Films to watch on a plane when you are scared of flying

When you are a nervous flyer like myself, the prospect of a long-haul flight is as appealing as sitting through that Faye Dunaway/Pauly Shore elusive comedy, Honk if you're horny, in a loop. And once inside it is as enjoyable as lying in a coffin. Filled with snakes. For 10 hours. (Or if you're Samuel L. Jackson: motherf@$ing snakes on a motherf@$ing coffin).

John's fear of flying took a turn for the worst

Yet as usual, movies are here to help. And there is something that I have always found to help (apart from copious amounts of alcohol), and it is rom-coms. Not proper comedies as slapstick comedy is not so good for nerves, even animated films can be a bit full on, like Megamind was a little too stressful today while going through some mild turbulence because of the non-stop crazy camera angles.

Rom-coms on the other end are the best bet. There is something soothing about the glossy interiors (that the characters, often on low paid and vague creative jobs could not afford in a million years in real life), all the neutral colours and wood panels, you just know the direction is not going to go all Michael Bay on you, the stories will be undemanding, the characters pretty and likeable.

Morning glory

And while I would have rather have my tongue slit in two lengthway than watch them in the cinemas, I sat through a double bill of Love and other drugs and Morning glory to forget that I was 30,000 feet up in the air. Love and other drugs, an unlikely mix of sex, drugs, Viagra and Parkinson disease, started off quite well, with some rather bold and more graphic scenes, and a lot more relaxed attitude to casual sex than your average American film. Then it toyed with the idea of lumping Anne Hathaway with a uncurable disease then got scared of its subject and decided to end abruptly rather than deal with the icky fallouts of the illness.

As for Morning glory, I was expecting a throwback to the 80's microtrend of the newsroom comedy (ie Broadcast news), as in smart, witty and sharp, yet it was about as sharp as a marmalade knife, and as witty as leading lady Rachel McAdams' lipgloss. Its slightly nauseous premise was that everybody prefers dumbed down and frivolous subjects rather than "smart" news (especially women), and it completely wasted the potential for some killer banter between Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton bar one scene. In fact, it seemed that somebody hired Diane Keaton then forgot to write her a part.

But it did the trick, I am in Las Vegas safe and sound, with no plans to wake up to a tiger in my room (as yet).