The Quite Nerdy Blog

Detroit is the new film from Kathryn Bigelow, once the director of light hearted action movies like Point Break and Near Dark, now more known for her works grounded in miserable reality like The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. Detroit falls firmly into the latter category, being the dramatisation of the real life Detroit riots that occurred fifty years ago. That's what the action takes place around at least, as the bulk of the film is set in the Algiers Motel with the rest of the riots bookending the film. A gunshot is heard from the motel where lots of black men are staying (and also two white women from out of town) and a group of policemen go in to investigate, one of whom has a heavy racial prejudice. Things eventually spiral out of control and while the actual events that happened aren't fully known, Bigelow gives us a compelling narrative that regardless ends up at the same place the real events do. An easy story it isn't but it was never meant to be. Performa...

A Ghost Story is a film you haven't heard of but it's one that I think deserves to be discussed simply because what it does is interesting. The film may not always be entertaining but what it addresses and how deserves to be discussed. The story is part simple, part vague and therefore not easy to explain. What I can say for sure is that it is the story of a couple (played by Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck) who live together happily. One day, Affleck's character dies but then he comes back as a ghost. The catch is, he's not transparent, he's not invisible, he's not anything like that. Instead, he is a man in a sheet. In this state, he wanders, watching Rooney Mara cope with his death and then much more besides that. He stays in the same place but transcends time, learning about the land he once lived. The story is bare bones as you can probably tell and its basically just a vehicle for themes and such. It's also hard to talk about acting in this film as...

I like movies, you may have noticed that. Therefore, around my birthday every other year, I give myself the treat of talking about all my favourite films and ranking them. The one rule is that they can't have come out in the last 12 months as I want to give them time to settle in my mind properly. With that said, it's time for an extensive list of honourable mentions (not in any particular order) before getting to the core of the list. The Truman Show I'll say it again later but Jim Carrey is a highly underrated dramatic actor and this film was the first true demonstration of that. The film is very funny and very smart but it also cuts deep emotionally, building to a triumphant climax. American Beauty It's hard to be mad when there's so much beauty in the world and much of that beauty comes from this film. It's probably Kevin Spacey's best work and after watching it, American Beauty always leaves me with a refreshed outlook on the world, appr...

Do you hate? You will. I've seen some bad movies in my time, I really have. I've seen movies so bad they're good like The Room, movies so bad they're really bad like Gigli and movies that are so soulless and empty that they barely count as films like Pan, the worst film I've ever seen. Sorry, second worst now. The Emoji Movie fits into the last category. It has not a single original thought in its disgusting 90 minute shell. The plot is that an emoji is too emotional so has to hack himself meh by adventuring through every app that paid enough to be featured. That's it. If the plot sounds familiar, that's because it's almost exactly the same film as Inside Out, a brave move considering it is one of my all time favourite films. Two plots run in tandem, one in the real world, one in a world the child isn't aware of. Emotion is at the core, it's a journey and there's even a moment where the characters have to escape a pit of certain annihila...

Dunkirk is the tenth film from Christopher Nolan and despite being the shortest of his films in quite a long time, it is just as epic as any of his other work. For once, it's a story steeped in history, specifically the evacuation of British troops from the beaches of Dunkirk during the second world war. Nolan comes at this story from three intersected stories. The first is of the troops on the ground, trying to make their way to a ship that won't sink and across the English Channel, taking place over a week. The second is of civilians from England who sail over to Dunkirk to try and pick up troops who haven't been able to make it to any of the big destroyers, taking place over a day. The final one is of Spitfire pilots, taking out the dive bombers who are trying to halt the evacuations, taking place over an hour. As I said, the stories interconnect and it makes for a pretty exciting time, watching events that don't necessarily take place at the same time slowly wea...