Wow, we're getting through a lot of movies.

After an abortive attempt to watch The Right Stuff (dull first 20 mins about breaking the sound barrier and cocky pilots with whiny wives - didn't get any further), we stuck House of Flying Daggers in the machine on Tuesday night. That was a lot of fun. If you've seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon you've more or less seen this, except that the focus (in terms of action) was less on jumping and flying and more on doing amazing things with weapons. If you didn't like Crouching Tiger (as I seem to remember Ben and Dad didn't), for one thing you're crazy, and for another thing you won't engage with this probably. The plot revolves around the police unveiling an underground subversive group (the Flying Daggers of the title) and a girl playing with the affections of those around her, and there are several twists and turns, changes of allegiance and unexpected reveals, so I can't say much more without ruining it. But all that is a backdrop serving to highlight some beautiful fighting. And it really is visually and aurally beautiful - the sound was one of the main things we noticed. The only let-down was that several plot-lines and mysteries were left hanging in the air at the end, which was somewhat frustrating.

Then last night we gave Alien vs Predator a go (you can never say that our viewing choices aren't eclectic). Now, Heidi and I have a lot of respect for films in general. It is an unspoken rule, for the most part, that we don't talk while watching them (and I can get very annoyed with her if she does and I don't). We both talked all over AVP. That gives you a good idea of what it's like! It could have been worse, but it could have been a lot better as well. When the Alien and Predator first had a ruck, you couldn't see what was going on (apparently this could well be due to Fox chopping the film up for a lower age rating and increased teen market); none of the characters had enough time spent on them to make them worth caring about; it was basically predictable from beginning to end; the central conceit of how the two species get to Antarctica was only half-explained; it doesn't make much (well, any) sense bearing in mind the time frame of the other Alien movies, unless they have a sequel/prequel to Alien in the wings that puts a lot of things in motion; and finally, the tagline (which I had thought was quite a nice one) is in fact a lie. I've seen worse films, but not ones which have at least three great films behind them (Alien, Aliens and Predator).