Airline movies

If you’ve ever wondered what became of concert promoters who put together lineups like this (all real, btw)…

The Monkees with opening act Jimi Hendrix

Emerson, Lake and Palmer with opening act Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes

YES, with opening act Bob Seger

…I have the answer. They now schedule in-flight movies.

I recently returned from Panama (beautiful country/long flight). The Sunwing “entertainment experience” included a movie called “The Fountain”. Now believe me, this is a movie I’ve wanted to see for a while, but I’ll just bet that most of the exhausted, sunburnt and alcohol poisoned returning vacationers didn’t share my enthusiasm at viewing a 2 hour ART FILM whilst jammed inside a metal tube 30,000 feet above the earth. Just guessing.

For the record I am not an art film snob…I just found it an oddball choice for an air flick. For starters the film jumps back and forth, without warning, between 3 different time periods – the Spanish Inquisition, the present, and the future in which a head-shaved Hugh Jackman floats through space in a giant bubble, hoping to bring his deceased wife back to life. And no car chases.

This was followed by “Night At The Museum”.

Kind of like showing “2001: A Space Odyssey” and following it up with “Son of Flubber”, or some other Dean Jones/Kurt Russell Disney guffaw-fest.

I didn’t watch “Night At The Museum” cuz I’m getting kinda burnt on Ben Stiller’s “sameness” in most of his movies, but I DID look up just in time to see the slapping match with the monkey, which was funny as hell.

A few years back I was returning from Costa Rica (4+ hours) when some sadistic airline entertainment chump scheduled the Madonna barf-up (title) with the Jackie Chan/Jennifer Love Hewitt comic romp “The Tuxedo”. And, for the same reason that I eat the prefab meals they serve on planes (cuz it’s there and I didn’t bring my own meal), I watched them both from start to finish.

In some small way I suppose it was better than nose-diving into the Gulf of Mexico…