The Quite Nerdy Blog

It's nearly August so we're currently in the midst of Summer and if you're a complete loser like me, you're probably looking for things to fill your time with. TV is what many turn to although even with that decided, there are problems. There's too much good TV and so while I haven't seen every single show that's out right now, I have some recommendations for you. Some are perennial favourites of mine, some have new seasons coming up or are related to new shows and some are just important water cooler shows that you need to remain in the loop with. Whichever they are, all of them are highly worth your time. 7. Hannibal One of the most popular shows of the year so far has been American Gods but not only is it likely that you've already seen that, I haven't seen it and can't recommend it yet. What I can do is recommend a show by American Gods show runner Bryan Fuller, that show being the devilishly wonderful Hannibal. Cancelled too soon, it

This franchise holds a special place in my heart. The first is a sci-fi classic with one of the greatest twists ever (it made my list on it), the middle ones have a lovable daftness to them and then the most recent trilogy are legitimately great action movies and a fantastic trilogy all around. Plus, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was the first film I ever reviewed on this blog. With that stuff out the way, let's get to the film where monkeys shoot humans but the monkey is played by a short British man in spandex It'll sound weird talking about an ape movie like this but War for the Planet of the Apes is truly epic and I mean that in the modern sense and the literary sense. The story is one that is simultaneously massive scale but also oddly personal for Caesar. This is the end of his trilogy and so even if the franchise carries on after this, his story will have a footnote for now. War takes place a few years after the last film and the apes are planning to move to a ne

The films finally ascend from the valley of shitness, up into the fresh air of being good quality films with a reboot that proves that reboots can be pretty good sometimes. For writing these reviews, I rewatched all the films in the franchise but because I've seen them before and was just rewatching them for reference, I'd usually just have them on in the background, writing one of the reviews for a previous film as I went. More than any other of the films, I couldn't take my eyes away from this film. In fact, I enjoyed this film much more than I did the first time I saw it. The plot is radically different to the others in that it starts with apes being tested on. A particularly smart ape is killed but leaves a child behind called Caesar who one of the scientists, played by James Franco, adopts. They soon realise that he's super smart but after an incident occurs, the two are separated and Caesar is put into captivity, from which Caesar must escape. The plot isn

The last ones weren't exactly masterpieces but this really is the bottom of the barrel here, the two worst films in this franchise that was spotty in quality to begin with. First, the movie ten years after the original that somehow manages to have worse effects and be far less enjoyable. Battle for the Planet of the Apes decides to set the events years after the last film and therefore taking away all momentum that it could have gained from that film. The plot is barely there but essentially, it's what the original film would be if humans could talk, mixed with the mutants from Beneath. I think the main ape is Caesar from the last film although so much seems to have happened since then (a bomb exploding in the nearby city, humans becoming second tier creatures) that it might not be. Anyway, he heads to a city to look for information about Zira and Cornelius because the other films have to be dragged through the dirt too. Oh yeah, that reminds me, it opens with five minutes

Hey look, it's the pretty decent middle film that everyone forgets about. It could be comparative or maybe it is actually good but it certainly feels better than the last ones. As was revealed at the end of the last movie, Milo (son of Zira and Cornelius) is very much alive but we've now jumped forward an unspecified amount of years into the future when all apes are now enslaved by humans and forced into doing menial tasks. Milo, under supervision by Ricardo Montalban, is kept away from this but slowly, his anger builds. The two become separated and Milo becomes a slave, auctioned off in a way very similar to that one scene from Get Out. Under slavery, he's trained in a weird scene that legit could have been directed by Kubrick and given the new name of Caesar. After Ricardo Montalban gets thrown out a window to his death, Caesar leads an ape revolution against the humans and it's surprisingly exciting. After Escape, the franchise manages to get back on its feet ha

How do you refresh a series that feels stale? According to Planet of the Apes, set it in the 70's on Earth. Yup. After blowing up the planet in the last film, the producers were obviously a little unsure where to go so they all took just a little bit of acid and came up with the solution of just sending them back in time to the seventies. It consists of this weird three act structure where the first act is essentially the first half of Planet of the Apes only reversed, the humans trying to get used to the apes. Following this, the second act is like The Man who Fell to Earth but with apes and I mean that fully as it is pretty surreal and their attempts at fitting in are just bizarre and a little uncomfortable. Then the final act is the real escape as Zira and Cornelius outrun the authorities who want to kill their unborn child as they have realised that the apes are from the future and the birth of a smart ape will signal the downfall of man. During this, they go visit a car

It could only go down after a groundbreaking classic but did it have to go this far down? From this film onwards, I'm going to talk about plot in full detail, including spoilers so if you really want to go away and see these films without knowing anything, go do that now. Now that the one person who felt that way is left, it's time to really breakdown this film. Essentially, it's such a direct followup from the first that it opens with five minutes of footage from the end of the first film except that Charlton Heston (Taylor) didn't want to return and so he disappears early in the film after falling into a rock and then appears later for a death match. Between that, a new astronaut called Brent crash lands on the planet, goes to the ape colony and essentially repeats the last act of the first film for a while. Eventually, Brent and Nova (silent woman from the last film) find their way underground to a colony of mutated humans who wear skin masks and worship a nuke.

War for the Planet of the Apes comes out this week (technically today in some places) and as I am famously the one fan of the franchise, I wanted to celebrate by reviewing all of the films from the franchise, from the original masterpiece to the new CGI showcases and everywhere in between. I won't be reviewing Dawn as I reviewed that in the early days of the blog but all others have their time. To start, let's look at the film that started it all, in spectacular fashion. For the first film, I'm not going to talk any big spoilers because if you somehow don't know what happens, I don't want to spoil this for you. The essential plot is that some astronauts end up on a planet in the distant future but because they crashed and broke their equipment, they don't know where and they barely know when. After exploring this planet, they realise that it is a Planet of Apes (what a twist) where apes are the superior species and the humans are stupid and treated as mere

Spider-Man Homecoming is the third SpiderMan reboot in ten years but it also manages to be one that is genuinely entertaining and doesn't depend on absurdly massive stakes in both the world and in supporting a cinematic universe. The general story is that after the events of Civil War, Peter Parker is waiting to get the next mission from Tony Stark, to essentially become an Avenger. While he's waiting, he stops petty crimes, crushes on girls and attempts to keep his identity a secret. Eventually, Peter discovers The Vulture, a villain who is pawning off Alien technology and using it to commit heists. The plot is largely basic but has a few nice twists throughout. Most important though was the low key nature of the plot. If Spider-Man didn't save the day, the world wouldn't end. He might fail his Academic Decathalon or not get the girl but there is no big world ending CGI mess to fight against. The cast in this film may be one of the single best ensembles for any

Edgar Wright, you son of a bitch. You magnificent son of a bitch. Baby Driver is the new film from the worlds coolest auteur Edgar Wright and it is a heist movie set to music. It's not quite a musical but lets just say it isn't a surprise that when running a strand at BFI Southbank to celebrate the film, it was called Car Car Land. The story of Baby Driver is one that (appropriately) spins all around the place, constantly turning and evolving and so it's hard to pitch the exact plot. Essentially, the key things you need to know are that Baby, our lead character, works for Doc, a mysterious figure who is always trying to operate heists. In these heists, Baby is always the driver but he wants to get out because he's fallen in love with a waitress named Debora. If you've seen the trailers then you'll have a good idea of where the film goes but I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't. Regardless, it was a story that brought an odd amount of emoti