Airplane!

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A parody of airplane disaster movies.

In the late 70s and early 80s, there was a spate of big-budget disaster movies, and one series of them happened in airports and on airplanes…the first and most famous being Airport with Charlton Heston.

So of course these very serious and disaster-laden movies needed to have fun poked at them. This was the first of two (the second being, of course, Airplane II: The Sequel) and was made in 1980. There were a few well-known people in the cast (Leslie Nielson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar come to mind, although there were several cameos, like Howard Jarvis, he of the California Taxpayers Revolt that nuked the state budget, getting stuck in a cab for the whole movie) but mostly the people were newcomers, like Julie Hagerty.

This was the fourth movie of our New Year’s Day Videofest (theme: Flying) and of course the big question in the minds of us who were old enough to remember it (you know who you are) was: will it still be funny?

The answer is a resounding YES. Sure, the technology is laughable, and of course the whole airport experience has changed…we all said, omg, remember that? when we saw Hare Krishna people in the actual airport asking for money…but overall, it was great. Some of the jokes, like the autopilot, I remembered; others, I had forgotten and that made them funnier.

A bit dated, but a lot of fun anyway. Rent and enjoy, especially with people of…a certain age.