The Quite Nerdy Blog

Happy Halloween! Continuing my tradition of reviewing terrifyingly bad movies, I am reviewing what I genuinely consider to be the worst movie ever made: Tommy Wiseau's disaster-piece, The Room. First off, yes, that's genuinely the poster. It's the face of writer, director, producer and star Tommy Wiseau doing the scariest duck face you'll ever see. He's a totally crazy mad man and to find out more, I really do recommend reading the book The Disaster Artist. It's a hilarious and surprisingly emotional book that looks into co-star Greg Sestero's meeting of Tommy and also the making of The Room. It's fascinating and has made me see the film in a totally different way. But even with that, it's absolutely the worst film I've ever seen. The plot revolves around... The plot. Damn. Err, I'm pretty sure there's something here. Umm... I'll google it. Right, apparently it's about a dude named Johnny who has a fiance named Lisa. Th

A simple question puzzles us this week. What is better, Style or Substance? It's a vaugely worded question but an important one in every single part of media. I want to take a look at it in it's various forms (video games, TV and movies) and then see if there is one that is more important than the other. Nothing complex, just talking about stuff looking cool or stuff being made cool. I've started with video games because it's probably the easiest of the lot. Style is hugely important in games. I recently played a few snippets of two indie games called The Unfinished Swan and Flower. Both are simple, minimalisitic games with two key things in common: 1. They look gorgeous and 2. There isn't much traditional content. Now, don't get me wrong, of what I played, both games were phenomenal. They play amazingly and drew me into their delightful worlds with their stylistic choices. However, I can't see myself going for a second playthrough once I beat them. They&#

Finally, it comes to TV to be praised for soundtracks. Because of the amount of episodes they get, there are so many chances for these shows to blow us away with the selection of music. These shows took that opportunity and ran with it in a way that makes me happy to be a human. 7. It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia Always Sunny may not be the first show you think of when it comes to music but it's certainly worth mentioning. First off, it's royalty free opening is always amusing and often comes with a strong punchline. But it also has great use of licensed music. For example, in The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Award, they visit another bar. There, three different trendy songs are played. But later, when the gang have blatantly copied this bar, they also play those same three songs. Even more amusing, they play the exact same clips to emphasise how hopeless their copying is. It's a hilarious yet subtle moment that I can't help but laugh at every time and

Topical reviews are back and now they have a slightly more pretentious edge thanks to my training in Film Studies. Except I'll just end up talking about the film looking pretty instead of it's "cinematography" or "mise en scene". Regardless, enjoy! The Martian is based on the (fantastic) book of the same name by Andy Weir and focuses on Matt Damon who has been left for dead by his crew after an accident and has to survive on Mars for four years until help is sent to him. The film does rely quite a bit on the plot and how it develops so I won't say anymore but it's an ever developing story with the desire to survive always at the forefront. Unfortunately, having read the book, I knew many of the events that were to come and that's probably my biggest complaint about the film. I know that saying that I knew the plot isn't really a flaw on the film but I feel like it will damage repeat viewings slightly due to how heavily it leans on the