In-flight Entertainment

My long-haul flights to Australia and back allowed me to watch some movies on in-flight entertainment.

Twisters

I originally thought that Twisters was a reboot of the original 1996 film Twister which I love and which stars Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. I have since read that it is apparently a standalone sequel. I couldn't really tell that it was a sequel though since there is no mention of anyone or anything from the original film, apart from the use of Dorothy to gather tornado data. While there are many similarities with the 1996 flick, there are a lot of different elements that give this movie a bit of a different feel from the first. I really enjoyed its twists - there were things I completely did not expect to happen - and I really liked the characters, especially the main protagonists. (I have to say that Daisy Edgar-Jones who plays the lead character Kate is absolutely gorgeous.) I also discovered that Bill Paxton's son James plays a small role in the film, which I thought was a wonderful touch given that Bill was one of the leads in Twister and he has since passed away.

Juror #2

I wasn't familiar with this movie until I saw it on the plane but the short description of it got me interested enough to watch it. And I'm glad I did because it was outstanding. (I later discovered it was directed by Clint Eastwood and I really do appreciate and think very highly of him as a director.) Juror #2 is kinda like a courtroom drama and a bit of a whodunit movie rolled into one. A huge revelation, which is shared in the very early part of the film, is such a huge and gut-wrenching twist that it kept me glued and wondering what would happen next. But what truly made it significantly more compelling to me was the moral dilemma upon which the movie is hinged and which drove the story forward. If you have a chance to see it, you should.

Captain America: Brave New World

I didn't watch this movie when it came out in the theaters because I thought you had to have watched a lot of the shows on Disney+, including The Falcon and The Winter Soldier series, but I was told later on by my friends that you didn't need to. So when I saw that Captain America: Brave New World was available in the PAL in-flight entertainment, I decided to watch it. It was actually not bad. The thing about these big blockbuster superhero movies is that they are action-packed and just a fun and easy watch. It was interesting to see the Red Hulk and even if his "secret" identity is already pretty known, it was still an interesting plot twist, adding excitement to the film's climax.

Delivery

I think I watched this Korean movie because it has a run time of only 101 minutes so it would be a relatively quick watch. I was also having trouble sleeping on the plane and I felt that watching a movie that required my to read subtitles would tire me out and make me fall asleep (it didn't haha). The premise of Delivery is that an infertile obstetrician fakes the pregnancy of his wife so they can get an inheritance, and they do this by paying a poor couple for their child. This movie kinda has similar vibes to the Oscar-winning Korean movie Parasite. It's not a feel-good movie, what with its social commentary and it's not-so-happy ending, but it does have pretty powerful themes.

Welcome to my Side

I'm surprised I ended up watching a second film that required me to read subtitles but (1) it had a 101-minute run-time, making it relatively short, and (2) it has an interesting premise. The short description of Welcome to my Side says: "After a painful breakup, Chen Xiaozhou is haunted by quacking rubber ducks. But when Feng Jianan enters his life, the ducks disappear, sparking a whimsical romance." To be honest, I am not quite sure I understood the revelation. Either I didn't read the subtitles very well or maybe things just flew over my head because I was so tired (this was the last movie I watched before we landed in Manila.) SPOILER ALERT: stop reading now if you don't want to know what I think happens. It seemed to me that the two leads were together before breaking up, then the male protagonist had an accident that caused partial memory loss, and he somehow forgot her and his relationship with her. I feel like I need to watch it again to fully understand it but it did have a happy ending, which was a good way for me to end a long haul flight from Australia to the Philippines.