One of the most curious things to me about movies as a medium in 2019 is that you can experience the same (or nearly so) object in a dizzying array of formats. Let’s take, for example, ah, Kong: Skull Island, a movie I watched in that final frontier of formats: in-flight entertainment. So, look, you can watch this movie in a darkened, aggressively silenced movie theater a la Alamo Drafthouse, boozy milkshake and loaded fries in hand. You can watch it accompanied or alone; in your living room, backyard, bed, or kitchen; as a primary activity or in the background as you fold your shirts or bake a quiche; on a laptop or TV or projector pointed at your empty white wall. You can watch it on your phone on the bus or as you walk down the sidewalk (quit that!). And you can watch it, as I did, on one of those pacifying screens lodged in the headrest of the airplane seat in front of you.

Sure, you say, but so it is with all things. But, look, watching music performed live (equivalent, in our analogy, to the primary experience: the theater viewing) is consuming a different product than listening to the recording. You can see a piece of art in a museum and look at it later in a book, but the dimensions have diminished from three to two. There isn’t exactly a scaled-up experience of reading a novel, unless you veer into the territory of author readings; there, again, the product itself, along with the environment, has shifted. You can’t take a capital-T Theatre or performance art experience home with you.

But with Kong, you have the same rectangle of light and sound whenever and however you experience it; it will be bigger or smaller, in a dedicated or more hectic space, sound delivered by booming 7.1 surround or airpods with American Airlines credit card announcements vying against souped-up monsters to steal the scene. What does this do? I think this perpetual experience of spending time with the same object in a range of settings pure and diluted wears away at the boundaries between films’ internal logic/perception/time-spent and our own.

Do you have scenes from certain films that pop into your head unbidden and constantly, informing or interacting with whatever is happening in front of you? Of course you do! One of my aesthetic north stars is this scene from Wings of Desire where Nick Cave is playing to a swaying Berlin crowd in a smoky basement while angels sadly weave across the stage. Apart from one very intense Hyperreal night in an underground concrete bunker, I’ve never actively recreated the trappings of this environment, but the barrier between it and my id is thin. Those notes frequently osmose through in a way that might not be directly productive, yet feel familiar and kind.

A few years ago, after making that hallowed and privileged mid-20s decision to go to grad school, I vowed a firm vow to myself: I would NEVER do anything necessary or productive while air-traveling. Those boundaries are important, you know, especially in seasons of arbitrarily and self-imposed massive stress. Approaching Thanksgiving my second year of school, when I bought a plane ticket stacked at the same time as my Medical Anthropology mid-term and was informed I’d get failed right quick if I didn’t cancel my (non-insured, oof, who has time for that) flight, it was the prospect of arriving at the liminal space of the airport, free from worry, ties sundered with the outside world, that kept me calm. Damn, I’d posit that for sheer quantity of comfort endorphins released, finding a quiet corner with a plug on an airport floor rivals the “fall is my whole personality” trifecta of blanket/Mug O’ Tea/gentle novel.

Watching movies in an airport is probably the most chaotic way you can consume Kong (here, again, standing in for all movies). Did you see something?? Well you better say something dammit! The people-watching pull is inexorable; the snacks in a liminal space taste 10x better; the urge to ruminate on the final scene of that generational scam of a movie Love Actually is ever-present. What does love look like, and is it real? How are all the people I’ve ever loved doing right now? Oh shit look John C. Reilly is wearing a jacket with his catchphrase from Tim & Eric! Everything is connected, baby, wow. Good thing I’m in Group 9; I’ve got time to go purge my body of two full Ventis. Kong (here, standing in only for itself), as yet viewed only once, is concrete-boot-associated with infinitely-in-motion people and fluorescent lights and tall, tall ceilings.

So, here’s the final piece of this final frontier puzzle: the airport, liminal and insulated from the rest of the world, presents a space where taste and responsibility are obliterated. The airport is not a time to educate yourself or “work” at watching movies (as explored in this great Glasstire piece), it is truly the last environment where “passing time” is not only not a failure of capitalizing each moment to its full potential—it can be embraced. It’s the last place where, for example, as someone who (admittedly does not make money from and yet) spends a huge amount of (beloved) time running a film non-profit, I can feel not a single twinge of wasted-time-anxiety around spending broken pieces of 10 going-and-coming hours watching my latest airport melange: X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Detective Pikachu, Millennium Actress, New Jack City, and The Dead Don’t Die. I love the idea of performing actions in a span of borrowed time, like Yusuke Urameshi squashing demons after being resurrected as a super-powered spirit detective, or like me musing about borrowed time while sitting in this quantum time-stretching experiment of an Austin Public Health agency training.

And now, triple-check your departure gate on the big board, rip open a bag of Flipz, squeeze into your comfiest plug-having corner, and stay tuned for Part 2 where we’ll check in on the multifarious melange. Long live Kong.

Watching movies in airports