Bleeping airplane movies

One of only two times I've ever flown first class -- both times by lucky upgrade, I can assure you -- was travelling to my cousin's wedding in Atlanta in 1999. This was probably also the first time I privately watched a movie on my own seatback entertainment system. I still remember today that the movie was Croupier, one of Clive Owen's earliest films, and sort of a breakout for him -- though I personally didn't dig it. I remember it because I wasn't sure whether we'd get to see the full, unedited version of the movie on the plane. Once Alex Kingston, erstwhile of ER, disrobed part of the way through, I had my answer, and was thrilled by the possibilities of private airplane entertainment.

Well, that was then, this is now.

I certainly understand that particular images must be edited out of movies on planes, because there's no way to control which content is randomly witnessed by which small children wandering which aisles. What I don't understand, though, is why the dialogue must be edited on a movie that you have chosen to watch privately, through headphones only.

Yet that was predominantly the case on the five flights I took during my recent trip to the U.S., a trip whose jet lag is still affecting me a full four days after I returned.

I first noticed it during Begin Again, John Carney's better-than-expected follow-up to Once. One "No freaking way" might have been written into the script, but when it was followed up quickly by a "bullcrap," I knew that I was, indeed, involved in a very bullcrap situation. My viewing of the movie was not necessarily tainted, as I still really enjoyed it. But I wondered whether the full, unfiltered version would have satisfied me all the more. I imagined Mark Ruffalo dropping real f-bombs, rather than these little f-bellyflops, and knew that I had missed out on something.

I followed that up with The Fault in Our Stars, figuring that a movie intended for teenage girls would probably have a pre-approved, profanity-free dialogue track. Nope. This one was edited too, even with probably fewer than ten instances of naughty language overall.

Seeking to move toward greater certainty of a clean and unedited product, I selected period pieces as my next two movies on the flight: Belle and Magic in the Moonlight. These two also carried warnings about editing for content, though I did not notice anyone calling anything "bullcrap" in turn of 19th century England.

And though I liked all of these films quite a bit, dolling out three four-star ratings and considering a fourth such rating (Fault just ran on too long after hitting its sublime stride midway through), I did feel a bit cheated by Qantas Airlines for giving me a neutered and sanitized version of these movies. Aren't Australians supposed to be less prudish about language? You'd think so -- people swear on regular TV here.

I suppose the thinking is that a really savvy kid -- okay, even a halfway savvy kid -- could easily watch something verboten when his/her parent or parents are asleep. On a flight as long as the one from Australia to the U.S., there are ample opportunities to sneak in some forbidden viewing. I guess the airline thinks it's its responsibility to minimize that potential.

So, figuring I needed to head toward even more kiddie material the next day on my United flight from Los Angeles to Boston, I watched a Disney movie (Maleficent) and a Dreamworks movie (How to Train Your Dragon 2). Both appear to have been unmolested.

What really got my goat was when I was flying the fourth flight, from Denver to Los Angeles (the third, from Boston to Denver, had no video screens to speak of), and I paid good money for DirecTV in order to watch the inferior comedy Tammy. Even this was bleeped, though I suppose only a hint of Melissa McCarthy's grotesque shtick goes a long way. (Making matters more annoying, I was supposed to get $2 off per DirecTV rental if I bought at least three with the same card -- but my credit card statement did not show the discount.)

Imagine my surprise, then, when the first movie on my return trip to Australia -- Wish I Was Here -- included an f-bomb in the very first scene, as well as Zach Braff's bare ass in a masturbation scene just a few minutes later.

Huh?

So some movies are edited for language/content, but not all of them? Or did Qantas randomly loosen its standards in the two weeks between my first trip across the Pacific and my second one?

The next movie was Earth to Echo, a kids movie anyway, but then I got little bursts or profanity in both What We Do in the Shadows and These Final Hours, to finish out the trip. These Final Hours even included an orgy scene with a bunch of naked boobs, bringing us full circle to Croupier.

My ultimate conclusion is that if there was a dubbed version of the movie, they chose that one, but if there wasn't, they chose the full, unedited, R-rated version -- and didn't give it a second thought.

*shrug*

Not "how we do it"

Time Warner Cable is trying to render my favorite comedy from last year a lot less funny.

If you really like a movie, you prefer it in unaltered form -- whether that's Spielberg not replacing the guns with walkie-talkies in E.T., or just a line you think works really well the way it is.

But in Time Warner Cable's spot advertising Step Brothers, they've seen it fit to change one of these lines, presumably to get across the humor in a broader, less specific way. The problem is, Step Brothers was already facing an uphill battle against being considered too broad and unspecific. When it transcended those limitations excellently (see it if you don't believe me), it was a victory over our preconceived notions. The pay-per-view spot -- which I don't for a minute assume was actually commissioned by Time Warner, rather, simply aired by them -- undermines all that, and stops the discriminating viewer dead in his/her tracks.

Let's see if you've seen this ad. It features that moment when, in one of the movie's most regrettably famous scenes, John C. Reilly jumps on the upper bunk of a structurally unsound bunk bed, which he and Will Ferrell have just assembled with a delicate combination of two-by-fours and spit. The upper bunk immediately falls (and presumably crushes) a helpless Ferrell below.

For starters, I don't think this is among the 20 best scenes in Step Brothers. However, it does appeal to that middle-of-the-road, "I know what's coming but will still laugh" mentality that presumably sells lots of tickets. So I guess I get why it's considered a moment they want to showcase.

Actually, the film's writing team of Ferrell and Adam McKay make the moment a lot more absurd because of what Reilly says at the time of that ill-fated jump. I'm paraphrasing, but as he takes flight, like an excited six-year-old he spits out: "I forgot to ask you: Do you like guacamole?" Pretty random thing to be asking, right? Funny.

Except in this ad, his dialogue is changed to "This is how we do it!," sung "in the style of" (to use karaoke terminology) Montell Jordan, the artist who recorded and popularized the frivolous hip hop tune "This Is How We Do It" in the mid-1990s. I have to assume Reilly actually sings this song sometime in the movie -- even though I've watched it twice and don't remember that happening -- but it's certainly not during the bed-bounding incident. Oh, and to throw in an extra little something: They follow it with a surprised yelp from Reilly, which I believe also originated in a different scene, if it appears in the film at all.

This may seem like a lot of "column inches" (to use the old newspaper term) to devote to a fairly simple and inoffensive ruse. Trailers are nothing if not compressed, mashed-up versions of films, where information is imparted in a specific sequence not because that's how it unspools in the film, but because that's how it communicates essential details to the viewer in a limited amount of time. I get that. And I understand profanity is sometimes a consideration, as well. When watching Coraline among scads of elementary school kids -- many of whom were too young for the scarier shit in that film -- we saw a trailer for another Ferrell film, Land of the Lost. For the fragile ears of these youngsters, Ferrell's already-signature exclamation "Matt Lauer can suck it!" has been altered to "Matt Lauer can eat it!" The linguists among us can argue whether sucking a dick or eating shit is actually the more scarring image for a six-year-old, especially when "eat it" can also be interpreted as eating a dick. But nonetheless, there's no doubt it was changed to what was considered the less offensive term.

But how does John C. Reilly covering Montell Jordan really improve the bunkbed gag? Answer: It doesn't. It just drives away prospective viewers who are already looking for a reason not to discover one of the best surprises of 2008.

Well, I guess that just means I gotta work a little harder here on The Audient ...