The Quite Nerdy Blog

On the 20th of March 2020, a day I have been anticipating for years finally arrived; the new Animal Crossing game was released. As the poor guys I had to live with in the months leading up to it can tell you, I didn't shut up about it for most of that time. Fair to say, it's been a hell of a year since then, one that we were starting to get into when Animal Crossing: New Horizons  made its unassuming release. Unlike most of the people who spent those first panicked months of the pandemic we now call home playing Animal Crossing with a sense of mania before eventually dropping it, I have been playing it for the last year. Not every day, but I've never missed more than two in a row. This makes me a loser, and means I have some explaining to do. This is me explaining myself. Mum, Dad, I'm sorry that your eldest son ended up like this, but we work with what we have. The slow opening up of the island allowed me to slowly build my routine and even today, I still keep most of ...

Edit: this post has now been edited to reflect how many of my predictions were correct. As it turns out, they all were, but none of my unlikely bets got a single look in. In short, I know exactly what the Academy like and what they like is rarely what I like. It's Oscar season already! It feels like it came around so quick this year but actually, the official ceremony has usually happened by this point of the year and our brains have just been rotted by prolonged exposure to both nothing and events so terrible they warp the mind! Anyway, films! One of the side effects of all the everything this year is that we're staring at a really unpredictable Oscar race, making it pretty exciting (at least at this point). I would love to explore the films that might be getting a look in but unfortunately, I haven't seen many of the films that are predicted to scoop loads of nominations. Partly that's because UK cinemas are closed and distributors are waiting even longer than usual t...

I love Arcade Fire. At this point, I think they might be my favourite band. Their music has this incredible range, where it can be anthemic and euphoric, but also full of anguish and fear. The sounds then get filtered through these lyrics about suburbia, Greek myth or technological paranoia, which are all subjects whose exploration I adore. Over five albums, they've done outstanding work... Except that there's a sixth album, never before given an official release, an album that might be my favourite. That album was their score for the 2013 movie her  and next month, at long last, it is getting a proper release, both in physical form and on streaming platforms. As someone who pre-ordered the vinyl as soon as this news came out, let me explain to you why it is so wonderful. First actually, I should probably set up the film her , in case you are unfamiliar. It's a story set in a near future, about a man named Theodore who falls in love with his sentient operating system. On th...

Writing a review of Malcolm and Marie , even in my amateur capacity, feels like a slightly futile gesture. It's a film constructed around how pointless film critics are and how they'll almost always be more dedicated to showing off to other film critics than in actually giving the film they just watched a fair shake. If you've seen the trailer for Malcolm and Marie , you might be shocked to realise that's what the film is about, which is fair, especially since it also isn't really about that. On a basic level, it's about a couple, who return from the premiere of Malcolm's new movie. Marie is upset because she wasn't mentioned in his speech and so she has a bone to pick with him. That's it. This is a movie about pretty people dealing with petty problems, a subgenre of film I'm pretty fond of. The problem with Malcolm and Marie though is that it isn't just that, it's also trying to be some great thesis statement on film, filmmakers and how ...

So.. 2020, huh? What's that all about? Not that 2021 has been much better so far, but you know the rules, any reflection of the last year has to include some brief mention of the fact that we have just experienced the worst year almost all of us will have ever lived through. Cutting and accurate summations of what went wrong and where isn't my strength though, so that obviously isn't what I'm writing about today (though quickly, Fuck the Tories for dealing with this pandemic worse than anyone would have guessed ten months ago. Anyone who votes for you in the next election deserves help, as they're clearly suffering from Stockholm syndrome). No, obviously what I'm here for today is to talk to you about the best films I saw from this mess of a year! Though much of what we were looking forward to has been delayed from last year into this year, we still had plenty to enjoy and I want to celebrate those films we did actually get to watch, whether in a cinema or safel...

In a year defined by staying inside and binge watching Netflix, I feel like I didn't watch as much as everyone else. I wish I could have, a lot of it sounds great, but I spent most of the year so full of overwhelming anxiety that I couldn't focus on something non-interactive for more than a few hours and then the rest of the year I spent studying. Despite that, I made time for Normal People , a show that is so great it felt almost cruel to release it in the middle (or as we now call it, the start) of a pandemic. For those who are unaware, the show is the story of two young adults, Connell and Marianne. They meet at sixth form, where Connell's mum is a cleaner for Marianne's family. Coming from two different social worlds, they never expect to connect and yet, they do. They connect quite hard, actually. The show follows their relationship, falling in and out of love across their time at sixth form and then university, with plenty of heartbreak, touching and touching indu...

Sometimes, I play a game and I just think "oh, well this is unfair". Not in terms of it being unbalanced necessarily. That happens occasionally for me because I suck at playing games, but it's not what I'm referring to here. No, what I'm referring to is that sometimes it feels unfair how much a game is just tailor made for me. Hades  is such a game, the newest from beloved indie studio Supergiant Games. It is a hack and slash rogue-like (don't worry if none of those words mean anything to you, I'll explain in a minute) in which you play as Zagreus, the son of Hades. You are attempting to escape the Underworld for reasons that you will discover as you go, although the path to getting to the mortal realm will, ironically, involve being killed quite a lot. As someone who loves a little bit of Greek mythology, as well as a well crafted indie game, Hades was always going to go down well with me, but I wasn't expecting it to go down quite this well. Talking ...