The Strangeness of Airplane Movies

There's something about flying that just bothers me. I think it's the fact that you are so very high up in the air. When you are cruising along at 20 or 30 thousand feet, if that plane starts you fall you are going to fall for a while and you are likely to be conscious all the way to the ground. Then, when you hit the ground, you just hope that the impact is going to kill you right off, but if it doesn't you might just get the experience of burning alive in jet fuel before dying. Then again, this may just be my over-active imagination at work.

For me, I am completely and utterly unable to sleep when I fly. No matter what I have done on the ground prior to the flight, once I am in the air and unable to unwind and doze off. I know many people who seem to have some kind of sleep activator device implanted in their skull when they enter a plane. As soon as they sit down they fall asleep, even as they are giving you important safety instructions that will likely do nothing to save your life unless you happen to have that guy "Sully" as your pilot. I cannot do this. Every bump and every jostle of the plane wakes me right up with a start and I am too wound up to really fall asleep anyway.

So, that means I am have to find some way to entertain myself. Sure, I can sit there and watch and re-watch the films in my head of the plane falling to the ground, but this is likely to only induce some kind of fit that will just get me arrested and thrown into federal prison. So, if I am lucky enough to be on a flight that has an in-flight movie, I consider this a bonus.

When I am on the ground, I can be very picky about the movies I see. I tend to want to only see movies that are, you know, good. This is not what airlines use to pick the films they show on their flight. No, they tend to pick films that can appeal to as many potential people as possible, and then they edit them to remove any edginess or possible offense completely. So, not only is the movie likely to be watered down to start with, it will be almost all water by the time you see it.

For me, on a recent flight to and from Chicago to Las Vegas, this meant I was watching two films I gladly let slide by when they were in the theater. On the way to Vegas I watched the Sandra Bullock vehicle known as "The Proposal." On the way back to Chicago, I watched the latest Eddie Murphy family flick called "Imagine That."

"The Proposal" is a movie so predictable that you can figure out the end from the first few moments. Bullock stars as a woman who publishes and promotes books for some big publishing company in New York. She is from Canada and her visa is about to expire. She is a real tyrant in the office. She works all the time and fires people left and right. The people around her quiver in terror when she is around. You just know, however, that our sweet little Sandie B is going to have a real heart under that ice and love is going to find her.

To try and stay in the States she tries to con the US Immigration office by claiming to be marrying her assistant, played by Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds, it turns out, is from a wealthy family who just happens to be wealthy in Alaska. He doesn't want to run the family business and wants to make it on his own in New York, so he submits to the abuse Bullock's character heaps on her. Of course a weekend spent in Alaska is likely to ensue and the ice around Bullock is going to melt.

This is a movie where Bullock's character utters the phrase, "I can't swim." So, of course you know there is going to be a point where she falls off a boat and ends up in the water, right? You betcha.

It is clichéd. It is predictable. It is sappy. It is sugary. It is mildly amusing. At 30,000 feet, though, it becomes hilarious entertainment.

"Imagine That" is in the same vein. This time Eddie Murphy is the workaholic dad who is neglecting his daughter to climb up the ladder at his investment firm. His daughter is adorable and hides under her blanket to enter some imaginary magical world where she plays with three princesses. When she suddenly starts making predictions about companies her father is talking about for work and those predictions turn out to be true, Murphy starts using his daughter to further his career.

The little girl is adorable and has great potential as an actress. Murphy chews up the scenery when he needs to, but manages to be endearing and funny. Thomas Hayden Church is a man you never once, for a moment, believe as an American Indian. Still, he manages to be amusing as well. The movies itself, however?

Well, when you find out the little girl has a school play the same day her daddy has a big meeting about his promotion, can you feel that there will be that big scene where dad suddenly walks into the gymnasium in the middle of the performance? Not only does he do so here, but he does so in a makeshift costume. Don't worry, I haven't spoiled anything. If you can't see this scene coming up the road like the Stay-Pufft Marshmallow Man in "Ghostbusters" ten minutes into this movie you need to get yourself checked by professionals.

Still, I found myself watching this movie too. I did not laugh once. I smiled a couple of times. At the same time there I was, nervously clutching my own seat and the one in front of me with each bump, but grateful for the distraction of Murphy and the little girl to keep my mind off of just how far off the ground I was.

That's the strange thing about airplane movies. There is no way we would be dragged by our hair to see some of these films if we were on the ground. However, trapped in a metal tube, thousands of feet off the ground, with crowded seats and clumsy headphones, we are willing to sit through anything just to be entertained. On that level, then, both of these movies work.

Plus, you really can't walk out of these in the middle, can you?