Your plane was delayed because some woman demanded to know why the rules about overhead luggage should apply to her. You've squeezed yourself into your middle-row seat only to be jolted deeper into a claustrophobic crisis when the passenger in front of you suddenly decides to hit the recline button. And then the baby three rows back starts crying, expressing what everyone is already feeling on this five-hour flight — get me out of here!!
That's when Eric Lauzon comes to your rescue. The manager of in-flight entertainment for Air Canada, he's the one who helps determine what you can choose to watch on the small screen ahead of you. He can literally make time fly by.
He knows that most of us are going to reach for the most recent Hollywood releases. But after watching that first movie, he invites you to take a few moments on the Enroute Film Festival channel. For the next four months, the 2013 finalists will be aired, four per month, with the winners — including a People's Choice — to be announced at the Toronto gala in November.
Two of the films are by Vancouver filmmakers and both are absolutely delightful.
Asian Gangs is a tongue-in-cheek self-mockumentary written by and starring Lewis Bennett. In Grade 5, Bennett got into a schoolyard fight in Langley. When the principal called his mother into the office, he warned her that if Lewis didn't change his ways, he'd one day be in an Asian gang.
When, years later, his mother reminds him of the principal's finger-wagging, the revelation sends Bennett into a tailspin of angst. Bennett — whose white, middle-class face would scream "guilt!" if you caught him eating one of his favourite Oreos cookies just before dinner — interviews his mother, some Asian friends, a retired police officer and a former gang member. Could it be possible that he was a member of an Asian gang and didn't know it?
But the funniest scene is when Bennett invites his former elementary school nemesis back to the place where his path into gangsterhood reportedly got started, the soccer field at North Otter Elementary School. Reading the principal's notes, they re-enact the fight and, in the end, make their peace. The film ends with Langley's other claim to fame, the Langley Ukelele Ensemble, playing William Tell Overture. Who can't smile at that?
Asian Gangs will be screened in August.
SFU grad Sophie Jarvis's The Worst Day Ever is magic thanks to finding the perfect actor to play Barnard, White Rock's Jakob Davies. (He's Pinocchio in Once Upon a Time and has just filmed the next Jean-Pierre Jeaunet film, The Young and Prodigious Spivet, with Helen Bonham-Carter and Callum Keith-Runney.)
Barnard is eight years old and carries the weight of the world on his sturdy if small shoulders. In this malady of errors, he's blamed for absolutely everything, including a meteor that crashes into his neighborhood. When his father shows him a drawing of what the word divorce means — dad in one house, mom in another — your heart almost breaks when this earnest, absolutely perfect young kid asks, "Where do I fit in? What about me?" He then has to listen to his parents fight about who gets to keep the dog (which dies when Barnard takes him out for a walk after his "zero-tolerance for lateness" teacher locks him out of school; he was late because he cooked a three-course breakfast for his parents.)
Brilliantly funny enough to take your mind off even the most obnoxious person sitting next to on the plane, The Worst Day Ever will screen in November.
But you don't have to book an Air Canada flight to watch the films, or vote for your favourite. Go to enroutefilm.com, sit back, stretch out your legs and enjoy.