets of wisdom (when he’s not passed out). The new title: Harry Potter and the Half Hour Commute.
*Originally posted on Awards Daily
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