A-Z #99: Independence Day

You can pick up hundreds of DVDs for a round-pound each - it doesn't matter. It's never about quantity, it's about quality. A-Z is my way of going through my collection, from A-Z, and understanding why I own the films ... or you can tell me why I should sell 'em

#99 - Independence Day 

Why did I buy it?

I think its all nostalgia really. I watched it with my sister at the cinema and I remember bibidly walking to Woolworths as she bought the video on the week of release - even spending £2.99 on a Stargate video as an offer. Happy times indeed. Independence Day then became a regular viewing on the rotation of 10-videos we had. Independence Day, Jurassic Park, Casper, The Lost World, The Making of Michael Jacksons Thriller, The LIttle Rascals and Men in Black. When it came on DVD, I was also a little interested in the 'special edition' version of the film too!

Why do I still own it?

I have watched it a couple of times since I bought it, but it's not a big hit. I even visited my sisters house a while ago and watched a little of her Blu-Ray copy and, strangely enough, it looked like a soap with the clarity of Blu-Ray. I think it's dated pretty badly and, though it has the great moments of the sky-fights and the first 40 minutes prior to destruction, it ultimately loses pace halfway in.

Should Independence Day stay? Is it one of the best disaster films still?

A-Z #57: The Day After Tomorrow

You can pick up hundreds of DVD's for a round-pound each - it doesn't matter. Its never about quantity, its about quality. A-Z is my way of going through my collection, from A-Z, and understanding why I own the films ... or you can tell me why I should sell 'em

#57 - The Day After Tomorrow 

Why did I buy it?

If I recall correctly, I bought this when double-disc DVD offers were rife. 20th Century Fox had a 2 for £20 offer on a whole load of double-disc DVD's and, because I felt I was getting out of the loop with some of the more, shall we say, mainstream films, I bought this film alongside I, Robot. It was okay at the cinema and the whole environmental thing going on, I believed, would be a great addition to the whole end-of-the-world blockbusters following Independence Day through to Armageddon... (I think, soon after this was released, a British film called Flood starring Robert Carlyle was released with a similar set-up)

Why do I still own it?

 

It very nearly got sold. It was on the pile. (For the record, I, Robot was sold...) but I managed to catch the end of a "Top 50 End-Of-The-World Films" and this, though not number-one (I think that was Independence Day), did come up in the top 5. For a while I though that was ridiculous but, the voice-over guy, seemed to argue the case: a great cast in Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid (though they are clearly not Father and Son) and Ian Holm, the nature-vs-the-world had a facsinating aspect of truth to it ... a hypothetical-scenario rather than false science-fiction, it seemed as if the horror in The Day After Tomorrow could indeed happen. And, to top it off, the special FX look great. The irony to all of this is the reality of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans in 2005, the Boxing-Day Indian Ocean earthquake, Haiti... the list goes on. The crazy pictures in Japan of a wave holding hundreds of cars and sweeping them across the land seems to be something straight out of this film.

 

I think I will keep this as a film-version of some of the actual horrors nature has bestowed on us in recent years... (though I have no intention of watching 2012)

The truth may be more horrific and my ownership of this simply ignores the flawed aspect of the film itself - should it be sold?