Byte Size: Mile High Movie Magic

A curated sampler of in-flight viewing from a 13.3 inch touch screen.

We all know that flying sucks, right? This isn’t some dark, mystic truth to be revealed to you now in this chosen moment. If you’ve ever flown internationally, for a stretch of time beyond say three or four hours, then you will know just how dire things get as time marches on without care or concern and the primal degradations of humanity begin to pile up on some bleak exponential curve.

So, what is to be done? Well, you could try reading (if you can, over the din of the screaming infants), or listen to music (if you can, over the incessant voiceover interruptions), or you could take advantage of the altitude and attempt to get blackout drunk (with diminishing returns based on your drink of choice) and embrace the brief interstitial state of welcome unconsciousness.

On my recent return trip from Australia to the UK—which involved a combined total of 52 airborne hours—I decided to busy myself with the delights of curated in-flight entertainment, as a welcome distraction from the recycled fart-box air and single-serve misery that surrounded me. Below is a studied and totally objective account of said delights. You’re welcome. Enjoy.

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Down With The King (2021)

Synopsis: “A famous rapper, disillusioned with the music industry and the pressures of being a celebrity, leaves the city and his career behind to find himself in a small-town farming community.”

I’ve been a big fan of Freddie Gibbs for close to a decade. I will sing the praises of his 2015 album, Shadow of a Doubt, at any available opportunity, and his two Madlib collaborations (2014’s Piñata and 2019’s Bandana) are up there with some of the best contemporary hip-hop of the millennium.

So, when I read that Gibbs was making a play for his feature debut with Diego Ongaro’s Down with the King, I knew I’d be seeking this one out. It’s a restrained film and one that was clearly influenced at the production level by the pandemic years. That said, Gibbs gives a commanding performance as a burnt-out rapper struggling under the weight of expectation and creative stagnation.

There’s plenty of humour and genuine pathos in what is an otherwise straightforward narrative, with an impeccable roster of supporting talent (Bob Tarasuk, Jamie Neumann, David Krumholtz) helping to elevate the material.

Mare of Easttown (HBO)

Synopsis: “A detective in a small Pennsylvania town investigates a local murder while trying to keep her life from falling apart.”

I remember this trending all over Twitter at the time of release, but I never really got any sense of what it was about, apart from meme-fodder related to Kate Winslet’s Pennsylvanian accent. Instead, what I found upon watching all seven episodes of Mare of Easttown in one sitting was an engaging, tightly-paced, and superbly cast police procedural akin to season one of True Detective (albeit minus the fatalist philosophy and supernatural surrealism).

It’s one of those shows where you’re very aware that it’s leading you this way and that way in order to drag out the obvious mystery and fill time with several red herrings, but by the time the body count rises and those pieces eventually fall into place, you’re still left with an overwhelming sense of “Ohhhh shit, I did not see that coming.”

We Own This City (HBO)

Synopsis: “Tells the story of the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force and the corruption surrounding it.”

If you’re making any kind of cop drama that involves drugs, guns, and corrupt guys on the take, then the indomitable legacy of HBO’s The Wire (2002-2008) is inevitably going to loom large in the background. Thankfully for We Own This City, Wire creator and writer David Simon was on board to give the six-episode mini-series his stamp of East Coast authenticity.

Based on the nonfiction book of the same name by Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton, the show details the rise and fall of the infamous Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force throughout the mid-to-late 2000s and into the politically tumultuous events of the 2010s.

If you weren’t already of the ACAB persuasion (and, truthfully, after the last four years, why wouldn’t you be?), then watching Jon Bernthal’s scathing portrayal of Sergeant Wayne Jenkins—a meathead dead-shit who actively lied, cheated, and stole thousands from the (often innocent) citizens he was sworn to protect through illegal forfeiture, racketeering, and overtime fraud—will radicalize you all too swiftly.

Raised By Wolves S2 (HBO)

Synopsis: “While Mother, Father, and the children face hostility from their new atheist collective, Marcus sets out to fill the walls of an ancient church with Sol's worshipers.”

Man, this fucking show. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, Raised By Wolves might just be one of the most bonkers sci-fi television shows in creation.

If you’re not familiar with the show’s general premise, then it’s going to be really hard for me to spell out all the ways this thing really goes off the rails in season two—flying baby serpent monsters, Sun god cults, prophetic visions, resurrected synthetic skeletons, psychopathic android killers, devolved humanoid fish-people, unholy flaming stigmata—but believe me when I say this: it totally does.

Sadly, the show was abruptly cancelled after this season concluded, leaving us with an unfortunate Carnivàle situation, where the resolution to an intriguing and beguiling world of fiction will forever remain painfully out of reach.

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Miscellaneous Cross-Row Observations

At several points in my watches of the above media samples, I was able to see glimpses of other people’s screens and voyeuristically absorb their in-flight delights at the same time, in a process that my wife assures me is very close to the 24/7 feeling of having ADHD brain. Very fun.

Please find some scattered thoughts and observations on those below:

• Dog (2022): Best I can tell, Channing Tatum is some kind of veteran with PTSD and he comes in possession of a veteran dog (or perhaps a veteran’s dog?) and has to … take it somewhere? Idk. I watched most of this film in six different fractured non-linear bursts, so the plot details are thin, but I do know that Ethan Suplee from My Name Is Earl is in this thing and he got kind of buff? Good for him. Big W.

• Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001): Okay, so, my wife actually did watch this on the plane and promptly drifted into a somnambulistic stupor about 20 minutes in. However, it also reminded me of a conversation I overheard in a Brighton coffee shop, where this young woman was describing the core concept behind the new Rings of Power TV show, where she uttered the phrase: “It’s based on these old films from the 2000s. They’re pretty good and the special effects are decent too.” Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just over here slowly collapsing in on myself until I become a black hole of millennial shame.

• Avengers Endgame (2019): My wife and I both watched a woman in our row watch the climax of this film with the kind of quiet, focused intent that borders on reverence. It was wild. Also, who in 2022 hasn’t already had this spoiled a thousand different ways by a thousand different Thanos-as-Grimace memes? The ignorance—intentional or otherwise—is actually impressive.

• Succession, S1: Still funny, even without sound. We do not deserve Brian Cox, but the show absolutely deserves its pile of Emmys and accolades.