Odds and Ends

+ Score one for our boy, Neil Gaiman. His "Graveyard Book" won this year's prestigious Newbery Medal. You can watch him read the book here.

+ Speaking of books, Britian's Guardian newspaper has taken a stab at creating a science fiction literary canon, compiling their list of must-read sci-fi and fantasy novels. If you're headed for a desert island, it's probably a good idea to check this one out before departure.

+ The New York Times had an interesting article on the upcoming Guy Ritchie version of Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as Watson. Really, though, it's just an excuse for me to repost this picture:


+ I'm practically purring at this news -- Daniel Craig will be playing the villain in the new Tintin movie with "Billy Elliot's Jamie Bell as the title character. With Nick Frost and Simon Pegg already on board and a screenplay co-written by "Doctor Who"'s Steven Moffat and "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz" co-writer Edgar Wright, well, I pretty much can't wait.

+ Very sad news for avid X-Files fan. Longtime X-Files director Kim Manners passed away Sunday night after a battle with cancer. He directed 54 episodes of The X-Files including the classics "Home," "Humbug," "Leonard Betts" and the underappreciated classic "Monday." He also directed more episodes of the CW series, "Supernatural."

Simon Pegg: actor, author, Renaissance man

Awesome. Simon Pegg wrote a "Star Wars" fan fic. And I think I now love him just a little bit more. An excerpt, as Yoda, Obi Wan and Mon Mothma try to decide what to do with Anakin Skywalker's children after Episode 3:

KENOBI
He should be Luke Skywalker. Come on, it sounds cooler.

Mon Mothma
What is it with you and names?

KENOBI
I think it's important. Why do you think I changed my name to Obi Wan? Nobody's going to be frightened of a Jedi called Benjamin.

YODA
Fear leads to agression...

KENOBI
Yeah yeah. If I had a credit for every time you wheeled that one out.

YODA
Up shut!
........

Heh.

Slow down there, Mr. Zombie, you're going to hurt yourself

Bless his genre-loving heart, Simon Pegg is a bit sad these days about the new, swift-footed model of zombies that are all the rage. (No "28 Days Later" pun intended.) He wrote a wonderful lament on the subject for the UK's Guardian newspaper. He writes:

I know it is absurd to debate the rules of a reality that does not exist, but this genuinely irks me. You cannot kill a vampire with an MDF stake; werewolves can't fly; zombies do not run. It's a misconception, a bastardisation that diminishes a classic movie monster. The best phantasmagoria uses reality to render the inconceivable conceivable. The speedy zombie seems implausible to me, even within the fantastic realm it inhabits. A biological agent, I'll buy. Some sort of super-virus? Sure, why not. But death? Death is a disability, not a superpower. It's hard to run with a cold, let alone the most debilitating malady of them all.

I whole heartedly agree with Pegg on this matter. I don't like it when my mythical monsters evolve. It takes me out of the moment when I'm watching a film. Even something as ridiculous as the vampire movie the Cinematic Titanic crew riffed on at the live show a few weeks ago was getting to me when the vampire stood looking at himself in the mirror -- hello, vampires don't have reflections!

They may just seem like child's play, but the classic monsters -- wolfmen, vampires, zombies -- all represent metaphorical fears. Changing their dynamics moves them away from that metaphorical role they're meant to fill.

Plus, monsters exist in their own fictional world. Messing with that world and its attributes just throws everything off kilter, like if the U.S.S. Enterprise was suddenly fueled not by dilithium crystals but with kittens or if the Force turned out to be just another tai chi move. Fiction is a tricky, gossamer-like entity in the best of times. Disturbing that delicate balance just makes the job of both the creator and the audience even harder.

So, zombies, let's just slow down a little, okay? Let's go back to the good old days of shambling, one unsteady shoeless foot sliding in front of another. It's easy and it's fun!

News of the Day -- Wednesday, May 7

+ Great news for fans of former Nerd Man of the Month honorees Simon Pegg and Nick Frost -- their acclaimed British TV series, "Spaced," is finally coming to DVD in the U.S. on July 22. Woo and hoo! (Thanks to tgrfan 23 for the tip!)

+ A full slate of Marvel films has been announced, starting with the Iron Man sequel on April 30, 2010. Other flicks to come focus on Thor, Captain America and The Avengers (sadly, not the one with Emma Peel and John Steed).

+ As you've probably heard, Stephen Colbert has won the "Webby Person of the Year" award for his brilliant manipulation of the Internet to do everything from push a presidential bid to getting his fans to earn him the title "greatest living American" in Google searches. I love that man.

+ Wow, how cool is this? The good people at Legoland in Windsor, England have built a 100-foot-tall Lego tower in celebration of the building blocks' 50th anniversary. This new tower tops the previous record of 96 feet, built last year in Toronto.

Pegg or Azaria -- Is there even a question here?

"Run, Fat Boy, Run" is a new movie coming out this October with one of the most unusual and I guess intriguing production rosters I've read in ages: written by Michael Ian Black and Simon Pegg, starring Simon Pegg and Hank Azaria and directed by David Schwimmer. Check out the preview and let me know what you think. I can't decide if it'll be one of those sweet, small movies I'll enjoy or if it's going to be one of those sweet, small movies in which I end up being shockingly disappointed.

Nerd Men of the Month: Pegg and Frost

It's a two-fer this month in the Nerd Man category. In celebration of the release of Hot Fuzz on DVD this week, we're giving the vaunted nerd girl seal of approval to English-types Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. At first, I thought about just naming Simon but then that seemed akin to naming just Laurel and not Hardy, Rumsfeld not Wolfowitz, Mary-Kate and not Ashley. Because, simply put, Pegg and Frost are great individually but they're even better together.


So why all the fuss about these fellows? Well, there about a thousand reasons for the love and they all boil down to this: they're fucking hilarious. Shaun of the Dead, the world's first and best zombie romantic comedy, is a masterwork of gentle parody, flat-out absurdity, genuine gory frights and -- strangely enough -- a true, heartfelt examination of what it means to be a hero to the people you love. Pegg co-wrote Shaun and also plays the lead with a gentle but determined average-guy demeanor. Sure, he's upset that zombies have risen from the dead and are eating people, but he's more upset that his girlfriend's left him and his stepfather's a control freak. Frost plays Pegg's irresponsible best friend whose idea of the perfect day is one spent in the local pub playing video games and doing impressions of the orangutan in Every Which Way But Loose. They're a perfect comic team: Pegg all squirrelly and nervous, Frost all laid back and "chill, dude."

The duo, along with Pegg's writing partner Edgar Wright, proved that Shaun wasn't just a fluke with Hot Fuzz. The film parodies all those Lethal Weapon/Hard Boiled/Bad Boys-style action flicks except they make it, you know, intentionally funny. Here's the preview so you can reminisce over its awesomeness or get your first taste:



Ahhh, that movie makes me very, very happy. As do Pegg and Frost. Plus, seriously, they're action figures. That's a thousand extra nerd points right there.


I've still got to check out the TV series they did together called Spaced, but for now Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz have given me all the zombie-loving, comedy-loving, goofball-loving ammunition necessary to decree this duo Nerd Men of the Month for August.