Do as I Say, and You'll Live

Now that all the 'dark confessions' are out of the way, what better method of getting back into blogging shape than writing about Snakes on a Plane? Since I do have a blog I am contractually required to at least post once about the movie. Memory fails me on whether or not I've mentioned the movie before, but I've been anticipating/making jokes about/watching poorly-conceived YouTube parodies for the entirety of 2K6, and made plans with a surprisingly eager coworker (he doesn't get out much, if at all) about three months ago to see it on opening day.

As far as a review of the movie itself goes, you can easily find those elsewhere. My take is that the movie could have been a little better, certain scenes done differently, certain snakes more cunning, etc. But all of that is completely and utterly irrelevant. You could argue it works in a so-bad-its-good sort of way, or a childlike matinee sort of way, or a Susan Sontag sort of way, or a winking-ha-ha sort of way, or whatever. The movie could have been worse, could have been better. But the magic didn't come from anything on the screen, it came from the theatre itself, from the crowd. Surely you remember, before you were a six-figure a year douchebag whose aims to become members at the most expensive country club available within 30 miles took up much of your free time, when you went to see some shitty movie in your stupid small ignorant town with a dozen of your friends (and you'd like to imagine it happened more often than it actually did) and you all laughed far too much and were generally obnoxious and probably severely annoyed that one elderly couple who was sitting in the far left side section and just wanted a quiet evening watching The Man in the Iron Mask, and didn't attempt to stay up until nine-thirty p.m. only to be bothered by a gaggle of nineteen-year-old pricks with nothing on their minds other than alcohol, cigarettes, and the very distant possibilities of pre-marital sex, thank you very much.

We saw the film at 4:15 yesterday, in a large theater than was maybe 30% full. But it felt like I was there with seventy of my closest friends. I have never been in a movie where people applauded at least a dozen times, literally hissed during the overlong previews, let alone shout "Motherfucking Snakes!" at every possible opportunity. We laughed and shouted and behaved like obnoxious children, but no one was offended, we were all there for the same reasons. Leaving the theater, I noticed most of the crowd was very young (it was a 4:15 show, after all, I didn't sneak out of work over an hour early for nothing), but that seemed appropriate. For at least two hours (violins are swelling here), I felt pretty young myself.