You can adorn this fluff with Adorno, but it's still fluff. And then there's the assertion:"Everyone who hears about it loves "Snakes on a Plane."

Says who?

The largest opening weekend for an R-rated movie is The Matrix Reloaded, with $91.8M. I'll wager this beats it. I'll be there.

(Incidentally, The Passion of the Christ is #2. Which will be more violent? And will the snakes die for our sins?)

Notice how after a spate of well-earned criticism these past few months that Tommy's cut 'n' pasted cartoon simply no longer allows "letters to the editor" on Salon.com. Clever. He churns out the same cartoon, cashes the check, and doesn't have to read anything that might disturb the fantasy playing in his head. He's picked up the lesson most of the major studios already know, as documented in this interesting article. In short, "We'll tell you what to like, dammit. When we want your opinion we'll create it for you."

Is there any other bit of fun and light humor that you'd like to deconstruct into dry flakes? How about 'Spongebob Square-pants', a pre-modernist post-millenialist trek into the sunset of humanity- a Kafkaesque nightmare?

Ask not who they're laughing at. They're laughing at you.

I liked this article. It's funny and witty, and it lets me know I'm not the only person inexplicably fixated on the phrase 'snakes on a plan'. But then, I love Tom Tomorrow, too.

Everybody else needs to chill out.

the senator from Texas who slapped Quayle silly was named Lloyd Bentsen, not Lloyd Benson.

You write that nobody's seen this movie. So you haven't seen it. So how do you know it sucks? Speaking of blogosphere manipulation, don't you suppose the studio may have changed the title precisely to stimulate massive outrage? And "if blockbuster movies were named in accordance with what they actually are," there might have been one called: Towering Inferno.

Not impressed with this article.

Author is trying to be 'right on' by littering her piece with expletives which isn't funny and in the old days would have been admonished, due to the fact that the writer has a limited vocabulary,

Also what is wrong with using the blogosphere to promote a film? I see, just below the review of Snakes, Salon.com has a button linking to 'what bloggers are saying about this article'!

Public Relations is below the line publicity. Advertising is above the line. All legitimate forms of promotion and no reason why blogs shouldn't be utilised.

TM x

By the way click my signature and pop over to my blog for a cup of tea. How unutterably shameless of me, eh?

It's not that this is a bad article. It's fine, very smart. It's just, well, I mean, I love the title and the movie idea, but not because I think it's an arthouse title, not because I'm cynical about Hollywood either or even because I appreciate a Hollywood movie that "sees" its own facade. I mean, Hollywood movies are like any other form of possible art, sometimes pure in intent, sometimes muddied with commercialism. That's not the point. Hell, I'm sure those that make movies know this already. Who doesn't?

I don't think it's time to declare art dead and gone in movies either. In fact, that whole declaring stuff dead is fairly silly, I think. After all, if it were really dead, wouldn't it be more likely to be completely forgotten, instead of someone pronouncing, very importantly, its death?

So, nah. I don't think art's dead in Hollywood. I think it just sometimes takes long naps.

I'm also pretty certain the movie "Snakes on a Plane" will be just awful. But that doesn't matter.

What matters is that the title made me laugh. It was ridiculous and funny. Plus, frankly, beyond the concept of the title, the idea of snakes on a plane is nice and cheesy. I love cheesy stuff for its own sake. It's not brain surgery. It's hilarious. It's motherfucking snakes ... on a motherfucking plane. And it's great the blogosphere helped preserve the title. I think it means there are a lot of people out there with senses of humor--people who are comforted by other people with senses of humor. Who like the idea of good joke. Who enjoy a good cheesy movie.

I think it's possible to enjoy your art and your cheese in the same day without having an overload of confusion.

if you just read the first sentence of every paragraph. Faster, too.

I think that Samuel L Jackson rocks....but when I first saw the trailer for this I laughed like a maniac....and thought to myself, "You've got to be kidding!"

And no matter how cool and intense the action and f/x is the movie will still be an insult to my intelligence (such that it is). I don't think I will pay $6.50 to see it....I will wait till it comes to one of the local brew pub/theaters here in Portland and pay a buck so that I can enjoy the cheese with a good beer and a slice of pepperoni.

If we really want Hollywood to stop making shitty movies we will stop giveing them our hard earned cash....if they start to really loose money on craptacular films maybe they stop making them. But I'm not going to hold my breath.

And as cool as the Blade movies are I still think they should have called them, "Passenger 57 vs the Vampires".

ciao,

James

The time of junk cinema - of Roger Corman movies and little indy drive-in affairs - is long past. The megacorps that make most of today's commercial movies have squeezed out all the humanity and surprises out of their products.

Which is why Snakes on a Plane sounds so fascinating. It sounds like something made on a budget that wouldn't pay for a Toyota Camry, tarted up and shoved into the theatres. That hasn't been done in decades. They do have cheaply and quickly made features, but they, too, are run through a corporate gauntlet - only they use junior MBA's instead of the senior ones to remove the humanity from them. And they go directly to video, not through theatrical exhibition.

If the film is truly junk, with rough edges and on-set improvisation and awkwardly patched plot holes, it will be memorable and will do well. What I'm afraid is that, having gained this much attention, some suits won't be able to resist castrating the film - adding CGI, a couple of silicone-filled but never-naked actresses (can't risk an R rating!) and pop culture jokes.

Go back and look at some of Roger Corman's films. Within their own universe, they took themselves seriously. As a result, films like Masque of the Red Death and Tomb of Ligeia are still compelling. They weren't mocking anyone or anything else. Even when they did, in The Raven and Comedy of Terrors the mockery was of the characters in the film, not of other films. Most Hollywood films, even the direct-to-video ones, are trying to stand tall by stepping on the necks of their predecessors. If Snakes on a Plane stands on its own, even if it's in a garbage dump, it will stand far more proudly.