In flight Entertainment
I don't understand the rise of erotica in airport book stores.
Over the last few flights I've taken they've graduated from recent classics like "The Piano Teacher" and more modern Houellebecq's "Atomised" to a rush of slim volumed novels centring on young women with prodigous sexual appetites - "One Hundred Strokes of the Brush before bed", "Insatiable", "Astride" and the deliciously suggestive "Avocado".
I love good erotica, almost as much as I enjoy watching decent porn with a partner (or the partner's poodle). But I can't even begin to imagine how you'd manage to get yourself excited reading one of these novellas as the bloated stomach of the loudly braggadocio businessman to your left (if he's so fucking succesfull what's he doing in economy class eh?) spills over your armrest from one side and the incessant clicks of the marketing exec's laptop comes at you from other (and you know he's a marketing exec because you can't possibly not stare in morbid fascination at the Powerpoint prospectus he's been replaying incessantly for the last hour) and the asinine brays of laughter from the woman behind who's just discovered the Cosby special on the comedy channel beat you about the head like an expertly wielded clawhammer.
And even if you do start feeling a little hot under the collar and manage to leopard crawl over those between you and the aisle its not like there's any opportunity to make the most of it in the airplane loos (conveniently located at whatever end of the plane you're not) guarded by endless queues of people tapping their feet, and a mother that frantically bangs on the door the second you get in there - before you've even had time to loosen the belt - because her screaming progeny has just had an accident and needs emergency changing.
No no, far better you ignore that siren paperback and shut yourself away from the dreariness of the world around you by just watching whatever comfortingly stultifying celluloid trash the airline has selected. Unless of course that trash is Woody Allen's latest, "Match Point".
I have cinema stamina. I've never walked out of a movie in my life before, not 'Blade III - Trinity' (you see! Its the third one! Hence trinity! And trinity has Catholic conotations, so ironically contrasting vampiric-blood-letting to the sacrament! F-u-n-n-y!) or even 'Joe Dirt' a movie so bad that half our audience suffered brain hemorrhage and severe renal failure before they finished the opening credits.
But I was ready to walk out of "Match Point". And I was ready to do it at 35,000 feet. Sure the Airmarshall stopped me, but you could tell that he was seriously considering my argument that the passengers would thank me for *just making it stop* right up until the moment he clubbed me to the ground. I don't know how so many critics have declared this movie to be one of Allen's finest, and his best in years. Character evolution is entirely unsatisfying and implausible (tennis pro to business magnate in 5 scenes or less anyone?) and the litany of hidebound cliches like essential national persona (brash young American ingenue vs staid, class-conscious English aristocracy ... where does he get this stuff?!?) delivered with as much nuance as a Rachmaninoff concerto played in mittens.
And with leads that imbue their parts with all the airy charm and personal warmth of a pair of large iguanas mating, by the time the plot does try and sneak in some twists towards the end you no longer care what happens to anyone in the movie, other than it be as painful for them as it was for you.
No question about it, next time I fly I'm getting my entertainment the old fashioned way. Drugs. Lots of drugs...