I bring my own entertainment on airplanes: I download movies, copy them to my phone, and test that audio and subtitles work correctly the day before a flight.
For a business trip on Wednesday, my movie was Johnny Mnemonic: In Black and White. It was great!
I thought the B&W was a real upgrade over the original. It reinforces the retrofuture of a story written in 1981 and set in 2021. Wikipedia notes:
A black-and-white version of the theatrical cut, the edition was developed by Robert Longo. While not a director's cut, it is nonetheless closer to Longo's intended vision for the film; he had desired to shoot in black-and-white but was denied the opportunity. Initially, for the film's 25th anniversary, Longo ripped a Blu-ray copy of the film and created a black-and-white version of the film himself. After contacting Don Carmody and informing him of his intention to release the new version of the film on YouTube, Carmody requested to see it first. Impressed, Carmody convinced Longo to approach Sony Pictures for an official release. Sony Pictures agreed to provide the film's footage to Longo for a professional conversion, so that they could release the new version on Blu-ray. Longo proceeded to re-grade the film's color in black-and-white, with the help of the film's original colorist Cyrus Stowe.
Love the idea of a director ripping a Blu-ray of his own movie so he can release a new edit on Youtube. Who says modern technology is bad?
I didn’t actually intend to watch something special on the flight. In that context, any old Alien vs Predator trash is perfect for me. I do it because you can’t trust in-flight entertainment systems. They are sometimes simply down, which is inconvenient enough, but the worst thing is that they pause the movie for any announcement over the intercom.
And like, fuck the safety briefing!
Fuck this captain’s fourth apology for the delay, fuck the performance of the lie that we have ever needed to place our devices in “airplane mode”, fuck the flight attendant who is mad that one of the cattle in economy tried to use the first class lavatory, fuck the credit card offer oh my god, fuck the instruction that we keep our seatbelts on after landing (??), fuck the verbal notice of the baggage claim carousel.
How dare you interrupt Alien vs Predator for this.
So I bring my own.