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Some random channel surfing on Tuesday night led me to Arnold Schwarzenegger Predator. I picked up about halfway through and was struck with how well this movie held up. People will always find a way to complain, but I don’t think Predator would offend anyone. The acting and story remain interesting, and even the special effects hold up well. The most complicated thing to deal with is the Predator himself, but he’s invisible for most of the movie. His cloak is a bit odd, but that’s exactly what you’d expect from a cloaking device. It’s not going to be perfect.

Wednesday’s random channel surfing led me to one of my favorite movies during my teenage years: Jeff Goldblum’s The Fly. The computer technology that supposedly manages teleportation is also remarkably (but expectedly) primitive for such a feat, and the prosthetics are a little dated, but much like Predator, they’re irrelevant until the very end. Nevertheless, they made a great effort showing the slow transformation into “Brundlefly,” and Goldblum’s head tics were a nice touch. The end was emotionally powerful enough to help you ignore any special effects shortcomings.

As an elementary school student, I was terrified of the 1958 version of the film because of the final scene with the small human getting eaten by a spider (a cheesy scene I’m glad they didn’t duplicate in this version). I’ve had an irrational hatred of bugs ever since. Note well I said hatred. I don’t fear bugs; I want to punch them in their faces. And yes, lobsters are bugs, so I won’t eat them. The Incredible Shrinking Man made matters only worse.

Okay, you didn’t really need that journey into my twisted mind. Be grateful I’m stopping there. The point is that both of these movies are easily watchable today. If you have Starz, give them a(nother) shot.

Unless you’re entomophobic. As always, YMMV.

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