What is it with long flights and the bad terrible tragically awful films that I choose to watch? It’s not the carriers’ fault. Nowadays, all international carriers have screens on the back of the seats with hundreds of channels of choice at each traveller’s fingertips.
So why’d I watch an eight-figure budgeted action comedy when I had the works of Tony Gilroy, Sidney Lumet, Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coen brothers to choose from?
1. It’s an eight- to ten-inch screen. It’s bad enough to watch movies on the laptop but to watch VHS-like-quality images on such a small screen is irresponsible because I’m sure a movie-magic fairy drops dead each time a film is watched on a screen that’s less than twelve-inches across.
2. I’d started watching a couple of other films on the movie menu but all the swearing (even ass – ass!) was muted. I was scratching and scratching and scratching my head until I realised that flying Emirates might have something to do with the level of censorship.
So.
Ninety – ohmigosh! 120! – minutes later, here is what meagre enjoyment I dredged from the action comedy that played on the tiny screen in front of me:
1. Having leads with a genuine chemistry can help. Would’ve helped. Although maybe not as much as it used to since I was watching part three of a franchise. But the memories of the previous instalments… okay, the memories of the first instalment can carry you some of the distance. Oh gods above, I lie: the memories didn’t help at all.
2. Having supporting actors who can out-act your leads can give such a film some sorely welcome spots of genuine humour and/or pathos.
3. For all of the studios’ squeals of dwindling cinema attendances and how the internet is stealing not just from DVDs but from the starving children of Africa, I can’t help but think that, at least for all of the creatives and technicians and support personnel involved, they all got paid.
It is, just like they say, only show business.
And maybe, one day, if/when I can afford to travel better than cattle class, I’ll have enough room to be able open up the trusty Powerbook and exercise choice.
