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Friday, August 18, 2006
A flying circus, with pythons
Think of the times when you and a couple of friends will gather around a computer to watch some silly video on YouTube or MySpace. Now, multiply that by about one hundred. That was the scene at San Francisco's Metreon when this goofaround, his roommate Jenny and I saw The Snakes on a Plane Chronicles Vol 1: The Triumph of Viral Marketing. It shouldn't be a surprised that in a fairly plugged-in place like the Bay Area there that a fairly large theatre would be filled with people already excited for this film. It often times felt more like a party than movie night.
Before the movie started laptops were open with screensavers counting down the minutes to when the film would be released. Many people brought toy snakes of all shapes and sizes to throw at the right time. Hisses and snarky jokes were already going strong by the time the trailers rolled around. The audience had no time for these films that featured neither snakes nor planes, with the exception being this trailer for Borat which got a lot of laughs. I worried that with all the tomfoolery going on we wouldn't be able to actually hear the film, including of course the line. Instead as the movie started and the initial applause died down the hissing and Mystery Science Theatre 3000-eque quips were manageable enough that everyone could get what was going on. When the snake-timer counts down and the snakes were free on Pacific Air Flight 121 those who brought their own snake toys threw them into the air for what seemed like a solid two minutes. I can't imagine what being an usher at the Metereon was like was after both the 10:00 p.m. and Midnight crowds left. There was certainly a Rocky Horror aspect to all of this.
I don't know if I could provide a real review of this film. The best praise I can give is that what was being projected on to the giant screen in front of us perfectly complimented the social phenomenon going on in the seats. I had read the novelization of the film and hoped that all the time spent on humanizing what were basically walking cliches would be thrown out for more snake carnage. The film did not disappoint on that level. These weren't uncreative characters spouting witty dialogue and telling us about their lives, these were uncreative character getting killed by snakes. The many snakes deaths led to many happy cheers from the audience, too. The much noted fan service reshoots were not hard to spot, although I didn't feel like they were all over the place. This film already knew where it was going before the websites and video parodies started. The movies promised us snakes killing people and we got it. The movie promised us Samuel L. Jackson being a bad-ass and we got it. It's a fun bad movie and nothing more. Seeing it with people who were ready for such a thing was a lot of fun.
Before the film Nathan and I were discussing how watching so many bad movies, to the point where it's not about enjoying something bad ironically but sincerely enjoying a film for what it does that good and mediocre films don't, can kind of screw up your critical facilities for enjoying actually good films. I don't like to think that Nathan and I are at that point now but we are certainly able to put our minds in a particular state so a plot device such as "the leis were doused in pheromones so the snakes would be abnormally aggressive" registers as "cool" and not "cheesy" when it is really both. It's certainly not an experience I would like to repeat every month or so but for this one time I had a movie-going night that will remain fairly memorable.
Permanent Link: 12:06 PM |
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