Things Back to Normal

It's the 19th, post like a mother@#$%er day is over, and this blog's name is back to normal.

Saw the film, it's fun, worth the time and money, definitely.

But if you see it, see it in a crowd on a Friday or a Saturday, this film deserves that energy.

It was the most fun picture of the year, if not the past couple of years. Nothing released recently compares.

That's all that really needs to be said about the film, no reason to get all crazily over-determined about the deeper meaning of why and how it resonates with our troubled times.

Try telling that to Mazola Manohla Dargis, her NYT review is determined to explore the deeper meaning of why SoaP matters, her closing paragraph is either a fantastic parody of a dimwitted reviewer trying to prove they went to grad school, or just sadly, stupendously ridiculous.

What the film earns somewhat more slyly is a firm slot in the cultural landscape, not least because of its scarily timely setting. This is, after all, “Snakes on a Plane,” not “Snakes on a Greyhound Bus.” But unlike “Flightplan” and “Red Eye,” two other recent airborne thrillers, “Snakes on a Plane” is less about surviving on airplanes than wresting control of them. In other words, it’s “United 93” without the tears. The filmmakers don’t overplay the political angle, though they do squeeze in a Middle Eastern snake and a scene of an F.B.I. agent sneering about the A.C.L.U. Mostly, though, what they give us is the chance to win, not with righteous morality, but with an old-fashioned swagger that says, much like the film itself, Hey, we may be stupid, but we rock.

Also, Dana Stevens posting at Slate does her level best to wrest away the Pullitzer for over thinking life's simple pleasures and refuses to just enjoy a stupid (but fun) movie on its own stupid level. Her proof that she attended plenty of Media Studies courses cross listed with English Literature (one example: English 161b/Film Studies 132c The Great Malaise of the 70s and Its Expression Through Disaster Cinema) can be found in the paragraph below

And now, please return your tray tables to the upright and locked position. Because against my better judgment, I will attempt a reading of Snakes on a Plane as a post-9/11 allegory. One need not bow to allegory, really—Snakes is literally about terrorism. What else is Eddie Kim but a terrorist, bringing down an entire plane to pursue his own sick agenda? Snakes on a Plane doesn't need to be conscious of itself as a 9/11 movie to effectively function as one. It plays on all our fears—the dangers of air travel, the death of innocents, the random appearance of evil in our daily lives—but it allows us to master those fears, and, ultimately, to achieve some measure of control over them—not to give anything away, but I think you've figured out this isn't United 93. Hell, dealing with a few adders in first class would be a cakewalk compared to the al-Qaida agents we really fear.

All I can say to those two prominent reviewers is, Dude(s) It's Just a Mother%#@$in' Movie!!!

(sorry, I know yesterday was Post Like a Mother%#$@er Day, but that last one just slipped out organically)

(and Dana tries to distance herself from her over wrought criticism before she starts, "against my better judgement", but she goes ahead anyway and does it, so sorry Dana, you blew it, just enjoy the movie and don't try and 'big picture' this little picture, some times a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a movie filled with snakes, is just a movie filled with snakes (on a mother%@#$in' plane))