The Aviary, the recently released feature film lovingly crafted by my pals Silver Tree and Abe Levy (writer and director respectively) is proving to be the "little plane that could." Inspired by Silver's experience as a flight attendant, the duo has created a romantic comedy that both takes wing and remains grounded in what truly makes a flight attendants' world go 'round -- even when they're 30,000 feet above it.
Expertly directed by Levy (for the love of god, man, how many films is it now?) The Aviary is a marvelous ode to those airborne angels of the aisles, who, we are reminded in this charming peek at their here-there-and-everywhere lives, are more than over-ogled dispensers of peanuts and little bottles of booze.
Online DVD sales from the film's official website are in steep ascent, creating an upsurge of interest that bodes well for an upcoming engagement at the tony Lark Theater in Marin County later this summer (more on that as it comes).
Industry forums are abuzz with good word and suggest the film will continue to soar. One message board weirdo, however, had the audacity to claim that he had seen the DVD and called into question the film's authenticity and whether or not Silver was a real flight attendant. This, of course, took a tremendous flight of fancy on his part seeing as, at the time, the DVDs hadn't even been shipped yet.
This ground-ling probably learned everything he ever wanted to know about flight attendants from other airline-themed, ahem, films that lacked The Aviary's verisimilitude and rightfully crashed and burned.
"Soul Plane" came and went, or more specifically went all over itself. "The Terminal" lived up to its name and was D.O.A. at the B.O. "View from the Top" was an Al Qaeda plot that was accidentally made into a movie. And what of the German gem "Die Kessen Stewardessen" (mysteriously translated as "Flying Sex" when released stateside)? "Nein," I say, "nein."
The ONLY movie about flight attendants penned by an actual, real deal, working flight attendant is The Aviary (if I'm wrong you can give my co-producer credit to Otto Pilot).
This fact was not lost on critic Christopher Lee (no, not the Sith) who raved in JumpSeatNews, an online hub for flight attendants, "This is a wonderfully entertaining movie and I couldn't help seeing The Aviary as a celebration of F/A life. And we all need that now. We need some fun to revisit why we do what we do." Here, here.
