BEFORE: OK, now that I've straightened out (or is it bent) the time stream, I can proceed with my movie plan, and now we're just a few days away from the big Summer Rock Concert (and Documentary) series. I know, we still don't have big summer rock concerts in real life, so perhaps my upcoming movies will be the next best thing. If I had a time machine myself, I'd peek into the future to figure out when movie theaters are going to open up, and whether movies like "The New Mutants", "Bill and Ted Face the Music" and "Black Widow" are going to be released in 2020. Oh, yeah, and I'd check in on that whole pandemic thing, to try to figure out when it might end, that's kind of important, too. But movies drive the U.S. economy, isn't that like our major export to other countries or something? Sure, yeah, corn and wheat, but also movies, too - we don't want to let Bollywood or Maliwood or Tollywood get a jump on us!
"Time Lapse" was a last-minute addition - no more jokes about time travel, please, but so is this one. And right now I have no idea if by adding films here and there, I'm using up all my extra slots and perhaps digging myself a hole that I won't be able to climb out of in December. Without knowing if "The New Mutants" will be released, I don't know how many slots I'll have in December to get to a Christmas movie - so just to be on the safe side, I've worked out chains that will get me from "Hellboy" to something Yuletide-y in a minimum of 4 steps, with a maximum of 12. I think that covers all my bases, but the problem is, they all rely on "Black Widow" being released in November, because "Black Widow" connects to "Hellboy". If I don't have that, my plans are no good, or I'll need to find another way to link to them. It's my own form of madness, making all these charts and graphs and not knowing if they're going to do me any good.
I can only make what I hope are the best decisions as I go along. So hearing about this film, which is new on AmazonPrime, and already having a place it can fit, seems a bit like divine providence, or as close as I get to it. I'm going to watch this one and hope for the best - Joseph Gordon-Levitt carries over from "Brick".
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The 15:17 to Paris" (Movie #3,563)
THE PLOT: When terrorists try to seize control of a Berlin-Paris flight, a young American co-pilot struggles to save the lives of the passengers and crew while forging a surprising connection with one of the hijackers.
AFTER: I like to have fun with numbers sometimes - way back when I started this blog, the 11th, 12th and 13th movies I watched were "Oceans 11" and its two sequels. Then my 300th film was, of course, that movie about Spartans, "300". I remember that Movie #1,000 was "2012" but I don't recall the reasoning, I think it was just late in 2011 and I wanted to see that movie before the events of 2012 did (or did not) happen. (Remember how quaint it was, when we all thought the world might end in 2012? We were perhaps a few years ahead of our time then.). I can't really save "7500" for Big Movie #7,500, because that would mean sitting on it for another...what, 12 years? I just don't have that kind of time - numerically, I'm only halfway there, and who knows if I'll still be doing this in 2032. Who knows if there will even BE a 2032? I'm not sure we're going to survive 2020...
A look at This Day in History tells me that today is the anniversary of the start of the Islamic calendar in 622. Also on July 16, 1232, the town of Arjona, Spain, declared independence and named an Islamic ruler, Muhammad Ibn, who later established the last Muslim state in Spain. On July 16, 1909, Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar was forced out as Shah of Persia and replaced by his son. And on July 16, 1948, the city of Nazareth capitulated to Israel during the Arab-Israeli War. And on July 16, 1979, Iraqi president Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr resigned and was replaced by (wait for it...) Saddam Hussein.
Ah ha ha - also on July 16, 1948, a passenger seaplane operated by Cathay Pacific was hijacked in the first aircraft hijacking of a commercial plane. Now we're cookin' with gas... and on July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a plane crash in the Atlantic between New Jersey and Martha's Vineyard, along with his wife and sister-in-law. (Also, happy birthday to Phoebe Cates, Will Ferrell, and my sister!) That's about it for the intersection of Muslim and plane-related news.
So, you can see that, much like "Time Lapse", this film basically had to be slotted HERE, or else nowhere. With a largely Turkish (?) and German cast, and just one American name actor, it had to be placed between two other films starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, or it can't be included, not according to my current rules and limitations. Honestly, these rules are both constraining and liberating at the same time, and if something seems inevitable, or at least fortuitous, that's the direction I'd prefer to go in - I've changed things up a few times already this year, and that's what got "Selma" included in the mix a couple months ago, so that seems to be working out for me, I just have to be ready to change things up if that seems at all like a good idea.
I'm avoiding talking about the story here, but this is a tense thriller in an enclosed space, so if you have any sort of claustrophobia, fear of flying or fear of terrorist attacks, this might not be the film for you. It's a triple threat on the phobia scale, for sure - I wouldn't even dream of asking my wife to watch this one with me, it's most of her nightmares rolled into one. (And it would be all of them if that plane was serving seafood...)
Pilots and co-pilots train for this sort of thing, I'm sure, but that's probably different from living through the attack first-hand. Would a pilot be willing to take up arms and defend himself from a terrorist if that meant saving the crew and passengers? The flip-side of that question is, would a pilot be willing to sacrifice any of the crew or passengers, if that meant denying the terrorists from getting whatever it is they want. I suppose these are complicated questions, and nobody can really predict what they would do once the hummus hits the fan and they're dealing with actual demands and real-time violence. We've been trained to "not negotiate with terrorists", but is that always, in fact, the best method of dealing with them? What if we did give them what they wanted, would they go away, or can we state categorically that they're not to be trusted? And if we did give them what they wanted, would they then demand something else? No concrete answers here, I'm just speculating.
NITPICK POINT: Would the airlines allow a pilot and a flight attendant who are in a relationship to be working on the same plane? I've known a few couples over the years, especially those with children, who travel on different planes, just on the slight chance that there would be some kind of incident or accident. Of course, this situation dramatically ups the ante for our co-pilot character here, it gives him extra motivation to save the crew, but I'm just wondering if there are real-world safeguards against this sort of thing happening in the first place. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe since they weren't officially married, they never told the airline? They did try to keep their personal lives separate from their professional ones, but as you can see here, that sort of thing doesn't always work.
Anyway, we learn tonight how to really piss off an airline pilot - be one of the first people to check in for a flight, so your baggage gets loaded on to the plane first, and then be late for check-in, which will prompt the airline to consider taking your luggage OFF the plane, both for your convenience and as an added safety measure. (A person checking in their baggage and then NOT showing up for the flight is a huge red flag, as it should be. Think about it.). Here the pilot has to make a terrible choice - ask the baggage handlers to move ALL the other luggage out of the way to get to those two suitcases of the stragglers, which could delay take-off for 15-20 minutes, or let the bags fly to Paris without their owners, which would be a safety risk. The passengers do show up at the last minute, at which point the pilot is tempted to remove the bags anyway, just to teach the tardy fliers a lesson. So the next time your baggage doesn't make it with you to your destination, that's a chance for some reflection, perhaps - ask yourself if you acted like a dick at the airport, and if so, make the appropriate behavior corrections.
Also starring Omid Memar, Murathan Muslu, Aylin Tezel, Aurélie Thépaut, Carlo Kitzlinger, Paul Wollin, Denis Schmidt, Hicham Sebiai, Cornel Nussbaum, Passar Hariky.
RATING: 6 out of 10 fastened seat belts
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