EXTERNAL LINK: A weekly roundup of Arizona geek culture happenings by Best of East Valley 2011 blogger Jonathan Simon.

After “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction,” Quentin Tarantino quickly became the coolest director working in Hollywood. Achieving such early acclaim in his feature film career, Tarantino easily could have come and gone like any other trendy flavor of the month director.

As a Valley native, I remember growing up and wishing for the cooler temperatures that come with changing fall leaves. You know, the kind of weather where you need to drink hot chocolate to stay warm!

It's amazing that young people can even get auto insurance in the cinematic world of teen comedies. From "Sixteen Candles" to "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," the mortality rate of a parent or sibling's prized car has to be about 85 percent.

Director Jon Kasdan comes from a family of filmmakers. His father served as screenwriter for classic motion pictures such as “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. His brother has directed star-studded, raunchy comedies like “Bad Teacher” and “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”.

Cheeky and snarky but with an infectious energy, “Pitch Perfect,” a comedy set in the cutthroat world of competing college a cappella groups, makes us fall in love with the very thing it’s making fun of. It’s ridiculous and predictable but also just a ton of fun, so you may as well give up and give in to your inner musical theater geek.

Cheeky and snarky but with an infectious energy, "Pitch Perfect," a comedy set in the cutthroat world of competing college a cappella groups, makes us fall in love with the very thing it's making fun of. It's ridiculous and predictable but also just a ton of fun, so you may as well give up and give in to your inner musical theater geek.

Let’s face it— some of us are just classical music geeks at heart. We can rock out to Three Doors Down and have our fair share of Carrie Underwood faves, but when we’re alone in the car, in need of some down time, we tune in to classical music.

The B-list rules Hollywood’s fall and holiday movie season: Bond, Bella and Bilbo.

Mike Smothers of PC Made EZ’s article “Cloud backups are the way to go in saving important data” (AFN, Aug. 8) begged for my opposing view, that of a somewhat traditionalist tech gal, who just read a compelling article, “How Apple and Amazon security flaws Led to epic hacking” in Wired Magazine, http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/all/.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — When most singers make the leap from recording artist to movie star, it's usually a well-calculated career maneuver that requires show-business acumen from an army of agents, acting coaches, managers and publicists. However, for bubbly sixth season "American Idol" champion Jordin Sparks, the jump from stage to screen just, well, kinda happened.

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Known to the Twitterverse and the president of the United States as "Mohawk Guy" of the Mars mission, Bobak Ferdowsi could be the changing public face of NASA and all of geekdom.

They may be geeks. They may be non-conformists. They’re definitely champions for practically anything alternative.

On Friday, five live bands and more than 70 booths will line Main Street in Mesa to celebrate the best of sci-fi geekdom. There will be costume contests, panel discussions, concept art and comic drawing workshops, strategy gaming contests, science and technology demonstrations by HeatSync Labs, a screening of “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension” and a ticket giveaway for William Shatner’s upcoming appearance at the Mesa Arts Center.

EVT on your TV? Could be, thanks to a new partnership between the East Valley Tribune and Valley television media stalwart ABC15.

Victory and violence marked the weekend as athletes continued to claim Olympic gold medals in London, while back in the United States, six people were gunned down at a Sikh temple before the gunman was shot and killed by police.

If the saying is right, it’s certainly not the geeks who shall inherit the Earth.

Just as the Summer Olympics are poised to begin in London, we receive disturbing news about the health of American youth.

Full Comic-Con coverage, presented by Nerdvana (the East Valley Tribune's pop-culture/sci-fi/technology/all-things-geek blog)

For football fans there is no bigger ticket than the Super Bowl, and for baseball fans the biggest annual attraction is the World Series. But for pop-culture enthusiasts the holiest of holy events is the San Diego Comic-Con.

Looking for something new to throw on the grill this Fourth of July? How about a sizzling Denver cut or a couple juicy slices of teres major?