Watching "It's a Wonderful Life".

I wonder what life would be like if Liberty Films had survived?

Snakes on a Plane.

Is that the best movie title, or what? The current issue of Wired has an article on how this yet-to-be-released movie has already inspired a cult following, based soley on its name. (I think this movie has already been mentioned here; hopefully this post isn't redundant.)

Here is a funny blog post: [link]

Some months ago my agent called me (we'll call him...Agent). Agent says: "New Line's got a project they want you to look at. They're making the movie. They love it. It needs a little work."

Now when a studio tells you something needs "a little work" what that really means is "maybe it needs a little work, maybe it needs a lotta work, maybe you should tell us how much work it needs...but we want to make this movie so let's all just agree that no matter how much work it is, we'll call it 'a little work'".

I ask Agent the name of the project, what it's about, etc. He says: Snakes on a Plane. Holy shit, I'm thinking. It's a title. It's a concept. It's a poster and a logline and whatever else you need it to be. It's perfect. Perfect. It's the Everlasting Gobstopper of movie titles.

I say to Agent: "Tell me nothing else. Get me the script and put me on the phone with those lucky bastards at New Line Cinema!"

So he does and he does.

Now out of both loyalty to the sacred bond between studio and screenwriter and also a serious desire to keep getting hired in this town, I will not give away any of the plot details of SNAKES ON A PLANE. But know this. As the great Sam Jackson would say: There are motherfucking snakes on the motherfucking plane.

What else do you need to know? How the snakes get on the plane, what the snakes do once they're on the plane, who puts the snakes on the plane, who is trying to get the snakes off the plane...This is not for you to ponder. There are snakes on the plane. End of fucking story.

In fact, during the two or three days that precedes my phone call with the studio, I become obsessed with the concept. Not as a movie. But as a sort of philosophy. Somnewhere in between "Cest la vie", "Whattya gonna do?" and "Shit happens" falls my new zen koan "Snakes on a Plane".

WIFE: "Honey you stepped in dog poop again. "
ME: "Snakes on a Plane..."
DOCTOR: "Your cholesterol is 290. Perhaps you want to mix in a walk once in a while."
ME: "Snakes on a Plane..."

eta: Snakes on a Plane comic featured in Wired: [link]

eta²: More SoaP stuff: [link]

December 12, 2005 - Buzz is building for New Line's forthcoming actioner Snakes on a Plane, starring Samuel L. Jackson. Today's Variety has a blurb on how the flick's title alone has already inspired songs and merch. In fact, the film's title is already becoming part of the pop vernacular as a catchy phrase that can be substituted for "It could be worse."

In non-snake, non-plane, non-snakes-on-a-plane related news, is Date Movie going to totally suck?

[link]

Alyson Hannigan in a fat suit. Dancing to "Milkshake." I was cringing.

I cringed less once I found out it was the Scary Movie people. But I have no intention of seeing it. Just that they're mocking the fat suit movies as much as or more than the fat.

Airplanes arriving from Guam have to be inspected for stowaway brown tree snakes.

[link]

Dispersion Techniques: Secretive and nocturnal, the brown tree snake can coil itself in small, highly confined hiding spaces. Dispersed mainly by stowing away in cargo on planes and ships, and within plane wheel-wells.

Can't see how there's a movie in it, though. They're not as cute as penguins.

I just got back from my annual Christmas Day tradition of seeing a sci-fi or fantasy movie. In this case, King Kong. Am I right in assuming that Peter Jackson didn't intend me to leave with the impression that:

• Ann Darrow was suffering the worst case of Stockholm Syndrome in the history of mankind
• Bruce Baxter was the only sane character in the whole friggin' movie
• Skull Island must be the source of the Rage virus from 28 Days Later, as proven by all the insanely murderous red-eyed natives and the fact that every damn animal on the island attacked every other damn animal on the island on sight at enhanced speed
• Either Kong survived all this time without any actual survival skills or the giant mutated killer bats (at least I guess that's what they were... they looked more like the Jerry Dandridge bat form from Fright Night than any actual animal I've ever seen... which would also go a long way toward explaining why they'd attack a much larger animal than themselves and how one could magically fly carrying at least three times its own body weight) sprang up in that cave since the last time he tried to sleep there?

I liked The Producers, but it's not any good as a movie--it's good as a record of two great Broadway performances. Amd I LOVE thew original movie (except the horrible LSD character, so cringe-worthy). If you don't like musicals or you didn't like the original show, you'll hate it, though.

Matt, I suspect that the rat-monkeys featured in Dead Alive also originated on Skull Island. It would explain so much....

Matt, I suspect that the rat-monkeys featured in Dead Alive also originated on Skull Island.

If you look carefully at the empty crates in the bottom of the ship when Adrien Brody is getting the tour, one is labeled "Sumatran Rat Monkey." I was quite pleased.

it's good as a record of two great Broadway performances.

Maybe great on stage. In close-up, I couldn't shake the feeling that Broderick was playing Bloom as mildly retarded, and it was, as I said, painfully uncomfortable.

except the horrible LSD character, so cringe-worthy

More cringe-worthy than replacing him with a string of embarrassingly dated gay jokes?

Yes, because all the gay people I know dig the gay jokes, so they work in the same way Bialystock does--he's a broad comedic exaggeration of a Jewish guy of a certain era and De Bris is a broad exaggeration of a Gay man of a certain era. When watching the original movie it feel so much like an older guy trying to write a satire on the craxy hippy young people and instead creating a character which has nothing to do with any human being living or dead that it isn't funny. Dick Shawn does what he can, but it's a lost cause.