Observation: The Mile-Cry Club

Never trust a film review born out of an Airbus.

The only vaguely useful thing about this film, is it goes some way to explain why Agatha Christie’s Poirot’s moustaches were always written in the plural.

I recently watched two films on a flight, one horrifically hellacious and the other unbelievably captivating. 

Fasten your seatbelts, put your tray-tables to an upright position and prepare for a double dose of Kate Slates/Rates… with a somewhat surprising outcome. 

Spoiler alert

One of the upsides of writing this newsletter is, of course, that even when you have a terrible experience, you can at least console yourself with the promise of ‘content’.

“I’ll get a post out of it at least.” 

I exclaimed through gritted teeth as I trudged to the end of this film, each step heavier than the last, just to check that it didn’t redeem itself with an ‘I see dead people’ type surprise twist. It didn’t.

The subtitle of this section is indeed a joke, because try as I might, I couldn’t possibly spoil this film for you. It does that all by itself.

Kate Slates – A Haunting in Venice

The film in question was ‘A Haunting in Venice’, which on paper, looks to have all the ingredients of a great film. It’s based on an Agatha Christie novel (which I love), is starring Kenneth Branagh as Poirot (which surely signals quality) and the title infers it is set in Venice, so I’m expecting breathtaking scenery.

I could not have been more wrong, after a somewhat cartoonish start, illustrating Poirot’s bodyguard’s kung-fu skillset, we are then introduced to the 'bestselling mystery author’ Ariadne Oliver, played by Tina Fey.

She succeeds in tempting the retired sleuth, Hercule Poirot, back for 'just one more case’, by referring to him as ‘the second most intelligent person in the world’, her being the first obviously.

So far so good. Go Tina go!!!

However, after that scene, it seriously takes a tumble… please, just leave at this point and imagine what could have been. Close your eyes and imagine yourself easing along the sun-soaked canals of Venice wondering who on earth could have done it?!

If you continue to watch this film, in approximately 25 minutes you seriously won’t care who did it, or what they’ve done. You will have to endure what seems like hours¹ of the entire cast muffling around a gloomy Palazzo for the rest of the film. Yes, that’s right, we never get out of that crumbling building and into the Venetian sunshine again!

It was probably all filmed in a basement in North London, you can almost smell the damp and despair.

So it was with absolute relish that I sat down to give this time-robber of a film a vitriolic basting, and the strangest thing happened… I couldn’t garner enough emotion to paint it as much less than deeply tedious or frustratingly dull.

What had happened? I had malfunctioned. My venomous pen runneth under. WTF???

At the time of finishing the film, whilst cruising at around 35,000 ft, I was spitting nails and mentally composing a letter (ALL IN CAPS) to Mr Branagh himself, requesting he pay me for the time I’d wasted watching his ludicrously ill-lit and ill-advised cinematic offering!

But in the cold light of day, the knives were indeed ‘in’.

Hold that thought, we will return to it. 

Kate Rates – Greatest Days 

Greatest Hours more like!

In search of something much lighter, in every respect, I stumbled upon ‘Greatest Days’. Which basically does for Take That, what Mamma Mia did for Abba, i.e. tells a cute story sewn together with music from ‘the boys’. 

Where do I sign, right?

Just to be clear, I wasn’t the biggest Take That fan when young, or rather youngish, I was in my early 20’s by the time they had entered superstardom, and therefore I had soooo much cooler things to be doing than swooning over them.

However, I do now feel a certain affinity with Take That, as we age together, the three remaining members (Gary, Mark & Howard) now have an average age of 53! And like me, most of them have realised by now that not everyone suits a beard. 

Back to the film…

So the premise of this film is four female friends, who’ve not seen each other for 25 years, reunite after one of them wins tickets to a reunion concert of their childhood favourite band.

The film time-travels back and forth between the friends now, led by the brilliant Aisling Bea, and their teenage counterparts. Obviously bursting into song at the drop of a hat, as ‘the boys’ appear in either scenario cheerfully singing and dancing along.

I’d love you to see this film if you haven’t already, as it’s a fun, uplifting romp, so I won’t go into the plot detail and actually spoil it for you, suffice to say by the end I was emotionally spent! 

Tears of joy and then sadness and then joy again, as they bring it all home with a couple of major events at the end! 

Nevermind why the tears, let’s just focus on the sheer bloody volume for a second!? I was inconsolable… and getting through Handy Andies faster than a tissue vendor at the Wailing Wall during Passover!

“Good morning Ladies and Gentleman, we will shortly be starting our descent into London and so we’d like to remind you all to keep your seat-belts securely fastened…”  

I can’t remember crying on a plane this much since I watched Will Smith in ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’, a film which bugs me to this day².

So am now wondering if there is something about watching films on planes that emphasises the emotion???

The Mile-Cry Club 

As ever Google was on hand for a little investigation and low and behold it’s a thing!

A heady mix of hypoxia (reduced oxygen levels in the brain) and pre-flight stress, can lead to a raft of cognitive and emotional effects, including heightened negative moods (see first film³!) and a diminished ability to handle stress.

That last one is a bit of a worry as far as the pilot is concerned, let’s hope they pump extra oxygen up the front and definitely don’t let them watch the onboard entertainment.

Further research revealed lack of oxygen can also increase the laughter factor of films too! Which goes some way to explain why, a few years ago, I came home from a solo trip declaring ‘Daddy’s Home 2’ to be literally the funniest film ever made! 

So convinced of this was I, that I ‘bought’ (yes folks, not just rented) the film, sat the family down to watch it and eventually had to feign outrage, when they counter-declared that perhaps it wasn’t ‘the funniest film ever made’ after all. 

I had to agree, apart from the genius pairing of Will Ferrell and John Lithgow, which I could never tire of, the rest did seem to have lost a certain charm during its 35,000 ft descent. Sigh.

Which got me to thinking…

Will they ever try to emulate flight conditions in cinemas to heighten the experience?

UK Mobile phone provider Orange took quite a good stab at it with their ‘Orange Wednesdays’ 2-4-1 ticket promotion in recent years. The queues were so long, you may as well have been trying to check-in for an EasyJet flight to Torremolinos.

Perhaps building cinemas up mountains to naturally reduce the oxygen levels, or charging people an unexpected £20 to take their handbags in, would increase the hypoxia and stress levels sufficiently enough to over-enjoy an average film. 

Potential cinema queue for the long-awaited, politically-correct  remake of Love Actually. Hankies at the ready!

Or perhaps sofas will morph more into flight seats, with a pop-out iPad holder emerging from the armrest and a screaming toddler on your left. 

In summary

The moral of this tale is to never fully trust a film review born out of a flight, unless it’s for the safety briefing.

You’re welcome!

K8x

PS: Have you ever had an over emotional flight-film experience? Please share in the comments below, I’ll get the tissues.

This Gencraft masterpiece had me laughing for a full 3 minutes, and is yet another joyous example of why we don’t need to fear AI quite yet. It will probably turn up for the invasion on the wrong day and wearing the wrong eyewear. Here’s the descriptive text brief: ‘Mum, son and dad all on a sofa, facing us. Mum and Dad on their ipads, whilst son is asleep with an eye mask on.’

1. I literally just looked up the run time of this film and it’s only 103 minutes! So that’s about 53 minutes of wandering around a joyless building with no discernible electricity supply.

2. If the main character in that film was so damned likeable and popular, why didn’t he have any friends??? He had lived in that City for a good number of years, and yet no one came forth to offer him and his son a sofa/rug combo? Really? I have too many questions.

3. Actually, don’t see first film, alphabetising your sock drawer would be a better use of your time!