The Aviary

This movie found its way into the Flight Attendant lounge yesterday where a group of airport stand-by crew sat and watched it - in disbelief! Do US crew really go drinking and sightseeing in their uniforms? Steal miniature bottles from the aircraft? Smuggle in dope? I'm sorry but we were dumbfounded how poorly this portrayed life of honest hard working crew. I must admit that it did reflect the chaos of airline crew - hotels, back of the clock, one city looks like another etc. but the consensus was that if this is a reflection of some airline crew it is certainly NOT an accurate commentary of all. Enjoy but take it with a pinch of (pre-packaged) salt!

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.

I just watched The Aviary and think this movie definitely rocks! It gets better with each viewing. As mentioned earlier, most movies about flight attendants are pretty crappy. They generally show us nothing more than one-dimensional, stereotyped characters saying and doing dumb things, with no clue about either the job or the life being a flight attendant. Not the Aviary. Silver Tree's thoughtful and touching script, together with director Abe Levy's creative and engaging style make this 88 minute film a real treasure.

The first thing that struck me was how professional it was, both in the production design and in the film editing. This isn't some summer-stock production crew lugging a digital camcorder around airports and hotels. Each scene and camera perspective was creatively thought out and there is style and clarity to the shots. From the opening few minutes, the Aviary is filled with engaging camera-work and creative editing that make it a first-rate production. You'll be seeing more from the director Abe Levy, mark my words on that. Since this movie was actually written by a working flight attendant, I knew the story and characters were going to be different that what I had seen in the past. We follow the surprise San Francisco transfer of Summer Pozzi, a looking-for-something-other-than-flying-in-life character warmly acted by Lara Phillips. There are other characters she deals with, particularly in her SFO apartment, but it's Pozzi we're following during her uncertain period in SFO with her roommates, hypochondriac mother, and various love interests. The surprise and shocking revelation toward the end of the film (which I'll not give away here, thanks) was a very engaging piece of screen writing. The characters in the SFO apartment aren't plastic Gwyneth Paltrow/Christina Applegate flight attendants. These are bored Ready Reserves who 'borrow' minis, smoke pot brought back from Amsterdam layovers, insult each other while pass-riding, and sit around staring at the phone in anticipation of the next crew desk assignment (one of the funnier sequences in the film). This group, like flight attendants everywhere, continues to play out two different lives; one in the aisle and the other everywhere else. And it's their trying to find a balance between the two lives that I think makes Pozzi and Lucas interesting to watch. Of course, this movie is filled with F/A images/dialogue galore like the rushed 2-4-6-8 counting of minis before landing, an ice mallet bonking the bag of ice, checking a manifest to see if someone is a NRPS, endless crew bag drags through airports, hotel curtains flipped open to different layover hotel views, and those unconformable F/A shoes everywhere.

My one suggestion (should there ever be an Aviary sequel) is: Make it longer and develop the Lucas and Kate characters more. I think the role of Lucas (played by Michael Gilio) was one of the more interesting characters in the film. I wanted to know more about him (exactly where did he come from and how did he get such incredible patience to deal with Kate, etc…) and see even more interaction between himself and Pozzi. The traveling montages and airport/flying musical sequences comprise good portion of the movie---and very cleverly done I might add---but I would have liked to have stayed with the roommates in SFO just awhile longer to more fully develop their characters and witness their interactions even further. Bottom line: 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. I think this is best exemplified early on in the film when a crew member asks Pozzi: "So, do you live with real people or flight attendants?" "Flight attendants," Pozzi responds. "Oh, that's good." Boy, does that say it all! A big congratulations to Silver Tree, Abe Levy, Daedalus Howell, and the rest of the cast/crew of this project for their marvelous achievement. The Aviary is a great addition to our profession and a lot of fun.-C. Lee