“It’s a Bug’s life’, the weekly post when I tell you what films we’ve watched both on our film Sundays and other parts of the week (I will talk about TV shows elsewhere). Please if you haven’t read the introduction page to this series go take a look that’s where you’ll learn the history of our sorely missed Bug.”
There are no spoilers for the films listed
It was a bit of strange film viewing week, it started on Tuesday evening when we decided we wanted escapism. Geostorm has been on our radar for a while and as it was available on Amazon Prime, why not I thought? I love disaster movies, I’ll happily watch films like The Towering Inferno or Earthquake all day. Modern disaster films are a bit of a rare beast, well in the mainstream they are, there is always some dodgy Syfy channel armageddon film but I don’t count those. The last big disaster film I can thing of was San Andreas (2015) which was a lot of fun and had Dwayne Johnson (the Rock) saving everyone of course. Geostorm was big dumb fun, no it’s not a work of genius but as a switch off and go with it film it fits the bill, it kept us entertained for a couple of hours which is all you can ask.
Continuing with my Star Trek theme from last week I watched Star Trek Insurrection, the second of the Next Generation films. In a repeat of last week it was the VHS version because as with Generations for some inexplicable reason I don’t own it on either Blu-ray or DVD. I know this film got a bit of a bad rap from fans and critics, revisiting it after a few years it’s a lot better than I remember. It has an interesting concept well executed and a Roddenberryesque (ooh I invented a word) discussions on life and purpose. If you like Star Trek and have not seen it for a while I recommend a revisit.
On Friday morning I wasn’t feeling too well (an impending migraine) so I snuggled up on the sofa with my dogs and watched The Empire Strikes Back. What is there to say about this film, many think it’s the best of the trilogy I personally can’t pick between them all. When I watch this alone I normally watch the VHS non special Edition version. As someone who saw Empire on release I like to stick to that version, although it was the least messed with of the three. When we watch it as a family we normally watch the Special Edition DVD (2004 release) as my wife being younger than me doesn’t have the sentimentality (or baggage) over which version, also that version has a great documentary Empire of Dreams which is not on later releases.
Surprisingly I don’t own a Blu-ray version of the original trilogy, because in every release of the Blu-rays the film has been played with more and I’m happy with the 2002 release upscaled on my player, I’ll leave the Blu-ray release unless they release the Theatrical cut (unlikely) or I find them silly cheap in a charity shop. In a side note the 2006 DVD Special Edition releases had on the bonus disc the theatrical cut of the films but apparently the quality was poor. I may look for that version at some time because thinking about it now it’s likely to be better quality than the VHS versions.
That evening (Friday) I needed something easy going as I still wasn’t feeling too good, I wanted to re-watch The Golden Compass for Fridays article so it was and easy film to relax to. If you want to know my opinion on The Golden Compass keep and eye out for Fridays article.
After a night of horrible head pain and feeling constantly like I was about to be sick Sunday morning arrived with an Urgh! I’m really not sure what happened to Saturday but it wasn’t pleasant. My migraines either put me in a darkened room for a couple of days trying not to vomit and unable to function, or as this weekends with constant head pain and feelings of sickness but able to function minimally. Sunday morning was another curl up on the sofa with dogs and watch a comfort film, that film was Tron a film that just makes me feel good.
Sunday evening I was starting to feel better, we had some great new films lined up for the weekend but due to my health we postponed them, so we picked a film off Netflix which was Replicas with Keanu Reeves. As you may or may not know I don’t really do trailers and avoid reviews in general so I knew very little off this film bar some rumblings about it not being good. We both enjoyed it both Alice Eve and Keanu Reeves are very watchable, it tries to play with some Philip K Dick like ideas, sometimes successful sometimes not. It’s worth a look, not a classic but not as bad as some seem to think.
After what was a pretty horrible weekend for me, on Monday we decided to watch one of the films were due to watch that was Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Gareth Edwards Godzilla (2014) did a fantastic job of kicking off these films, it was worth seeing just for the HALO jump scene, followed by Kong: Skull Island which felt like a mixture between Apocalypse now and Doug Mclure films of the 1970’s (Warlords of Atlantis, The land That Time forgot) it was a lot of fun.
The second second of the Godzilla films is Directed by Michael Dougherty who also Directed one of my favourite Modern Christmas films Krampus (2015). As always I’d not seen any trailers of King of Monsters, visually it’s a treat for those of us who like a good Kaiju fight, performances were good but I will say the characters where harder to care for than in previous films. Finishing the end titles with a cover of the Blue Oyster Cult’s Godzilla was inspired and made me all warm. We still really enjoyed the film, but I will say on my first viewing I do not think it’s as strong as 2014’s Godzilla or 2017’s Kong though still a good addition to the franchise.
I’m now looking forward to next weekend when I get to watch the new version of The Lion King. Have a great week.
