Flight Movies

In general I am willing and able to sleep at all hours of the day, on anything that is relatively clean, warm, and free of pointed objects. I've slept in chairs, and typically I fall asleep on planes without too much of a problem provided that I bring my travel pillow. But on very long flights I do not fall asleep easily, unfortunately. Knowing this, I decided to watch movies the entire transatlantic flight this trip. It succeeded to occupy my mind and made the 7 hour flight much more bearable. I wanted to sleep in Heathrow after getting fish and chips, but I managed to power through until last night thanks to a short nap on my final flight.

The three movies I picked were: The Imitation Game, Wild, and Into the Woods. I basically cried during all three movies.

The Imitation Game is a fascinating biopic of a genius who tragically was persecuted unjustly for the crime of homosexuality. Cumberbatch does a fantastic job of portraying Alan Turing as logical and emotionally ignorant, but he grows to be likable and endearing, especially as his schoolboy days are shown. It would have been fascinating to understand exactly what the work in cryptography actually entailed, but you can't have everything. Knowing nothing about Turing or Joan Clarke it's hard for me to evaluate how well the movie captured their personalities. Assuming it is mostly accurate, the movie is an intense view into the lives of people in World War II who did amazing things that were kept secret for many decades.

Wild was also more personal than I expected it to be. Even though I knew the story was about a woman who decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail after her life fell apart, I guess I thought it would be more about the hike itself and the transformative power of the beauty of Nature. It just so happens that the physical journey also makes a perfect metaphor for Witherspoon's character's spiritual rebirth from the ashes of her life. The presentation of the story through editing struck me as particularly effective. I have not read Strayed's memoir, but the juxtaposition of physical trials and flashbacks really brought her inner demons to light as we learn what brought her to the decision of hiking hundreds of miles. It is a moving account of how we deal with loss and recover from the mistakes of our past.

Into the Woods was visually a stunning update / screen adaptation of a Sondheim classic. My thoughts can be summed up in the following sentence: Meryl Streep is an incredibly talented actress (and not a bad singer!) but she's no Bernadette Peters. I am always skeptical of famous, established actors in musicals. I recognized almost everyone in every major role, and accordingly, I thought that the acting was phenomenal. But the singing was average overall. For example, I am just not convinced that Johnny Depp is a strong singer. The songwriting is so strong that I still loved the movie, though. They changed the ending a bit from what I remembered was a little too depressing in tone. I hardly never watched the second act. One other observation I had was that I missed a lot of the humor of the staged version. You just can't beat the 1991 version of Agony. They also cut the reprise of that song. It's a good movie, and it definitely makes me want to listen / watch more Sondheim.