A transatlantic flight is quite a peculiar thing, and a world apart from the internal European flights to which most Brits are accustomed. Those affairs, often for the price of a couple of DVDs, are hectic, Saturday-morning-on-the-high-street, screaming children, worried parents, cough-on-the-cheap-peanuts-and-you'll-miss-it trips into the darkness of the human psyche, and are characterised by manic attempts to draw the crew's attention to your lack of leg room, lack of coffee or lack of oxygen.
Conversely, the passengers on a transatlantic flight almost exclusively will sit in a zombie-like trance for the 9-hour duration, moving only to place food in mouth, or to shake off more serious bouts of pins and needles. Plugged in and switched on, its a case of headphones on, eyes front, and a dizzying concentration fixed on the selection of films showing. Instead of fending off passengers left, right and centre, the air crew's most tasking job is to try and get your attention long enough to pour you a cup of tea.
And so it's a shame when the roster of films is so limited. Almost exclusively, each film I could have chosen last Thursday pandered to a broad audience. While on some flights there will be only one channel, thus necessitating a schedule of "family films", in this case a personal screen gave me a choice of 10 film and 5 television channels. Why, then, was each (with one exception) an American or Brit blockbuster?
My movie viewing displeasure was counted in threes. Spider-Man 3 was tedious, long and overly plotted, with far too many villains and little of the real human comedy that so enlivened the first two (in its place was a cringingly unfunny "comedy" dance routine). Shrek The Third was funny in parts but had no proper finale and a series of annoying new charcters, though it was possibly redeemed by one brilliant dream-sequence sight gag. Possibly. Finally, I watched Magicians, not strictly (or remotely) a threequel, but the third major collaboration between Mitchell and Webb of which I am aware, and lacking all their usual sparkling wit. A promising setup ruined by a lack of jokes and a disappointing reappearance of Spaced's Jessica Stevenson absurdly left me more satisfied with this Britcom flop than with either of the successful franchise films.
I wonder if perhaps British comedies are genetically engineered to be viewed at high altitudes; I recall that in 2004 The Calcium Kid seemed an entertaining breath of fresh air after the tedium of unmemorable Hollywood slush, despite being one of the most critically mauled British films of recent times.
Surely the logic of showing only broad-audienced films is flawed. With ten film channels to schedule, a spot of diversity would give everyone something up their street, and maybe something to broaden their horizons too. Instead, pandering solely to a mainstream market leaves everyone pacified but unfulfilled. Maybe this is the idea.
While I may never get my wish of watching a Lynch or a Godard at 40,000 feet, I feel it would have been polite to at least have shown a good mainstream film that I've yet to see. Damn you, Branson.
Conversely, the passengers on a transatlantic flight almost exclusively will sit in a zombie-like trance for the 9-hour duration, moving only to place food in mouth, or to shake off more serious bouts of pins and needles. Plugged in and switched on, its a case of headphones on, eyes front, and a dizzying concentration fixed on the selection of films showing. Instead of fending off passengers left, right and centre, the air crew's most tasking job is to try and get your attention long enough to pour you a cup of tea.
And so it's a shame when the roster of films is so limited. Almost exclusively, each film I could have chosen last Thursday pandered to a broad audience. While on some flights there will be only one channel, thus necessitating a schedule of "family films", in this case a personal screen gave me a choice of 10 film and 5 television channels. Why, then, was each (with one exception) an American or Brit blockbuster?
My movie viewing displeasure was counted in threes. Spider-Man 3 was tedious, long and overly plotted, with far too many villains and little of the real human comedy that so enlivened the first two (in its place was a cringingly unfunny "comedy" dance routine). Shrek The Third was funny in parts but had no proper finale and a series of annoying new charcters, though it was possibly redeemed by one brilliant dream-sequence sight gag. Possibly. Finally, I watched Magicians, not strictly (or remotely) a threequel, but the third major collaboration between Mitchell and Webb of which I am aware, and lacking all their usual sparkling wit. A promising setup ruined by a lack of jokes and a disappointing reappearance of Spaced's Jessica Stevenson absurdly left me more satisfied with this Britcom flop than with either of the successful franchise films.
I wonder if perhaps British comedies are genetically engineered to be viewed at high altitudes; I recall that in 2004 The Calcium Kid seemed an entertaining breath of fresh air after the tedium of unmemorable Hollywood slush, despite being one of the most critically mauled British films of recent times.
Surely the logic of showing only broad-audienced films is flawed. With ten film channels to schedule, a spot of diversity would give everyone something up their street, and maybe something to broaden their horizons too. Instead, pandering solely to a mainstream market leaves everyone pacified but unfulfilled. Maybe this is the idea.
While I may never get my wish of watching a Lynch or a Godard at 40,000 feet, I feel it would have been polite to at least have shown a good mainstream film that I've yet to see. Damn you, Branson.
2 comments:
The Calcium Kid gets the prize for the worst film I have EVER watched, followed closely by 50 First Dates, then Wild Hogs, which I've seen twice - once on the way to Crete and once on the way back with the sound off - winning third place.
Good luck for the return flight...
Now now, let's give BA some credit - there were no films shown on the way back from Crete!
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