Airplane Movies

One fun thing about long flights is that you get to enjoy the movies they play on the way. On the way over (when I mostly needed to be sleeping) they had a million movies to choose from and it was all on-demand. On the way back (when it was probably best to stay awake the whole time) they didn't have many choices, and they just played two cycles of movies, which was a bit disappointing. Anyway, here's what I ended up watching:

The Golden Compass
This movie is based on the book of the same name by Phillip Pullman. It is set in Oxford, but in a parallel universe. The main characters is a little girl who goes on an adventure to save her friends, and along the way there are cowboys, polar bears, witches, and lots of other fun types of people. The acting was good - I thought Nicole Kidman and Dakota Blue Richards both did a great job. It was a fun movie, I thought, but there was a lot cut out of the book to make it movie length. I wonder if someone who hadn't read the book would understand it as well.


Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
This movie was pretty funny. Really silly and ridiculous, but still entertaining. It was funny to see Jenna Fischer outside of her normal role as Pam on The Office. It makes fun of Walk the Line quite a bit - so it helps if you've seen that movie before you watch this one.




Lions for Lambs
Though this movie was directed by Robert Redford and starred him, Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep, I had actually never heard of it. It's all set in present times. Tom Cruise was a senator trying to convince Meryl Streep, a reporter, that she should do a positive report on Afganistan. Robert Redford is a Political Science professor trying to convince a promising student not to give up on the system. The film really pushed its message hard, and didn't leave much up to the viewer to think about. That made me think less of the movie, I think, so I wasn't that impressed.