Naomi and i have spent our afternoon watching movies on cable and eating Subway, while Veronica suffers at work for the day. First up was the Punisher, tivoed last night as part of our brand new six month free trial of seven or eight Showtime channels on our DirecTV. I wasn't expecting much, and i didn't get much. I like the Punisher as a story and a comic book hero, although i've never read any of his exploits. Perhaps that should be my next comic book adventure, as the movie was downright silly in parts. His duel with the Russian while his neighbors make dessert listening to opera music, loud enough to drown the sound of a freakin' grenade apparently, was just ridiculous.

Now we've moved on to Air Force One, featuring Harrison Ford as the President, or alternately a kick ass, take names über-soldier, battling Russian extremists aboard his private jet. Not bad so far, although frankly i'm amazed at how many bullets have been fired without the cabin depressurizing and everyone getting sucked out into the atmosphere. Head terrorist Gary Oldman is firing into the air, for god's sake. I had to laugh at the scene where MIGs assault Air Force One with the President as ad hoc pilot. "Countermeasures unavailable"? I'd be f@$#ing amazed if Air Force One had missile countermeasures to begin with!

I quite liked the first two Mission: Impossible movies when i saw them. I remember watching the first one more than a few times on HBO. However recently Naomi expressed displeasure with them, and while reading Roger Ebert's review of the forthcoming third installment i noted his lack of belief in the action sequences of the series. Now that i think about it, a helicopter being pulled into the Chunnel via a chain attached to a high speed train ... not too likely that that scenario would end in any way other than the helicopter laying in a fiery pile at the tunnel entrance. I suppose the IMF team also probably did things the hard way in the famous "Tom on a harness hacking a computer scene" ... why didn't they just hack it when after the guy had deactivated all the security? This would of course require them to incapacitate him ... too inelegant? Why didn't any of this bother me before? Maybe part of me is worriedly expecting the dark lord Xenu and possession of body thetans to play a sizeable role in the third flick.