Friday Five: Films on a Plane

More from the intermittent series of Films on a Plane, from when I travel to places and desperately try to get through the journey somehow - the last month consisted of two forty-plus-hour 'days' of flying and waiting at airports.

Seven Films Watched on Planes:

1. The Duke - Feel-good vibes abound from helping others, fighting injustice and standing up to the establishment. Totally unrealistic but rather sweet and charming film to watch with a cup of tea and a ginger biscuit.
2. The Electrical Life of Louis Wain - The bizarre tale of Louis Wain is played out by Benedict Cumberbatch and narrated by Olivia Colman. He is awkward and intense with a remarkable talent for drawing and a tendency towards mental illness, having to look after his family (mother and five sisters) when his father dies. He falls for the unconventional governess, Emily (Clare Foy), to much gossip and condemnations: she is the wrong class, bohemian in outlook and ten years his senior. There's a star-studded class including Andrea Riseborough, Toby Jones, Aimee Lou Wood, Taika Waiti and Nick Cave, lots of sickness, death and disappointment, and some very odd, whimsical moments. But Wain's drawings "change people' perceptions of cats, making them acceptable as house pets", and for that we are truly thankful.
3. Encanto - Disney film with songs about a magical family who all have a special talent apart from the one who doesn't, but of course she does after all because she restores the magic and proves your value is not in your gift but in who you are. The sentient house is fun but the story is schmaltzy and goes on too long. 



4. The Eyes of Tammy Faye - Jessica Chastain is excellent in a complicated role of compassion, manipulation and self-delusion. Andrew Garfield seems weak in comparison. it features multiple levels of hypocrisy and superficiality from the make-up and minks to the partner pledges and religious condemnation of vulnerable minorities. The design is fantastic, capturing the tacky opulence with a hollow centre.
5. House of Gucci - Adam Driver Lady Gaga, Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons tell an intriguing tale of a privileged family cursed by secrets, cheating and greed. Jared Leto is in an entirely different film from the rest of the cast.
6. King Richard - Will Smith plays father to the Williams sisters (there are five of them), insisting that they do other things besides play tennis (schooling; languages; musical instruments etc.) and doesn't push them too hard through tournaments and competitions. It's an unconventional approach and looks like they lived the dream, although they very probably didn't. The young women who play Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (Demi Singleton) are very good (and the two sisters are both executive producers) but, as the title suggests, it's all about him.
7. The Lost City - Clever author (Sandra Bullock) has to write trashy romances because that's what sells. Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Da'Vine Joy Randolph and (briefly) Brad Pitt are all just fine in this action/ adventure/ treasure-seekers romp with exotic locations. It's ludicrous, but it passes the time on a plane after 20+ hours of travel.

My Newest Favourite Thing: Diagonal Lifts

When I was a child and I tried to envisage the future, my mind was full of social and technical achievements. I saw driverless cars; phones on which you could see the person as well as talk to them; and lifts that went in all directions rather than strictly up and down. I also dreamed of equal rights and pay for women in a world where women's sport was taken as seriously as the men's equivalent; where women had the right to drive cars and not be accused of witchcraft and beaten to death; where a woman had the right to decide what she did and did not want to do with her body and was valued for more than her ability to reproduce. Clearly that last one is a bit too far-fetched. 

But the new incline lifts on London's Elizabeth Line run proudly parallel to the escalators, rather than vertically. Apparently this is a cost-effective exercise with additional ecological benefits. The diagonal design is cheaper to build as it 'negates the need for the costly excavation of a lift shaft and will reduce power consumption by nearly 50 per cent'.

I'm sure that some nerdy lift electrician (now, where can I find me one of them?) could explain all the practicalities to me if I really cared, but I just think they look cool and can't wait for them to do loop the loops and fly off into space. That's totally possible, right? 

Original artwork for Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Incidentally, the new Elizabeth Line will slightly redress the gender imbalance of nomenclature. There are currently only three stations named after women: Seven Sisters; Victoria and Lancaster Gate - this latter being so-called in honour of Queen Victoria in her guise as the Duke of Lancaster, as the monarch is styled, regardless of gender.

Aware of this injustice, Londoners Reni Endo-Lodge and Emma Watson created a City of Women tube map for International Women's Day this year. The map is available to buy and there's also an interactive version on-line where you can look up more details about the women featured.

"The usual names of London's 272 Underground stations are switched out for pioneering female figures across every genre - the arts, sport, politics, activism... the list goes on. Among them are household names like Audrey Hepburn, Adele, Mary Seacole, Madhur Jaffrey, Michaela Coel, Boudica and the Ford sewing machinists, as featured in the film Made in Dagenham. Even Holloway - the erstwhile women's prison - gets a namecheck."

As for my childhood vision of the future? Well, I guess three out of four ain't bad.