PosMeter: Geeks, Nannies and “Dumbledore” cinema

1. McLovin: Superbad’s side story involving supergeek Fogell (played by newcomer Christopher Mintz-Plasse) got me reminiscing about how this particular character—the geek who is so fully self-assured in his geekiness that he’s actually (to some degree) cooler than the marginally geeky leads—shows up regularly in film. From Jerry Lewis in anything to Charles Martin Smith in American Graffiti to Napoleon Dynamite, geeks (or nerds) are part of movie history.

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PosMeter: Can this actor be saved, “Bestest," and Nothingness…

1. Oscar Drop: When it comes to the post-Oscar decline, it’s hard to come up with a past winner who has had a more dramatic plunge than the likable Cuba Gooding Jr. It’s one thing to be in sub-par films, but Daddy Day Camp looks “direct-to-video” bad. To be fair, I haven’t seen the film, but a Rotten Tomatoes score of 2 percent doesn’t make me want to run out to the theater. It’s depressing when one considers the potential Gooding once had in films like Boyz N the Hood. The bright spot on the horizon is American Gangster, in which he plays heroin pimp Nicky Barnes (who has his own doc coming out, as per Rollerboy’s earlier post) opposite leads Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe.

It sounds like a huge improvement over the roles Gooding has been getting since he peaked in 1996 with Jerry Maguire. Despite the dismal depths he’s sunk to, I think he’s always had talent and presence. Here’s hoping this is a real return to form and not just a caricature.

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