Added: 902 days ago by Kevin Holmes | Posted in: Nerdcore | 7 Comments

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<div align='center'><a href='http://www.kontraband.com/blog/19146/Nurd-is-the-Word-Great-Movies-Starring-Geeks/'>Nurd is the Word: Great Movies Starring Geeks</a><br><div align='center'></div><br><a href='http://www.kontraband.com/blog'>See more like this on kontraband.com</a></div>

Let's hear it for the freaking freaks. Woohoo! Nerds, typically bespectacled, awkward, socially demented, fiercely pedantic, intense, jittery but loveable. And for some time in movies the epitome of out-there cool. So here's a celebration of some movies that celebrated being the geek, or at least featured the geek getting the girl, the movie equivalent of landing on the moon. Get the girl, kill the bad guy, save the entire human race.

Weird Science
One of my favourite movies of all time, it taught me all I needed to know about women, science and comedy. I defy anyone to not fall in love with it. So many great, great scenes and moments. The bar scene, "Gimme de keys!", the toilet scene at the party, the evil mutants, Chet "Do you realize it's snowing in my room goddammit!" Donnelly - the greatest asshole older brother ever put on celluloid - and loads, loads more. It never disappoints, from the opening scene where their shorts get pulled down while they're spying on the girls' gym class to the winning ending. Truly as good as it gets.

Rushmore
Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman with Wes Anderson directing. You cannot go wrong. People talk about The Royal Tenenbaums, which is a fantastic movie, but this is equally great. As always with Anderson the soundtrack is a joy, and the off-beat story involving nerdling Max fighting for the attention of his teacher with a childish Murray is troubling, hilarious and oddly-touching. Sing with me, "Poor old granddad, I laughed at all his words..."

War Games
Back when the year 2000 was a distant dream of hoverboards, TV glasses, flying cars and Nikes that do up by themselves Matthew Boderick was King Nerd. Unwittingly hacking into military supercomputers and inadvertently nearly causing World War III, and the end of our world as we know it. Not bad for a kid. Beat that Gary McKinnon.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off
"I did not achieve this position in life by having some snot-nosed punk leave my cheese out in the wind." Ed Rooney, what a guy. And as for Ferris, he's a nerd, he hacks into the school, sets up that doorbell. But he's also cooler than a cucumber in a Fonzie leather jacket. Eyyy! "How can I possibly be expected to face school on a day like this?" You shouldn't be Ferris, so get some chums together, hit the city and stitch up old Ed Rooney while you're at it. If the word fun was a movie it would be this movie.

Ghost World
Girl nerds are sexy as hell, and these two outcasts are what every hipster wannabe nerdette aspires to be - cynical, sarcastic, artistic and witty. Prisoners in a world that doesn't understand them. Thora Birch manages to be convincing while avoiding overt sentimentality and managing to look killer hot in a Batwoman mask. Based on the Daniel Clowes comic and directed by Terry Zwigoff who made the excellent documentary Crumb, about underground artist Robert Crumb, it couldn't fail to be brilliant really. Let's hear it for the girls!

Revenge of the Nerds
A classic tale of nerds vs. jocks. A fantastic movie with some classic moments; the belching contest, the panty raid, smoking joints, and a foreunner for things like Freak and Geeks. It gave a filmic finger to do bullish jocks. Boo. Boo to them. A rousing movie that the end of Napoleon Dynamite echoes with the geeks getting the girl, with all the misplaced people standing to be counted. Basically, it's everyone of us.

Napoleon Dynamite
Possibly the greatest nerd of all. A liger drawing, bow staff and nunchuck-wielding, wolverine-hunting, afro haired King of the Dorks! Gahd, that's pretty much the best shading he's ever done! I remember first seeing this movie at the cinema and being completely discombobulated by its strange quotable genius. I immediately had to tell everyone I knew to go see it, or risk death by ninja skills. The year the cinematic nerd reached a new level of awesome.

Pee-wee's Big Adventure
Paul Ruben plays the nerd as man-child, a pale-faced goon with a voice like Woody Woodpecker after swallowing a fog horn while someone has his ballbag in a chinlock. A true godless freak. The sort of man who would turn up a cosplay convention and inspire fear and unholy dread even in those guy's dressed up as Pichu waiting for the hentai pr0n featuring demon's testicles covered in fur and tentacled microbes wearing school girl's panties. This is maverick filmmaking and a surreal, achingly unhip film for a feature debut. Which obviously made it hip, and now a cult classic. Rightfully so. Here's the brilliant tequila scene. "I say we hang him...THEN WE KILL HIM!"

Clerks
A movie made by, for, and about movie nerds. Discussions of contractors on the Death Star, your grandma's plates, BJs, whatever the hell they wanted. And it brought into existence Jay and Silent Bob, weed dealing snoochie f#cking boochie badboys. My love for you is like a berserker! It's a piece of lo-fi generation X genius that is quite possibly the greatest independent movie ever made. You can quote me on that.

Ghost Busters
Ghostbusters! Ghostbusters! Ghostbusters! The theme tune is a staple at many a family wedding and is inseparable from the movie. What the film succeeded in doing was to mix the spectacle of quirky central characters - the professors that make up the original triumvirate of ghost busting brains - with humour and an engaging, left-field plot. The cast is excellent from Bill Murray's sardonic Dr. Venkman to Harold Ramis' obsessive, nerdy Egon. These likable mavericks always have a place in the audience's heart from the film's opening in the library to their heroic battle with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man where their only chance for survival is to 'cross the beams'. Aim for that f#cking flat-top.

Real Genius
Back when Val Kilmer used to be cooler than Ferris Bueller wearing a Fonzie leather and an ice-cube on his head. This is a great satirical comedy and another 80s classic. It's about a nerd and his cool roommate. And features a plot line involving high-powered lasers. That's right, lasers. The 80s was obsessed with them. Lasers were going to change the world, goddammit. They were a staple of the future like eternal night and sentient robots. Back then we believed that lasers would be our overloads and we'd have a laser-king who'd rule the universe, we thought that lasers were going to solve world hunger, eradicate war and fly us to Mars. What happened.

Spellbound
This is a great documentary following the trials and tribulations of eight kids at a Spelling Bee. And they certainly are adorable. They're so cute and ever so slightly mental you can't help but cheer them on and will everyone of them to be the winner. Which of course can't happen. A documentary as endearing as a puppy, kitten and baby monkey all cuddling each other to sleep. Bless.

Superbad
A classic set-up, long-time friends in their senior year of high school about to leave for different colleges and go their separate ways. **sniff* Cue fake ID, a classic comedy duo in Hill and Cera and some fun times. So many things I've learned from this movie, like fat people are funny. And how Judd Apatow movies have got progressively worse. Once you start riding that gravy train you just have to keep filling it up with more water and although it might lose some of the flavour, you'll be able to ride it forever. But it'll taste like sh#t.

Added: 902 days ago by Kevin Holmes | Posted in: Nerdcore | 7 Comments

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