The Quite Nerdy Blog

I think I've stated at least a couple of times on this blog that I think the Toy Story trilogy is one of the finest trilogies I have ever seen. It works perfectly as a three film arc and I have been very against the idea of any additions to that franchise. But money makes the world go round and Disney is Disney and here we are, 9 years after the last Toy Story, 24 years after the first Toy Story, with a fourth film. Like Incredibles 2 last year, this isn't actually set a relative amount of time after the third film but instead set what seems like only a summer later. Bonnie, the new kid, goes to Kindergarten for the first time and has made a new toy called Forky (oh sweet Forky). Forky believes he belongs in the trash and will do anything to get there, including jump out of a window on a road trip. This in turn leads Woody to jump out and try and find him, which leads to a reunion with Bo Peep, missing in action since the second film. The story focusses around the town Bonn...

Why I'm doing this review in the middle of June may seem like a bit of a mystery to you. We're four months gone since Valentine's Day, that's the only time to talk about love in cinema, right? Well, not for me. Not only are we in a week when I do not want to see the new Men in Black film, we're also at the time of year when the Before trilogy are set, as well as being a week since I re-watched those films. It's made me realise that while I have little interest in typically romantic genres like rom-coms, musicals or period dramas, romance on film can be one of my very favourite films. Quick rule check, I'm prioritising films where romance is the core push of the film, meaning that I have sadly cut films like La La Land and Vertigo. So as I sit here, depressingly alone as always, lit by the screen of my laptop, let's countdown the best films that depict romance, be it soaringly positive or crushingly negative. 7. If Beale Street Could Talk First o...

X-Men: Dark Phoenix is the newest (and probably last) X-Men film from Fox which, don't worry, is more to do with being bought by Disney than the fact that it's pretty bad. The plot is familiar to anyone unfortunate enough to have seen The Last Stand, as it's about Jean Grey becoming "The Phoenix" again. She gets some super duper powers from a solar flare (powers which, according to the last film, she's had all along but Fox don't want you to remember that) and becomes a powerful and maybe sinister force, eventually being manipulated by some evil alien lady. The rest of the X-Men don't like this because they are good guys and they want their hot redhead back because... I think just because they're the good guys and that's what they want, it isn't explained well at all. The entire story is very impressive, in that it is both utterly cookie cutter and still impossible to follow. You've seen it all before but there is an utter lack of m...

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the sequel to that Godzilla film from 2014, as well as a sequel to Kong: Skull Island I guess, although that link is only relevant in setting up the next film. Primarily, this is set five years after that initial attack, where Godzilla's fight ended up completely levelling San Francisco and obviously, a lot of people lost family, which is kinda making America twitchy about the big guy, even though he is clearly on our side, against monsters who are bigger and way more malevolent. The thing is, that's technically the main plot but there's also a lot of side stories about some fairly uninteresting human characters. I'll go more into that later but while it would be odd to make a monster movie about nothing about the monster, it feels foolish to spend way more time with humans (even if that worked out solidly for the 2014 Godzilla). As the plot goes on, everything starts to get a little silly, except in my least favourite way, where ev...

Pre-review plead, please go see Booksmart this week. I reviewed it a couple of weeks ago (review here  https://thequitenerdyblog.blogspot.com/2019/05/review-booksmart.html ) and it is just the most wonderful film. Funny, fresh feeling and very, very honest, it's far and away the best thing I've seen so far this year and being a tiny indie film, it needs its supporters. So please, don't go Aladdin or The Secret Life of Pets 2 (Rocketman is a fine alternative, as you will read) this week, go see Booksmart. Now onto the review. Rocketman is a weird synthesis between musical and biopic about the life of one of the biggest rockstars of all time, Elton John. It's the story of the highest of highs that he accomplished (financially, culturally and pharmaceutically) until about the eighties (my knowledge of John's career isn't amazing but that seems to be about right), where he is reflecting on his life through a group rehab session. What this framing device allows ...

John Wick Chapter Three is (surprisingly) the third film in the surprise franchise that is John Wick. Picking up from the events at the end of the second film, our man John Wick has an hour before a $14 million bounty is set on him and every hitman and assassin in the world comes after him. Clearly, this is a tantalising enough pitch, one that has had me salivating since that cliffhanger in 2017, but the film doesn't just leave it there. Once again, we get more insights into Wick's world, the people he has met along the way and the countries that also house underground assassin rings. It is all very silly and honestly, that probably makes the plot the worst thing going here. Don't get me wrong, the silliness feels fairly knowing, this is a step up from Detective Pikachu last week. It's just that the silliness is never fully cashed in on, refusing to either have some slightly more sensible plot points or to go properly mental with itself. Not a complete loss, it just...

Detective Pikachu is this year's most unbelievable blockbuster. It's based on the video game Detective Pikachu, which of itself was a spin-off from the video game series Pokemon (which was originally a card game). You've probably heard of it. Anyway, that takes us here, to this feature length movie. A kid (I think called Tim) has to go to Ryme City because his dad has gone missing. While looking through his dad's apartment, he meets a Pikachu wearing a little detective hat who can also talk to him. Together, they must go solve the mystery of Tim's dad and perhaps uncover some greater conspiracy about Pokemon or something. I'll level with you, the plot is easily the worst bit of this film. Don't get me wrong, I've spent the week revising hugely seminal noir films like Chinatown and Fargo and I was not expecting anything that level from a Detective Pikachu movie. But still, the twists and turns are ludicrously stupid. I wish I'd seen this film with...