STACK #146 Dec 2016

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DVD&BD FEATURE

BEGINNER’S GUIDE

A feature you'll never read in an in-flight magazine. From airline disasters and deadly passengers to post-crash investigations and airport operations, the dramatic potential of air travel continues to take flight in the movies. Fasten your seatbelts! Words Scott Hocking

[Note: Not all titles discussed are available on DVD and Blu-ray. Check the JB website.]

#9 - AIRLINE MOVIES Engine failure, turbulence, terrorists, time warps, hijackers and even snakes can turn a routine flight into a high altitude nightmare – and a box office bonanza. A lot can happen on the ground, too, in airports and air traffic control towers or on the runways. And the smaller stories involving frequent flyers, pilot heroism and what happens backstage at the airport prove equally compelling.

that vanish without a trace ( The Langoliers ), or attempt to convince you that a passenger can go missing mid-flight with no record of them ever being onboard ( Flightplan ). Thankfully, you can count on the aforementioned films to be missing from the in-flight movie selection on your next trip. WHERE TO START The disaster movie cycle of the 1970s saw a lot of planes falling out of the sky with all- star casts onboard. The Airport franchise is the quintessential introduction to the genre, so ideally you should start here. Based on the best-seller by Arthur Hailey, Airport (1970) is a big screen soap opera offering "seven stories tied into one". Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin and George Kennedy lead the superstar cast of airport and flight crew who face both personal and professional crises including infidelity and unexpected pregnancy, and a mad bomber onboard. Oh, and the airport is in the grip of a blizzard, too. It's all super cheesy but lots of fun in a retro kind of way. Follow-up Airport 1975 (the series used the year of release rather than a sequel number) takes the drama to the skies when a Cessna collides with 747, leaving the pilots dead and Karen Black at the controls. A daring mid-air attempt is made to transfer a new pilot into the cockpit by helicopter. Seriously! In Airport '77 , a private 747 carrying the fabulously wealthy and a cargo of priceless art crashes into the Bermuda Triangle, no less, trapping the passengers and crew underwater with the pressure mounting. And by the time Airport 80:The Concorde lifted off, the franchise was in serious descent. The Airport series made mega bucks at the box office, but more importantly, its clichés

by instructions from ATC or their own flight simulator/video game experience.

WHAT TO EXPECT A familiarity with flying is what makes this particular sub-genre work. We've all been on a plane at one time or another and are all too aware that there's only so much metal and plastic between us and a 30,000 foot drop to the ground below. Unless you're a white-knuckle flyer, it's something you don't think about, but the movies do – and accentuate what can go wrong. The aircraft cabin serves as a microcosm populated by a diverse group of passengers – usually played by Hollywood's finest – who you'll become acquainted with over the course the film. And if the writing and performances are top notch, you'll actually care what happens to some of them. Suspense thrillers exploit this confined environment to the max – there really is no way out and the stakes become even, er, higher. Furtive conversations between the cabin crew provide exposition on the nature of the threat, and there will always be an irate passenger who demands to be told what's really going on. Terrorists and hijackers are a frequent threat, but fortunately there's usually somebody onboard who can stop them, whether it's an air marshal ( Non-Stop ), a security expert ( Passenger 57 ), the US president ( Air Force One ), or Kurt Russell ( Executive Decision ). And if the pilot and co-pilot are put out of action, you can count on a passenger to eventually land the plane – guided

It's not all mid-flight calamity, though. The everyday workings of an airport can also be a primary focus. Although now the subject of numerous reality shows, the movies trade the mundane minutiae for the crisis situation. You'll pick up air traffic control lingo like "Foxtrot Alpha Charlie" and watching simple glowing dots traverse a screen can actually be surprisingly thrilling. Action films will invariably include a scene where the hero chases

a departing plane down the runway, and the villain's demise is often brought about by a fall into a spinning jet engine. An airport is a nexus for human drama, from the turbulent lives and personal problems of the ground staff ( Airport ), to a stranded immigrant who's taken up residence in JFK ( The Terminal ). Another popular plot device is the post-crash investigation, which has all the dramatic frisson of a good courtroom drama, as pilots are mercilessly interrogated ( Flight , Sully ) while insisting they did everything by the rulebook (even if they didn't). Then there are the more fantastic scenarios that capitalise on the irresistible mystery of flights

DECEMBER 2016

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