Yup, went to see the much-anticipated Snakes on a Plane last night, and as about three thousand film reviewers have observed, this is a movie with a foolproof combination of elements: snakes+plane+Samuel L. Jackson. Truly, a film that deserves B-movie classic status right out of the gate. Not just because of its beautifully absurd premise, in which a mob boss attempts to kill a federal witness by releasing hundreds of poisonous pheremone-crazed snakes on a 747 bound for LA; not just because we see Samuel L. Jackson killing said snakes with a taser, or hearing him utter his instantly immortal line "That's it! I've had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!"; not just because in addition to the smaller and swifter poisonous snakes, the gangsters also put on board a massive boa constrictor; and not just because Todd Louiso, who played the geeky Dick in High Fidelity, plays a twitchy snake expert, or because Julianna Margulies aka Nurse Hathaway from ER is a flight attendent ...
No, those are all just various cherries on a big giant B-movie cake. Really, it's just all about the title. I don't think that in the history of film there has been a title that has excited quite so much buzz and fascination before the fact; and I suppose one could argue that if blogs had existed in the era of Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! that Russ Meyer would have found himself negotiating script requests from the online clique, but I don't think so. "Snakes on a Plane" -- how economical, how elegantly concise a concept summed up with brilliant precision in four monosyllabic words. You almost don't need to make the film at that point.
1 comment:
Did your theatre also erupt into applause when SLJ dropped his "muthafuckin' snakes..." line? Mine did, and it was one of the great moviegoing experiences of my life.
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