The Quite Nerdy Blog

26 years ago, there was an anime called Neon Genesis Evangelion . It was a hugely successful show across the world, about giant robots fighting aliens and the psychological turmoil that said battles can inflict on their pilots. However, its bold ending proved controversial and led to a second attempt to end the show, this time as a feature film called The End of Evangelion . It too is an incredibly bold statement that, while more universally appreciated, still has its detractors. That response led creator and writer Hideaki Anno to try once again to tell his story through a "rebuild" series of films, which retell the story of Evangelion across four lusciously animated films, the final one of which was released worldwide last month. Most shows are happy to end once. Some shows get a second attempt. It is almost unheard of for a creator to get three attempts to end their story. But Evangelion isn't like most stories. If you're also a fan, you already know all this thoug...

You may remember, five long years ago, a film came out called Suicide Squad . It was a complete mess of a movie that was cobbled together from multiple cuts, hated by many ( myself included ) and still somehow made almost $750 million worldwide. It was a weirdly large cultural moment, everyone was dressing up as Harley Quinn that Halloween and mocking Jared Leto's Joker. A lot has happened in the past five years, including a Harley Quinn spin-off and James Gunn being fired and rehired over at Marvel, both of which helped get us here, to The Suicide Squad . It's a sort of sequel to Suicide Squad , as well as a sort of sister piece to writer and director Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy films, but it's not nearly as complicated as it all sounds. It's not exactly an intricately woven story, but it feels somewhat refreshing when compared to other recent superhero films. The basis of the story is, similar to the first film, that a gang of misfit criminals are offered the c...

Black Widow is the hotly awaited solo film of Black Widow, a character who has been dead for over two years now. I bring this up at the start because it helps foreground the weird place the MCU finds itself in currently. After the pandemic shuttered most cinemas and film sets for the majority of 2020, studios have been working with a mix of productions finished during COVID (more on them in a bit) and productions that have been sitting on a shelf gathering dust. Black Widow is the latter, originally supposed to be released in the spring of 2020, now here in the summer of 2021. It feels exactly like it's been on a shelf somewhere, and that colours so many of my thoughts towards it. This feels like the exact wrong time for a movie about Black Widow, a step back while the TV branch of the MCU is attempting (again, more on that later) to push this universe forward. Paramount among the reasons this feels like a film that was meant to come out years ago is that it's set in between Ca...

This week marks the release of F9 , the ninth film in the Fast and Furious  franchise. This week also marks the week where I get back the final results to my English and Film Studies degree. Quite frankly, what better way is there to mark both momentous occasions than to celebrate the improbable miracle that is the Fast and Furious  franchise. It's come a long way, sometimes a quarter mile at a time, sometimes a nuclear submarine at a time, but it has remained a series of total fascination to me. So using my knowledge and smarts, I want to analyse why Fast and Furious  is so good, even to someone who has spent four years being told the good films look like the polar opposite of this. Pop open that bottle of Corona, chill with your family and join me as we go from the streets of L.A. to... well, that would be a spoiler, wouldn't it? As any piece about the Fast and Furious franchise is obliged to say early on, this was originally a grounded franchise. The Fast and The Furio...

After four months, I finally finished my rewatch of Twin Peaks in its entirity. It is an absolutely fascinating show and has slowed morphed into one of my favourites, but it's also intensely hard to recommend to anyone who isn't already a fan of David Lynch, the co-creator and director of much of Twin Peaks . So, that's kind of what today is, it's a three pronged Twin Peaks attack. I'm going to talk about the various forms Twin Peaks has taken over the years, what makes those forms so hard to recommend to people, but also why I love them so much. I know the title makes it sound like this show isn't going to be for you but hopefully, if you read on dear reader, you may realise that a trip to Twin Peaks is exactly what you need. Twin Peaks  (1990-1991) - The Trailblazer We begin, as the end credits song for Bojack Horseman do, back in the nineties. Beloved director of weird shit David Lynch and TV veteran and writer of Hill Street Blues Mark Frost team up to creat...

Oscar season is here, slightly delayed in happening because of the whole pandemic thing that we still live in, slightly delayed in me writing about because I have 10,000 words due in the next 7 days! Anyway, Oscars! Because of my aforementioned busyness I'm not covering as many categories as I did last year  but we're going to at least cover the five biggest hitters. We're talking actors in lead and supporting roles and we're talking the best film. I've done my best to see as many of these as I can but time has a habit of getting away from me so I can't promise I'll have seen them all. Still, in this weirdest of weird years, we'll be trying to do the same as every year, predicting who will win as well as getting a couple of opinions in there about who deserves to win. Let's get into it right away, before I waste any more time working out how to write this intro! Best Supporting Actor Will Win: Daniel Kaluuya for Judas and the Black Messiah Should Win...

I don't normally add these to my reviews but I don't normally review films like Promising Young Woman . So, this is a formal trigger warning, the film I'm about to discuss contains details of sexual assault and violence against women as pivotal plot points. I'm going to try and be as sensitive as I can in discussing these themes but if you find them too upsetting, I'd recommend not reading this week. Promising Young Woman is one of this years biggest nominees at the Oscars, up for Best Director, Best Actress and Best Picture, among two other nominations. It's from Emerald Fennell, who's a first time director and it's also really controversial for a whole heap of reasons. As someone who loved it, let me tell you why I think it's worthy of a watch. Much as you may think you know where the film is going, it keeps convincing you that you might in fact be wrong. Three men are at a bar, they're trying to pick up women. They look over and see a very dru...