If there's a 'geekier' following than video games...well...it might be "Star Trek". But, for the most part, video games—before they became a business more profitable than Hollywood (surprising, but true)—were a niche market imed purely at the intellectual (and anti-social)….pursuing puzzles, managing mazes, and unraveling patterns to beat a computer simulation. Only when the element of storytelling became prevalent did video games evolve to reach a much wider audience.

Seth Gordon's The King of Kong is a love letter to those days of classic arcade games such as Pac-Man, Burger Time and, of course, Donkey Kong. It's the story of a middle-school science teacher, who's never really accomplished much in his life, attempting to beat the top score of the world-record holder—a famous (and quite brash) gamer who now runs a chain of restaurants. Early reviews are ecstatic and place the true brilliance of the film in its construction as a sort of classic Hollywood sports flick—Lovable-loser Underdog versus Rude and Crude Champion.

The trailer serves up some memorable bites and evokes a nostalgia for when video games were first on the scene...when times were 'innocent' and 'pure'. I can't wait to watch it.

John August is something of a film geek's inspiration. Although responsible for Charlie's Angels and Tim Burton's low points, he's also responsible for films like Go, a thoroughly fast-paced and entertaining film that, in my eyes, uses some of the devices of Pulp Fiction in a much more satisfying way.

The Nines is his latest, and it sounds as though August is out from behind the shadow of the Angels and Tim Burton and has made a film worthy of the talents he displayed in Go. August is a writer's writer; he's very into craft (even when he doesn't do it very well), and there's something endearing about someone who strives to write things in an interesting and diverse manner, while still walking the Hollywood tightrope. So many writers either give in entirely or hold out, and struggle to make it in the independent world. August seems to be one of the few who tries to have the best of both worlds.

Will it pay off with The Nines, a story about three men whose lives all intertwine (and all played by Ryan Reynolds...ditto three women, all played by Hope Davis)? Let's hope so, because if August is forced back into servitude for the next few years, it may be the last we see of his ability to bring ingenuity to a Hollywood script.

This film is unadulterated geek, for me. Justin Theroux has remained in my head since Mulholland Drive, when he played a glib and smarmy director bent on getting his way in the film he was shooting (the scene with the golf club is excellent).

So, how interesting to see him finally behind the camera, just as Lynch imagined him. An excellent cast in front of the lens, as well, and that includes Mandy Moore, who's starting to prove she could actually be quite the good actress if she keeps up with film choices such as this. The script is also receiving accolades, and this may just be a warm-up for Theroux, who's next taking a stab at writing a dark comedy to be directed by Ben Stiller: Tropic Thunder.

There's nothing like an actor's director, and when one finds his niche, it can pay off in spades. Here's hoping that's the case with Theroux.

Jason Bourne's following isn't quite as strong as that of James Bond, but it's getting there. The third in Ludlum's trilogy about the world's new favorite super-spy has already opened to very big numbers, and shows that more and more people are becoming interested in the darker side of international (or domestic, in this case) espionage.

With the straight-arrow shooting style of Paul Greengrass, the Bourne films have taken a new turn, and it seems to be paying off. I preferred Doug Liman's The Bourne Identity to Greengrass' The Bourne Supremacy; but, still, after mind-numbing blockbuster after mind-numbing blockbuster during the summer, this is surely a welcome change.

The real question is this: Ludlum left Bourne in the trilogy, while a new author, Eric Van Lustbader, has taken up the story to produce two more novels in the Bourne saga. Will there be more to come? If the box office receipts are any indication...

Clearly for us 'greens', The 11th Hour seems to be a companion piece to Al Gore's Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth. Whereas the prior is aimed at revealing and driving home the veracity of what we've done to our planet, DiCaprio's project seeks to provide solutions to the problems we've created.

Here's the issue: An Inconvenient Truth possessed an element of disaster, of fear and discovery, that led people to seek it out. To find out if things are actually as bad as we think. But The 11th Hour, while noble in its intent, will probably feel preachier—how to change your life, how to make an effort—and the 'inconvenient truth' of movie-goers is that few like being told to change. Paying to see what's happening around us is one thing; paying to be inculcated is another.

I hope I'm wrong. But even the presence of DiCaprio might not be enough to bring about real change through cinema.

I've never been taken with "Stella", "The State", or even "Mr. Show" (different groups and ideas, yes, I know). But the creative minds behind these odd and cultish sketch shows are proving to be quite the force in independent comedy, of late. They've yet to reach the levels of Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up), but with efforts such as The Ten, and stars like Paul Rudd and Jessica Alba, they might just get there yet.

What an amazing concept for a film: ten shorts based on the Ten Commandments, all done in the crazy, sketchy-style of David Wain and Ken Marino (one of my favorites from "Veronica Mars"—the oily foil to Keith Mars, Vinnie Van Lowe). It has some good moments in the trailer, but what ultimately convinced me to see it was the
sheer idiocy at the end of the trailer, as the names of all the actors are garbled unintelligibly...until "...and Jessica Alba".

If there are more moments like that, it'll be a joy to watch.

Speaking of Judd Apatow…he's not only directing anymore, if you hadn't heard. Superbad is the first of several offerings from Apatow Productions that we'll be seeing within the next year. (The Pineapple Express and Forgetting Sarah Marshall are others.)

I've placed this under guilty pleasure, not because it can't be a quality film, but because it looks like this is the type of film most enjoyed and endlessly quoted throughout your teenage years, and maybe on into college. But for us 'old fogeys' in our mid-20s, I see this as a brief yarn of yesteryear—a throwback to sex jokes, toilet humor, and the urge to grow up while staying young. If it proves to be a meritorious coming-of-age story that I didn't foresee, I'll be all the more impressed.

Why, oh why, has genre television and film become so disdained? It seems like horror and sci-fi have been thrown out by the big networks in favor of every crime show known to man. And worse is the tendency to substitute crime shows for 'horror' (see my choice for #1 culprit, 'Criminal Minds', a rancid, copycat piece of television that wants to be The Silence of the Lambs, week in and week out, and shoves all sorts of gruesome imagery in our faces, with none of the story or character or purpose of Demme's film).

"Battlestar Galactica" is our closest hope for genre success, but it will be ending this coming season (don't worry…you'll see it mentioned, here). "Buffy", "Angel", "Firefly" and all things Whedon have long been absent from the airwaves, and the new "Flash Gordon" series on Sci-Fi is supposed to be absolutely terrible.

So, along comes IDT, popular now for their successful "Masters of Horror" series for Showtime, bringing "Masters of Science Fiction" to the table for ABC. Instead of touting directors, as "Horror" does, it will tout stories from writers like Harlan Ellison and Robert Heinlein. And while ABC leapt at it, they then stuck it in the doldrums of summer television, where reality skeins and gameshows dominate and, worse yet, puts it on Saturday evenings at 10 p.m.!

The reviews are mixed, to be fair; but that's the brilliance of anthology series: you're only as good as your last episode. Quality changes from week-to-week, from writer-to-writer, from director-to-director. I'd be reveling in this series...if I didn't know that it was already doomed to end before it began.

The best we can do is to enjoy the four episodes we have and hope that, by some miracle, millions of others do the same. Maybe more shows like this—showcasing different talents and interpretations of genre—will make it to the small screen..