“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
This week we seemed to watch a lot more films during the week than we normally do. It wasn’t just film Sunday or the weekend, sometimes you just have to go with it.
I started the week off on Wednesday with a bit of Star Trek, I had some time so sat down and watched Star Trek Generations which is the first of The Next Generation films. I’ve not seen it for a while and the copy I watched is actually a VHS copy. I have a fondness for VHS not so much that I can’t see it’s negatives but I do think that it is frequently misrepresented (no the image quality isn’t normally as bad as some say) that though is a discussion for another time. I only have Generations on VHS so I do need to get it on DVD or Blu-ray. I am at present reading the tie novelisation of it so revisiting the film at the same time means you can see some points that weren’t in the film that could have been nice to see on screen. It’s not the best of TNG films but still a good and enjoyable film. I will do a separate spoiler filled discussion on the film in the next few months.
On Wednesday evening we watched Hostiles. I love a good western but I haven’t yet converted Mrs BAFTD. This is a fascinating and intense film, I found the Blu-ray factory sealed in a charity shop for a 3 for £1 deal (so it cost 33p). I had never heard of the film but the cast of Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike had me intrigued. Researching the film after I watched it I was surprised to find out it had lost money at the box office. It looks absolutely beautiful, with Roger Deakins as the cinematographer, it is a slow paced study of violence, death and forgiveness. The extras on the Blu-ray are a great insight and the director rightfully says the film could have easily been set in a modern Afghanistan or any conflict. In reality all the characters are victims of war. If you’ve not seen it I would highly recommend.
We don’t normally watch films on a Thursday but had the urge so we decided to re-watch Sicario. We
watched Sicario: Day of the Soldado a few months ago and I’ve been eager to re-watch the first film. It is a really good film and definitely stands up to multiple viewings. What I did notice this time was how much tension the music brings to the film, wonderfully scored by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson.
Friday dawned and we had decided on Warm Bodies for the evening watch. We have seen this film a few times it’s a very enjoyable rom/com with zombies or zombies with a romcom, take your pick on which one.
Saturday morning I needed some silliness so put on Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life an underrated film in the Monty Python Pantheon. In the evening we decided to go all Netflix and finally watched 1922 which was adapted from a Stephen King novella. A film which slowly unravels that has some great performances by the cast, I felt that it was too long and would have worked better as part of an anthology at a maximum of an hour long.
Film Sunday dawned and we only had time to fit in two films, afternoon viewing was Disney’s The Good Dinosaur. I think this an underrated film. The animation is beautiful and the story heart warming. It had a difficult production and was released at a similar time to Inside Out (which I am personally not keen on) and was therefore overlooked by many.
I am a fan of Liam Neesons reinvention as an action star going around punching wolves and things. We therefore picked Cold Pursuit that had just appeared on Amazon Prime. It was not what we were expecting (in a good way), a darkly comic tale of revenge well worth a look. I did find out afterwards it was actually a remake of a Norwegian film In Order of Disappearance made by the same director. In a stroke of luck the original Norwegian film is available on Prime so that is top of our viewing for the coming week, it will be interesting to compare the two.
So that was the week some Science Fiction, a western, a romzomcom, some horror and a machine that goes ping.
