Oh god. Listening to that NPR story made me realize that the thing that will ruin this movie for me is these fucking nerds who have nothing better to do than create bad Stone/Parker impersonations in hopes of modest internet notoriety.
I agree with this comment. Snakes on a Plane sounded entertaining a few months or even days ago, but now the fanboys are beating it to death with their song and trailer parodies. Next there'll be a New York Times story on it, and this fad will go the way of trucker hats. No one will actually buy tickets besides suburban empty-nesters and socially maladjusted Tarantino fans.
I really really still WANT to like this movie, and the trailer looks rad, but all this postmodern hype is slowly killing my glee.
It was funny as speculation, but I'm still skeptical about the movie itself. I wasn't impressed by the trailer - on top of the bad CGI, it seemed to confirm my worst fears, that this movie is mostly played straight with only a few hints of camp.
I have seen Snakes on a Plane (twice actually), and it is excellent. I especially admire that the scenes on the ground that bookend the film are rushed so as to give us as much time with motherfuckin snakes on a motherfuckin plane as possible. Every possible place on the human body that can be bit is bitten. Every possible thing that can go wrong with the plane goes wrong. Aside from being funny the movie is truly tense as well. And for some reason there is a kickboxer who says 'hiya!' as he kills snakes with his barehands. Fanfuckingtastic.
I loved it also, but I can't see myself getting it on DVD unless there is some awesome feature, like two hours of takes of sam jackson trying to get his epitaph worthy line right.
Snakes on a Plane must be the first Low-Concept film. Its disaster-movie premise—poisonous snakes are unleashed on a passenger plane by a crime boss attempting to stop an FBI witness from testifying—is so uncreative, it makes those calculated, High-Concept Paramount programmers of the 1980s like Flashdance and Top Gun seem almost Shakespearean. Low-Concept combines the craven and the ludicrous without shame.
And who is there to chide filmmakers so brazenly contemptuous of the public? By celebrating Snakes on a Plane for its blatant commercialism, the news media has demonstrated the most astounding collusion with Hollywood since The Blair Witch Project. (Remember that hoax?) It's part of our ongoing cultural degradation to promote Snakes on a Plane for its bold stupidity. Any response other than derision would be pathetic.
First, you have to consider the film's built-in derision. It comes from the filmmakers' cynicism. Director David R. Ellis teeters on a tightrope between parody and gruesomeness. Ellis uses the 1980 film Airplane as his model for setting up FBI agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) to escort crime witness Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips) on a flight from Hawaii to the mainland onboard a 747 with Claire Miller (Juliana Margulies) as the lead flight attendant. The low-budget, insincerely performed story repeats overly familiar jokes (“Is there anyone here who knows how to fly a plane?â€
I had supremely low expectations for SoaP earlier this summer after it really did seem the hype had reached such ridiculous heights, but now it's again starting to look like something worthy of seeing. Most of Armond White's review sounds like high praise to me, what with "full of panicking passengers and gross, detailed bitings, contusions, swellings, bleeding and mutilation. (It gets kinky with snakes latching onto a woman's nipple, a man's penis and even pleasuring a sleeping female passenger.)" and all. If the current state of mainstream cinema was any better, I might lament on how it's dangerous for filmmakers to start literally listening to fans on advice how to make their films, but in this case I think it was quite possibly a fine choice.
I can't believe anyone liked this film. I love trashy films, but they have to have some minimal amount of craft and/or wit, both of which Snakes lacks.
First of all, the conversion from PG-13 to R is laughably obvious. Whenever dirty words are uttered, the utterer typically has his back to the camera, is offscreen altogether, or is placed in front of a background where nothing is going on. And the nudity is just chopped in.
The one-liners are universally dull. Even the infamous "I'm tired of the MF snakes on this MF plane" falls flat because we've been hearing that for a year. The "acting" is atrociously lame.
I saw this in a moderately crowded NYC theater and it was clear that it did not engage the audience. At first they were very pumped and noisy, but pretty soon they fell quiet and the laughter was very sparse and sporadic.
P.S. I agree Armond White's review makes this film look enticing. Don't be suckered in by it.
I saw this in a moderately crowded NYC theater and it was clear that it did not engage the audience. At first they were very pumped and noisy, but pretty soon they fell quiet and the laughter was very sparse and sporadic.
Sounds like you got unlucky. I saw it in a moderately-crowded St. Louis theater and if you just listened in from the outside you'd think they were showing Rocky Horror in there. (I guess you could be considered "lucky" depending on your perspective.)
Just watched it. I thought it was a very funny film, provided you're in the right mood for that sort of thing. It isn't great cinema and makes no pretence towards it. Better to see a film self-aware of its campiness rather than one that tries to be classy and fails miserably. While it might be a problem if the style gets imitated wholesale, it works very well for this given the absurd nature of the entire plot. For me at least, even the 'dramatic' moments were funny just because of how overly elaborate the 'thousands of hyper-aggressive snakes from all over the world stowed all over the plane' scheme is. Talk about overkill.
My only problem with it is that it clearly needed more of the Evil British Guy. (tm)
Is it just me, or is "I've had with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane" not really funny? It's a very obvious phrase (in the context of the film) with some additional swearing. There's no wordplay or anything. Why do people like it so much?
It's not just you. Plus the place where they inserted it into the film made no sense. Why at that late point did they even need to break the windows and evacuate the snakes? They were about to land. Several innocent lives were almost lost due to that foolhardy decision.
Narshty wrote:Is it just me, or is "I've had with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane" not really funny? It's a very obvious phrase (in the context of the film) with some additional swearing. There's no wordplay or anything. Why do people like it so much?
Because people still want Sam Jackson to be Jules Winnfield.
Probably because it was a line with a story of its own, with its origin being in an online parody that later got 'borrowed' for the actual film. And I agree, there are funnier lines. (It has nothing on 'These are snakes on crack!" for one.)
