“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
Looking at the list of films this week it’s quite funny that out of the ten films four are Star Wars ones, did I mention I like Star Wars? Tuesday morning I had some spare time so I sat and watched The Empire Strikes Back (1980), I’m really not sure how many times I’ve seen it but a lot. I know I saw it over 30 times at the cinema (this was Pre mass VHS so the only way to watch it). I watched the theatrical version on the 2006 DVD release, I will discuss the different versions at some point but I really don’t think the transfer is as bad as some people think. I believe part of the issue is today everyone seems to want everything to look as clean and pristine as a Pixar movie, that though is a discussion for another time.
On to the evening and we were after some light relief, so we dug out Along came Polly (2004), you can argue its a bit derivative of other romantic comedies but the script is tight and the performances strong, especially Philip Seymour-Hoffman. There is also a great performance by Bryan Brown who I have fond memories of watching the FX movies (I must try and get hold of those)
The evening was finished with the Documentary Robin Williams: Come inside my Mind (2018). We had watched the first half a few days earlier but decided to split it. My Wife and I are both huge Robin Williams fans and this was a really interesting piece that gave, as much as it could an insight into him via his interviews performances and opinions of friends and Relatives. The interviews with Pam Dawber and Billy Crystal at the end of his life are heartbreaking. I did read a strange review of this complaining that it didn’t cover all his films, It’s not meant to, it is not a look into his film catalogue it is about his motivations and how his mind worked. There are many good documentaries out there doing deep dives into his films if you want to know about them.
The following day we started the prequels with The Phantom Menace (1999). I enjoy them for what they are and so thankful that at least George Lucas got to make the films he wanted. I’ve always compared the prequels to an Opera (due to the political parts) in comparison to the original trilogies Action/Adventure story. I understand why some people struggle with them but I still think all three films have a lot to offer.
Sunday evening we finally got to see Joker (2019), wow what a great film don’t expect it to be a traditional comic book movie. It is more a character study into loneliness and psychosis. The only negative I had was the use of a Gary Glitter song, luckily a bit of post movie research I found that he would receive no royalties for it’s use. I still wish they had used another song though I have a feeling because of the cultural divide between U.S and the U.K Gary Glitter is relatively unknown so they just went for a song that worked for them without considering possible moral/ethical implications.
The following day it was on to the second of the prequels Attack of the Clones (2002) followed by Vin Diesel in The Last Witch hunter (2015), a film that I really cant understand why it didn’t do better. I would have loved to have seen a sequel, there is a gorgeous steelbook of this film that we have our eye on.
We finished the week off 
with Revenge of the Sith (2005), the strongest of the prequels in my opinion. This we followed up with the wonderful Hidden Figures (2016), which was a story I didn’t know about. I love the history of the Space Race so to learn the story of these Women of Colour whom with out the U.S would have struggled going to the moon was fascinating. My post movie research found out that the story hadn’t been too Hollywooded (is that a word) which made the film even higher in my estimations.
There wont be A bugs life next week due to my Wife having to go into hospital, so I will do a round up of two weeks films the following week so you can find out what was watched in Hospital. There will however be some other blog posts scheduled for next week so keep an eye out for those.
