When Will I Learn To Stop Watching Movies on Long Flights
Something you wouldn’t guess (I hope) upon casual acquaintance is that I’m a very emotional movie watcher. 
I didn’t used to be this way, but as the years passed I find myself increasingly grinning like a fool at sweet spots and tearing up at the least bit of selflessness or nobility. As for death scenes, don’t even get me started.
So all of this means I should avoid the movie section of inflight entertainment systems as no good seems to come of it. After about one or two moving movies, I end up sobbing into my entrée, thoroughly confusing the flight attendants and getting my vacations off to a sad start.
This time it was Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit followed by a series of dystopias including Hunger Games and Ender’s Game. Last time, I was watching Taken 2 and Argo while traveling alone halfway across the world. Leaving me in a slightly weird mental state when I arrived at my destination.
Reruns of Seinfeld it is!
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Enders game was the biggest disappointment for a long time. I love the book and regularly reread it, but the movie was terrible.
I totally agree, which is why it was even more frustrating that I wound up crying at the final battle and then the scene with the queen (which wasn’t even how it happened in the book!).
Well I guess those are better than watching Hostel.
I have the same problem with books. There have been many teary-eyed times on the plane! The worst though is I made the mistake of reading The Art of Racing in the Rain while eating dinner alone at a restaurant on my kindle. Now I just sit at the bar and watch whatever is on the TVs.
On the plane–I cried reading the Hunger Games even though it was my third time through and I knew the person makes it through that situation. Yeaaaaaah, good one, Jeanne.
Is it possible that this problem is more pronounced on planes for you? There’s actually a bit of research on why people (all people, including the kind you wouldn’t think would ever cry in public) tend to cry during movies on airplanes. It’s pretty crazy.
This American Life did a segment about it a few years ago:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/426/tough-room-2011?act=4
And Virgin Atlantic even had a little fun with it:
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/aug/18/virgin-atlantic-films-warning
I know it’s certainly true for me. I don’t usually cry on the ground during genuinely touching movies, but when I’m watching on IFE, even mild movies I’ve seen before (recently, Frozen, which I was watching for the 3rd time ORD-SFO) can get me way more teary than can be passed off as “something in my eye.”
Thank you! This is not only interesting, it also makes me feel better 🙂
I sobbed and laughed on my plane rides to and from Korea a couple of weeks ago. That never happened before but the movies I was watching invoked such emotion I couldn’t control it.