The Great Geek Manual

Film

• Review: Wired is already raving about the sci-fi thriller Moon, saying that “With no giant explosions, no monstrous aliens and no shortage of nods to cerebral sci-fi classics, Moon delivers a stirring, character-driven story about a profoundly isolated blue-collar guy in a bad situation. Rockwell’s intensely introspective performance imbues this somber little movie with sci-fi beauty that’s more than skin deep.”
• The 50 Best Movie Remakes, as chosen by the Only Good Movies Blog.
• Geeks of Doom picks out the The Top 10 Bruce Campbell Performances of all time!
• I’m in complete agreement with Film Roster’s 6 Reasons More Horror Movies Should Be Like “Drag me to Hell”.
• A photo of Mickey Rourke in costume as Whiplash for Iron Man 2 has hit the web.
• SciFi Wire explains Why Mark Millar is so involved in the movie of his Kick-Ass comic, which is probably going to be one of the most exciting comic films ever released, in my opinion. It’s not even in theaters yet, and already, there’s a sequel in the works.
• Will Ridley Scott Direct the “Alien” Prequel? Fans demand it, but the studio seems uncertain.

Internet

• Absolutely awesome: GeekDad runs down the Top 10 Ways to Provoke a Geek Argument.
• Over at io9, A Harvard Psychiatrist Explains Zombie Neurobiology.
• Slate asks How Many Balloons Would It Take To Lift a House? The short answer is: a LOT more than they drew. In the film, the animators used 20,622 balloons for the liftoff sequence, but most of the other floating scenes have just 10,297. In the real world, it would have taken somewhere between 100,000 and 23.5 million balloons, depending on the weight of the house and the size of the balloons.

Literature

• Free Fiction: Read “But a Moment Ago” by Andrew S Fuller at A Fly in Amber.
• Free Fiction: Read “If It Ain’t Broke…” by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff from Analog magazine at Book View Cafe.
• Free Fiction: Read “Only the Dogs Bark” Dawn Lloyd at The Future Fire.
• Interview: Orbit interviews Kevin J. Anderson about his latest book, The Edge of the World.
• PopCrunch is calling these The 10 Most Disturbing Books Of All Time. I wonder if the person who compiled the list read all of them or just saw the movie versions.

Television

• According to the Canadian Press, ‘Lost’ will be last epic TV series for awhile.

Video Games

• Gamasutra looks at the profits behind free games when it asks What Are The Rewards Of ‘Free-To-Play’ MMOs? Turns out that some games, like Puzzle Pirates do quite a brisk bit of business.
• Homelessness has come to The Sims. Alice and Kev are a father and daughter just trying to survive in the virtual world without two Simoleons to rub together.