Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

Welcome to the Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

Destination Guides

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A round-up of the top films, music releases and books heading your way this month

Text Matt Bochenski
Image Rex Features

The Wrestler

Director Darren Aronofsky Starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood

After exploring the outer limits of his own psychedelic fantasies in The Fountain, director Darren Aronofsky comes crashing back to earth with a bump. It doesn’t get much more gritty than the mean streets of New Jersey, where ex-pro wrestler Randy “The Ram”

Robinson plies his lonely trade while dreaming of the long-gone glory days.

The Ram (Mickey Rourke) is part of the nether world of semi-professional wrestling, where has-beens and never-weres punish their bodies in front of ever-decreasing crowds.

The Ram was once a contender, a somebody – but as tightly as he holds onto the past, The Ram has squandered his future. He has a daughter who can’t stand him and the kind of dodgy ticker that brings new urgency to the phrase death or glory.

Aronofsky’s intense character study avoids all the clichés of the sports drama, thanks largely to his intimate hand-held style, and Mickey Rourke’s barnstorming performance. Only Rourke, with his battered boxer’s face, could inhabit a role like this – his own chequered past bringing a real resonance to the plight of this forgotten hero. Be warned, though: some of the wrestling scenes aren’t for the fainthearted.

Che: Part One

Director Steven Soderbergh Starring Julia Ormond, Benicio Del Toro, Rodrigo Santoro

In the late ‘70s, Francis Ford Coppola disappeared into a jungle with a film crew, a charismatic movie icon and a staggeringly ambitious plan to create the ultimate war movie. Thirty years later, Steven Soderbergh has pulled the same trick. And, like Coppola and Apocalypse Now, he’s returned with something sprawling, confusing and slightly intimidating. This biopic of Argentine doctor/Cuban revolutionary/student icon, Che Guevara, is an epic folie de grandeur, a film with a running time of over four hours, split into two, that keeps its hero at an emotional distance, ignores vast stretches of his life, offers little insight into his psyche but still, somehow, emerges as a fascinating portrait of a singular human being.

This first half maps out Che’s role in the Cuban Revolution, as one of Castro’s most fearless soldiers. Benicio Del Toro devours the screen with a performance that goes way beyond the beard and the beret. You might just have digested it by the time Part Two rolls around.

Jennifer Lopez

Greatest Hits

Before Beyoncé’s booty there was Jenny from the block’s butt, which was almost as well crafted as the pop songs that made her famous.

Remember Jennifer Lopez? She used to be famous, making great films with directors like Steven Soderbergh, churning out albums of fresh and funky tunes, working with some of the biggest producers in the game. Then came the diva-like behaviour, the entourage and Ben Affleck. People soon got sick of the millionaire megastar who kept insisting that she was really just a girl from the Bronx.

All of which has served to obscure the fact that, for a time there, J.Lo was on a high. For all that Beyoncé has redefined what it means to be a female pop star in the 21st century, this timely Greatest Hits album reminds us all that Lopez was the real deal, more than capable of rocking dance floors around the world.

Classic hits like Love Don’t Cost A Thing, Let’s Get Loud and Jenny From The Block are still capable of getting the party started, while a smattering of singles from the Spanish-language Como Ama Una Mujer play to Lopez’s huge Latin-American fanbase. On this evidence, she’s overdue a comeback.

Morrissey

Years Of Refusal

Morrissey – the man who famously sang “Heaven knows I’m miserable now” – has had good reason to be glum over the past 12 months. He spent most of the year in the dog house for a few – well, let’s call them injudicious – comments about the state of the UK. But he’s looking to put all that behind him with the release of his ninth studio album, Years Of Refusal.

Although the title could be a reference to smiling or cheering up, there are a few signs that we’re going to get a new, more chilled-out Morrissey.

For one thing, he appears on the cover of the album holding a child without looking like he’s going to eat it. And it looks as if the corners of his mouth are nearly curling up in what might just be Morrissey’s attempt at a grin.

And the music? Recorded in sunny LA, Years Of Refusal nevertheless contains tracks with names like Something Is Squeezing My Skull, Sorry Doesn’t Help and I’m OK By Myself.
But despite the downbeat titles, Morrissey’s writing and ear for a melody is as sharp as ever.
Heaven knows, he might even have reason to be satisfied!

Book club

This month’s must -reads

Let The Right One In
John Ajvide Lindqvist

Swedish novelist John Ajvide Lindqvist has been hailed as the new Stephen King, but his first novel, Let The Right One In, suggests that he’s a far grittier writer than the American maestro.

A vampire novel that sets out to undermine and subvert all the clichés of the genre, LTROI is as much a story of Sweden’s social disintegration as it is a blood-sucking blockbuster.

On a sink estate in a dull suburb, 12-year-old Oskar is bullied by his classmates, misses his dad and wets himself when he’s scared. But his life changes forever when Eli moves in next door. A quietly spoken little girl who never goes out in the daylight, Eli, it turns out, is a 200-year-old vampire with an insatiable thirst for blood.

From there, Let The Right One In evolves in utterly unpredictable, disarming and genuinely frightening ways, as Oskar and Eli combine forces to survive in a hostile and unforgiving world. Look out for the film version later in the year.

The Associate
John Grisham

In the least surprising development since the sun came up this morning, John Grisham, the unstoppable master of the legal thriller, has a new book on the shelves. And it’s a familiar set-up.

A brilliant young lawyer (he’s handsome, too, which should help when selling the role to a Hollywood actor) gets caught in the crossfire of a major industrial dispute when he’s blackmailed into joining a large law firm and indulging in a spot of corporate espionage.

This being Grisham, the courtroom action has a convincing ring of authenticity, but the legalese never gets in the way of the narrative thrills and spills that drive the plot forward.

Yes, there is the occasional sense of cynicism in the book’s film-friendly, three-act structure, but it’s hard to argue when Grisham’s writing skills are so seductive.