Over the weekend, Tengu and I witnessed a masterpiece, Snakes on a Plane. Now I know many of your were/are skeptical of this fine feature film. I am here to alleviate those doubts.
Now granted, you have to suspend some reality to really appreciate this flick. Mostly you need to not get hung up on the particulars of how and why the snakes are on the plane. Once the snakes get out and start killing people, the movie really comes into it’s own. It is very much like any disaster film even down to the stereotypical characters on the plane(stewardess on her last flight, man scared to fly, urban streetwise gangstas, etc.). Where this film shines is in the absurdity of the whole thing. Rather than scream or cringe at the many gruesome deaths, the audience is left chuckling and laughing because they are so over the top. I won’t detail them here in case anyone is moved to watch this film.
The performances are corny and a little silly but all done with a wink at the audience like the rest of the movie. It’s a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Overall I recommend this movie.
Also I wanted to point you all to the best show none of you are probably watching:
Metalocalypse.
It’s new show on Cartoon Network’s Adult swim. It is about the world’s most popular metal band Dethklok and all of their adventures. If you are a fan of metal or just a fan of humor I can’t recommend this show enough. Their mission is to do everything the darkest most metal way. Including coffee commercials, recording at the deepest part of the ocean and birthday parties. If you don’t get Cartoon Network, you can find the shows on You Tube. Here is a brief clip:
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9 comments:
The cheese categorically denounces your recommendation of said snakes on said planes! No, the cheese has not seen the film, and no he will not see it, no matter how many glowing reviews it garners.
It may not take itself seriously, but the question remains, should it have been made in the first place?
Also, it only took in 15 million over the weekend. Yes it was #1, but it only barely edged out Ricky Bobby. With any luck, this film will soon fall out of the top ten, and Hollywood will stop listening to bloggers!
I concur with the Cheese on this one. Said movie should never have been made. However, Metalocalypse is a pretty friggin awesome show.
Greatest possible qoute ever "Get These Motherfucking Decepticons Off this motherfucking earth" if only they'd actually add this for one of Optimus' lines.
The question of whether or not the movie should have been made is pointless. The movie was made. So what we're left with is whether the movie that was made was any good.
Do I think this will win oscars? Hell no. But that doesn't mean it isn't a fun diversion on a Saturday afternoon. What's wrong with a movie that is all fan service and fluff. The nice thing about this movie is that it knows what it is and what it is not. It doesn't try and pass itself off as anything but what it is, a b-movie about snakes on a plane. The only thing that seperates this movie from others in its genre is budget and hype. If anything you two should be upset at the hollywood engine that pushed this movie into the limelight instead of letting live in arthouse cult film closet where it probably deserves to be.
I must also point out that the cheese once drug me to see "Dude Where's My Car."
Hehe, "Dude Where's My Car." I still say is better than "Snakes on a Plane." Glad I'm never going to see either in a theatre. Though I did happen to see "Dude Where's My Car" and it sucked but then I expected it to suck.
First off, the cheese is all for fluff films (The Mummy, anyone?). What annoys the cheese here is that for some godforsaken reason this film got a ton of internets buzz. The studio thought they hit the jackpot, and shoved the stupid movie up everybodies asses as if Christ were going to return while the movie was screening.
And it isn't a pointless question to ask if this film should have been made. Major studio's release 11-15 films a year. It's a lot of time and money devoted to each one, so it's a very valid question to ask whether or not it was a waste of time/money/resources/actors to make any film. They could have decided to make something better, but they didn't. They wanted to make a film basically built around one stupid line...that's not the way to make a film, damnit!
And if memory serves, the cheese apologized for "Dude Where's My Car" to you Jezmon while exiting the theatre, so you can't hold it against him...everybody guesses wrong once in a while.
Just because the marketing was in your face doesn't automatically make a movie an abomination to all film everywhere.
And while you could argue the "worthiness" of any film to be made there has to be room for films to get made because the people in them want to make them. And not all of those films need to be pretentious art house flicks. I believe that as long as there is an audience to appreciate it, a film is worth making. It's kinda like the discussion that went on here about lawyers. You may not agree with someone else's beliefs but that doesn't mean they don't have the freedom and right to express them.
And to correct you the film was already in development when that famous line was penned. For good or for ill, that line was a direct result of all the internet buzz.
So the line grew out of the movie not the other way around. In fact the line doesn't really fit the rest of the dialog. Of course now you're going to throw that back in my face but I had to mention it.
Ahh, but civil rights and art/entertainment are not the same thing. Humans are/should be imbued certain inalienable rights when they are born. Films, and in fact any type of entertainment, have no such rights because they are not sentient beings.
And Dude Where's My Car certainly had an audience, so by your logic it was worth making.
No, the cheese rejects that argument. Some things aren't worth making, regardless of whether they have an audience or not. Certainly, one is free to make any film, but whether or not any film was a worthwhile endevor is a different argument altogether.
And back to that line...that's the whole point. It was only included once the internets nerds hooked onto the idea of the film. Look, if every movie were produced at the whim of internet buzz we would never have another good film made ever! It may have been in production before the buzz, but the buzz altered the course of the production, and that just shouldn't happen. Art shouldn't be produced at the whim of a bunch of nameless opinions on cyberspace. The cheese would have respected the film more, even if it had been the exact same film, without all the buzz. At least that way it would have been someone's actual vision, for good or ill. This way it was produced to target that buzz (and you'll no doubt argue that Jackson pushed to have the script relatively unchanged); effectively becoming a piece of market research in the guise of a film. The cheese believes this is the completely wrong way to produce art/entertainment. Say what you will about audience, the cheese believes art is for the artist, not the audience.
The problem is that we don't know what the artist's vision was (being that we are not them). For all we know, this is the movie they envisioned. Is there no room in an artist's vision for fan service?
I never said that Dude Where's my car shouldn't have been made. I didn't care for it that's true but I respect its right to exist. Just like any of the last few wayans brothers movies. Will I see them? No. but do I think they shouldn't have been made? No. People like them, they're just not my cup of tea.
True Art does not have rights but the makers do. People have the right to make crappy art or entertainment. I don't want to get too political but this is the same argument about contraversial art. You may not like it but that doesn't mean that the artist shouldn't have made it.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I don't have a problem with you not liking the movie. I don't care if you see it or not. I just think that there is room in this wide and varied world for a movie about snakes on a plane. The problem with being picky about what deserves to be made and what deserves not to be made is that it lacks the test of time. The movie may disappear into a bargain bin or it may not only time will tell. I don't think either one of us is really qualified to make that judgement call.
But you just made the cheese' point. Maker's do have rights, and the cheese would argue, obligations. The cheese doesn't question the movie's right to exist, he questions the intention with which it was made. The cheese said he would respect the movie had it not been made under such circumstances...it's a matter of doing something (whether it's good or not is irrelevant) in a "true" way. Fan service is all well and good, but that should not be a guiding principle of production. People are stupid. We don't know what we want, and can't agree on it anyway (see this argument for example). When an artist listen's to "what fans want" you don't get authentic art. If someone really wanted to make this film in it's final version (the cheese is not convinced this was ever the case, see Jackson's interview on the Daily Show) great for them. But it seems to have evolved out of a desire solely to make money based on percieved expectation from a group with loud (internet) voices. Fine, if that's what the studio wanted, but the cheese questions that motive as suspect. The film might be enjoyable, but the cheese will not watch it because of the situation surrounding the film. Does that make the cheese a film snob, possibly (but remember the cheese also raved about Harold and Kumar go to White Castle). In a way, this film represents, for the cheese, his distaste for much of how Hollywood operates. Maybe it's unfair, but this film gets to be the focal point for the cheese' unhappiness. Life sucks, but the cheese thinks Jackson, and everyone involved, will find comfort in their big ass paychecks.
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