The Quite Nerdy Blog

Next up in the series of Best Soundtrack lists is Video Games. It's slightly less universal sure but music is no less important here than in Movies or TV. In fact, I'd say this is probably the medium where music is most important. Hence, this list exists. So, lets do it! 7. Halo The term "space opera" has never been so fitting. The whole Halo franchise and the original in particular have some incredibly epic moments in them and every last one of them is accompanied by a gorgeous score. My personal picks here would be either the original opening theme or the theme from The Silent Cartographer. Epic moments heightened by epic music, even if recent games have slipped slightly. 6. Rayman Legends The musical levels. That's all I have to say to convince you of it's place on this list. For those who don't know, first, shame on you. But second, they're a series of levels at the end of each stage that are rhythm based and feature popular songs as t...

For a long time, I've been very against games like Skylanders. Any reasonable human can take one look at those and know they're a scam. I mean, locking content behind silly looking plastic figures? You are clearly trying to steal every penny of every parents' money. But with every imitator, it gets slightly more tempting. Amiibos look neat but they're expensive and I don't own a Wii U. Also, they are super rare and hard to get hold of. Not entirely worth it. Disney Infinity also gets more and more tempting. Version one had nice Disney film characters. Version two brought in Marvel and a load of Pixar films. I was damn near sold at this point but then Version three came out and I am a fistful of dollars away from buying it as we speak. It brings in Star Wars (squee!!!) and Inside Out (double squee!!!!!!) and makes the whole experience smoother. I was all but about to buy this game when I saw what will now be my game of the year in the year of Fallout 4 and Just Cause...

I get a lot of requests to talk more about music on the blog and while I want to give people what they want, I don't care enough about modern music to write about it other than to talk trash about it. Fortunately, I've found a middle ground in talking about soundtracks. Now, this is different to the best musical moments lists. They were about specific bits of films with great music. These lists however are about the film's music as a whole. And to keep things simple, when I say soundtrack, I'm referring to both licensed music and the film's score. Sound good? Then let's go! 7. Casino This spot was going to go to Goodfellas but after seeing the less than mediocre Casino, I knew it had to make this list because while the film is frankly a mess, it's a mess with a fantastic soundtrack. Scorcese is known for choosing sublime music for his films and Casino could well be his magnum opus in that respect. It's got such classics as Gimme Shelter, Without ...

This week we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of Super Mario Bros. Now, I didn't want to just review the game or simply another Mario game and I frankly didn't have the patience to watch the cartoon show. So instead, I'm reviewing the classic Super Mario Bros movie that many people refer to as one of the worse video game movies in a genre that's not exactly famous for it's quality. Abandon hope all ye who enter because this is gonna get messy. I'm going to try and explain the story but before I do, let me warn you: everything I'm about to describe is a genuine plot point in this movie. The Mario brothers (that's Mario Mario and Luigi Mario in case you were wondering) are plumbers living in modern day Brooklyn. One day, they meet an Architect named Daisy who was born out of an egg. She is kidnapped by two of the Koopa children who aren't dinosaurs, they're instead dressed like Sex Pistols rejects. Anyway, they follow Sid Aggres...

Believe it or not, the idea that I might have been wrong about Boyhood is one that has been playing on my mind ever since I saw it. The film was a critical darling and got nominated for pretty much every Oscar (although thankfully didn't win most of them aside from the worthy Patricia Arquette) but when I saw it, I just simply didn't get it. But the question that I'm going to (try to) answer here is basically who was right here: me, the local, unpaid ponce or a jury of old, white Americans. This'll be fun. So let's recap what I said first. When I reviewed Boyhood, I said "Unquestionably, Boyhood is a film for middle class, white Americans and this means it will clear up at the Oscars. Does it deserve all this praise? Not entirely. It's a decent film that everyone has elevated because of how it was filmed. It's not a must see film, in fact, it's just a decent film. Patricia Arquette will do well for her performance but other than that, Boyhood shou...