The Quite Nerdy Blog

Yeah, I know, I'm shocked as well. The guy who hates horror has gone out and reviewed not just one but two horror movies in one week. Obviously, I did it because this is the spookiest time of year; the month before Halloween. Spoopy stuff. IT is the horror movie of the moment (still) which you have probably already seen but I had other priorities so I'm only just getting around to reviewing it. The story is based on half of a Stephen King book about a small town in America called Derry (it's Stephen King so yeah, Maine) which is being haunted by a demonic figure who appears only to kids and mostly as a demonic clown. After the disappearance of one kid's brother (spoiler alert, the clown bit his arm off and it was sick), he decides to search for his brother and maybe get to the bottom of what is causing the string of disappearances with his friends, hanging out and riding bikes all Summer. I haven't read IT and so while I know about some missing plot points (chi...

Wind River is directed and written by Taylor Sheridan, writer of Sicario and my favourite movie of last year, Hell or High Water and you can certainly feel the connective tissue between those movies. It takes place in an isolated Native American reservation in Utah where a girl has just been found dead in the cold. Jeremy Renner, a hunter, finds this body and is brought onto the case to help the FBI agent, played by Elizabeth Olson, as she tries to get to the bottom of what happened. I don't want to say too much about the plot as with Sheridan's other movies, the joy is in watching the subtleties play out. Needless to say though, there's some twists in there and a couple of things that merge into something else right in front of our eyes. The plot, miserable as it was, was a joy to watch unfold as Sheridan is clearly a master of his craft. After this film, I can only hope that he wins the best Screenplay award at the Oscars this year because he deserves it yet again. ...

Last week, my beloved TV show Twin Peaks ended for the second time, leaving in its wake an emotional mess (me) and another finale that caused viewers to tear their hair out and shout loudly at their screens, begging for something to be explained, anything! But the show wasn't just the last half hour, it was the other 17 and a half hours leading up to it and even if the finale infuriated some, now is the time to look back at the show David Lynch gifted us and ask something important: was it actually any good? I'm going to look at it through three lenses, which not only allow me to flesh out this post but also examine Twin Peaks as a cultural touchstone. Firstly, I want to look at it's success as a TV show, then how it stacks up as a David Lynch project before the most important aspect, whether it was good at being Twin Peaks. I won't be explicitly spoiling much but if you plan on watching Twin Peaks, I'd recommend reading this afterwards. The surprises are half th...

Patti Cake$ was one of the breakout hits from the Sundance Film Festival and it can be a pretty hard pitch. When I first saw this film, it was at the London version of Sundance where it was the surprise film. Honestly, I'd heard about the film and the pitch of a film about an obese white woman becoming a rapper sounded like a nightmare to me. Still, I paid good money for that ticket and I was going to sit through it, like it or not. As it turns out, I loved the film and was very pleasently surprised. The plot follows Patricia Dumbrowski, an obese woman in her twenties living in New Jersey who has a dream of becoming a rapper. She spends her days dreaming about her potential life as a rapper, coming up with songs and lyrics for all her songs. Together with her friend Jheri, they try and follow her dream, a dream of musical success that Patti's mother Barb once dreamed of and still mourns today. If you've ever watched an independent comedy before, the story is going to co...