Nerd high culture - a list by ScienceWannabe

Options for This Page

About this list:

Arts and letters for those who accept the nerd moniker but hunger for a culture beyond Monty Python and Douglas Adams.

For people who like:

This is:

Viewing 1-2 of 2 Items

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth

First to recommend

Description

Yes, OK, I've read a graphic novel or two. They're literature, some say. Be that as it may, this book moves far beyond "graphic novel" territory in both its storytelling and its aesthetics. Chris Ware's masterpiece jumps, seemingly randomly, across three generations of damaged and pathetic men -- a petit epic that unfolds figuratively and literally through a myriad of odd and creative narrative devices. There are even fold-out craft projects embedded in it here and there, intricate dioramas that form a part of the story along with all of the lovingly detailed illustrations and dense marginalia.

Updated Nov 18, 2006

For people who like:

Comment

This is:

Primer (2003)

7 people recommended this item

Description

You've never heard of this movie, but please hear it now.

Primer won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and has drawn repeat viewers eager to crack writer-director-star Shane Carruth's puzzler of a time-travel drama. Carruth, an engineer by training, plays inventor Aaron, whose entrepreneurial partnership with fellow brainiac Abe (David Sullivan) unexpectedly results in a process for traveling back several hours in time. The men initially use these rewind sessions to succeed in the stock market. But a dark consequence of their daily journeys eventually complicates matters. If this sounds like a very commercial, science fiction thriller, Primer is anything but that. Shot on 16mm for $7,000, the film has a tantalizing, sealed-in logic, akin to Memento, that forces viewers to see the fantastic with a certain dispassion. One may be tempted to sit through Primer again to more fully understand its paradoxes and ethical quandaries.

You have to want to understand this movie. Watch it once, and you'll never get it. Watch it twice, and you'll like it even more, but won't understand it. Watch it three times, once with the commentary on and then read about it for 6 hours on the internet and you'll begin to understand. It takes dedication, but its worth it.

Updated Nov 11, 2006

List that features this:

For people who like:

Comment

This is:

Viewing 1-2 of 2 Items

ThisNext: Become a Member

  • Shopping ideas just for you
  • It's easy and free
  • Takes less than a minute

Sign up now

Lists

Image of ScienceWannabe

Couch potato scientist

Updated Nov 21, 2006

Gear for tyros like myself who love science and engineering but who never mustered the stamina to get out and earn that degree.

ThisNext Information

Copyright ©2005-2009 ThisNext, Inc.