It's been a tough week, and didn't feel any better when I awoke this morning with a cold. I rarely get sick, and found myself pretty much moping around the house. Luckily, I didn't have to work today. So I decided to do what any right-thinking self-pitying woman should do in these circumstances: I went to the movies.
I went to the matinee of Snakes on a Plane. As is often the case with matinees, (and why I go to them) there were only four people in the theater. That way, each time I screamed (3-4 times in the course of the movie), the others could figure out where it was coming from.
On my way there, I wondered if I had turned the heat off under the hambone I had simmering on the stove to make broth for beans. Could not for the life of me remember turning it off. Fortunately, I did. Or one of my cats did after I left the house. But that's another issue.
Anyway, I loved the movie. As much snake action as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Samuel L. Jackson is FBI agent Neville Flynn escorting Sean Jones, a surfer who witnessed the brutal murder of a prosecuting attorney, to Los Angeles. The bad guy, Eddie Kim arranges for lots of bad snakes (not all poisonous...a python gets a good scene too,) to be released once the plane is over the ocean. Special pheremones sprayed onto the leis most of the travelers wear make the snakes hyper aggressive.
I have to warn you that not everyone you like survives, nor does everyone you'd like to see killed luridly actually get bitten. The first to go are a couple joining (or maybe they were already members) the Mile High Club. Not only are people killed by the dozens, the snakes take it on the chin as well. hmmm. I don't know. Do they have chins?
The cast includes not only our intrepid heroes, but the flight staff, a Paris Hilton-like rich girl with a yappy dressed up dog in her purse, a germ-phobic hip-hop mogul, an afraid-of-flying honeymooner, two kids traveling alone, the cranky European, the spunky older lady. You get my drift.
In addition to the snakes, you get everything else that could possibly go wrong on a plane, and Agent Flynn has to dodge snakes every step of the way as he goes to fixing things.
Meanwhile, in L.A., the FBI and the airport are preparing for the arrival of this planeload of snakes and injured passengers. I liked this line from the herpetologist urging all possible haste in getting the antivenin : "Hurry, time is tissue."
I screamed, I laughed. I didn't cry.
You'll like this movie.
P.S. Make sure you stay for the music video accompanying the credits. It is great.
Finally, check this out from YouTube: Indiana Jones vs. Snakes on a Plane
If you likes SOAP and like palindromes, surely you will SOAP themed palindromes: http://palindromeoftheday.blogspot.com/2006/08/when-movies-become-cult-classics.html
Posted by: Michael Abrams | August 23, 2006 at 02:12 PM