Snakes On A Plane @ MindSay

As per usual, I've been slothing it up to the hilt the past few days. So that, combined with my recent membership with Netflix means more movie watching than normal. This blog brings forth the description of two good'n's, I tell you.

First...Snakes On A Plane. You know it's loaded with cheese. I know it is loaded with cheese. Snakes On A Plane is the greatest kind of cheese. It's the equivalent of eating an entire crate of Velveeta and not getting sick at the end. I can't think of a title in recent history that has been so blunt. When I first saw the title, I thought it was metaphorical. I was thinking maybe "untrustworthy men who inhabit a small farming community" or something along those lines. Instead, it actually was literal snakes on an airplane. There can be nothing more straight forward than that but even knowing that, it still had the potential to just suck oh so bad. In my opinion, it was the exact opposite. Snakes On A Plane rocked in that "don't feel like using my brain" sort of manner. If you are looking for intellectual stimulation, this movie fails miserably. If you just want to see a bunch of people die in hilarious ways, this is perfect. I really don't know what else to say. There are no intricate plot points, no complex character developments, no mysteries to solve, no brilliant dialogue. Just a plethora of dead bodies, babies crying and people dying. There's even another classic Samuel L. Jackson moment!! I learned in my earliest game development classes that the key to any story is three-fold: get your main character(s) up the tree, hit them with everything you can while they are stuck in the tree and finally, have them figure out how to get down the tree alive. Snakes On A Plane gets the passengers "up the tree", blasts off on them with hilarioous results and the few remaining survivors live to go surfing. Perfect.

Next...Phenomena. I'm getting ever closer to having seen the entire Dario Argento catalog of work. Phenomena seems to be somewhat of a weird entry as it gets closer to the end of his run of "classic" movies but seems to be mentioned less often than others like Deep Red, Suspiria and Tenebre. Since my hunt for a copy of Phenomena has been a complete failure to this point, I added it near the top of my rental que. The basic Argento plot points are all here: mysterious killer on the loose, young girls getting whomped, protagonist girl searches for killer. While it might seem a bit formulaic to some, Dario Argento is a wiz at taking these basic framework settings and going into different directions every time. In Phenomena, the basic framework is even loose at best. Of all of his movies that I've seen, the first 5 minutes of Phenomena are by far the best and possibly creepiest I've seen. I won't ruin it because it's probably also the best opening 5 minutes in horror movie history, certainly as memorable as the opening of Night Of The Living Dead. Anyway, the girl is Jennifer Corvino, daughter of a famous American actor and new student at an all-girls boarding school in what's been called "The Swiss Transylvania". While there, she discovers that she has telekinetic powers and can effectively communicate with animals, mainly insects. Not to make it sound that she has conversations with them over coffee but more that she can attract them and control their behavior. This is pretty integral to the plot as Donald Pleasance's character explains throughout the movie how his studies of insects has taught him of their own telekinesis and has helped him determine the time of death after the body has been discovered. While the movie calms down some in the middle, the last 20-25 minutes are probably the best in Argento history, maybe even Italian horror history (so far as I've seen). Daria Niccolodi plays the "Mommy Dearest" role to near-perfection and without giving it away, the final 10 minutes were completely unexpected and quite gory. So many amazingly memorable moments throughout this movie, it's hard to write this much without giving them all away. Phenomena just has to be seen. This might be my new favorite of Dario Argento's films.

SNAKES ON A PLANE


The best word to sum up the experience of SNAKES ON A PLANE has to be preposterous.
You have a movie that in all rights should be a straight to cable affair starring Lorenzo Lamas and Shannon Tweed that somehow got a big name star and a big time budget to become a truly fun time at the theater.
Every cliche you could think of is used yet its done in a way that doesn't offend because you just know that everyone involved in the making of this movie understood that they were making a future subject of a drinking game.
And at the forefront of this awesomely bad movie is Samuel L. Jackson basically being Samuel L. Jackson. True he's not stretching to put forth a great, award-winning performance but its plain to see that he's enjoying himself and as such you start to enjoy yourself too.
So I recommend that anyone who likes junkfood movies, who enjoys turning your brain off for 90 or so minutes, go and see this movie becasue you won't be disappointed. I mean its motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane...whats not to like?!?!?!
I give it three Maudes:
 

Have YOU bought Snakes on a Plane yet?

That snakes on the plane thing everyone seems to be enjoying... well...

 

I have had two encounters with snakes in my path in the last 48 hours... it isn't as cute and there were no one liners..

 

The first one happened while walking with my friend Grendel in the back area where I was housesitting... It was near dusk, but not quite.. the sun was just behind a ridge but plenty of light... We were looking for Mormon Tea, and I was looking at the ground as I walked but it was open enough that I felt safe. I took one step forward, lifted my other foot and saw a movement in the top corner of my eye... It was a snake picking up his head, and the tail had a faint rattle I could barely hear because I was so busy trying to process the moment... I have NEVER squealed like a girl before at things like this, but it was so unexpected, caught me so off guard... One more step and I would have been on top of the motherfucker... Some snakes just look like rattlers for defense, and those are the ones I usually stumble across... This one was really a rattler...

 

One step more... I didn't even see it... he blended in with the rocks so well, tucked in between three short scrubby tumble weeds.

 

Today while mowing and chopping the incredible growth of weeds and grasses around the house, I tried to keep my mind aware of the snake factor,especially after the last incident.. I got into that zen mowing mode and it kind of slipped my mind. I got up close to the edge of the house and all of a sudden a snake head stands up and i, well... i dropped the mower and jumped back yelling "rattlesnake rattlesnake"... he had the same coloring, but different markings and different head.. but when you see anything close to a rattlesnake in color and it is too close you tend to react and run first, look back and identify later...

 

Two snakes.. First one venomous, potentially very bad situation... second one just a simple snake, a beneficial snake... but still.. a snake i didn't see until i was close enough for harm had he not been a mellow nonvenomous thing...

 

Must learn to walk with more vigilance...

 

Snakes on a plane may be cute, but snakes in the yard are definitely something completely different.