Guy de Fraumeni’s Hollywood in The Hamptons

Snakes On A Plane
Ouch! Hot – hot dog! Do I have a movie for you! Just for you the great movie lovin’ public, who actually pay admission to see the film. New Line Cinema, early on, announced that Snakes on a Plane was made for the audiences, not the reviewers. Oh, gee! How dear and exclusively attractive you are to the producers! To prove it, they denied advance screenings or tapes to the non-paying reviewers who are paid to be critical. So we had to wait to give our opinions. Of course, they’ve been leaking choice film clip tidbits to computer fanatics, like snakesonablog.com which started the SoaP craze when it first got wind of the title and went wild with delight in making fun of its stupidity.
Soon the giggles and guffaws spread as crazily as those snakes on the plane. The online cult’s force was such that the film’s producers listened hard, took notes and eventually took them into production with them – they added more gore, violence, foul language and lots more nudity and sex. To heck with the PG-Rating. An R-Rating was just fine thank you, after all, Samuel L Jackson had been part of the movie’s package from the start. He too loved the title. He said “Think of the Sequels: Snakes on a Bus, Snakes on Your Mama!” Also, the R-rating gives him full vent to his elaborate use of expletives.
That title, Snakes on a Plane, has reached a near iconic status. It totally describes itself. You might call the title high-concept. Chatters and bloggers aside, it tickles you like having a snake in your knickers. Amusing or not, it is uncomfortable, to say the least. Pity the poor, rank B-movie cast of passengers attacked in R-rated fashion. Plenty of their body parts are bared, so any dangling parts are subject to greedy fangs. The unimaginable variety of herpetology subjects also hide and seek with avid curiosity and quickly find any and every orifice in the body in which to enter and exit. Isn’t this all too hilarious? Exciting? Sure, but after the um-teenth surprise attack in surprising places (parts of the plane and bodies) the serpents shtick becomes a given and trouble with the pilot and the plane are called upon for suspense. Say, tell me, how come all women’s breasts that are bared are va-va-voom! And wouldn’t it figure that it’s a male who sits on the john containing a you-know-what. Oh, m’ gosh will this give a vengeful wife ideas on how to give their hubbies what for! for leaving the toilet seat up? Boy, oh boy! This movie has far-reaching meanings and repercussions. The absolute worst being a send up spoof of the September 11th film United 93. Well, the number of September 11th films and TV shows have thrown the doors open to any one. When Mr. Jackson arrived in Vancouver, B.C. to begin shooting, he found the title was now Pacific Air 121. He hit Ceiling Zero! They wanted the movie to be taken seriously. Do you believe it?
Here is its “serious” plot. Mr. Jackson is an FBI agent flying from Honolulu to the States with a witness who can convict an awful gangster, Eddie (Byron Lawson). The witness is Sean (Nathan Phillips) and the gangster is so determined to keep fink Sean from getting to Los Angeles, he packs up hundreds of those creepy crawlers in boxes computerized to open in mid-flight. To make sure, he hypes them up with pheromones. As Jackson put it, “Whoa! Snakes on Crack!”
As New Line Cinema stated, this movie is for the audiences of cool summertime entertainment who have sat through those multi-million dollar, three-hour blockbusters that managed only to move your backside. You had to move them because they had petrified like your brain. What’s wrong with that? I don’t really know, but it worries me that some production companies are encouraging 18 hours-a-day users of the Internet to help “create” new movies since SoaP was helped by them, so much. Example: originally a couple was necking in a lavatory. Redone, they are qualifying for membership in the Mile-High Club. How creative can you get?
Twentieth Century Fox has reached out for youth online junkies with a label titled Fox Atomic. The title alone scares me. Will it demolish movie making as we know it? I know titles can have more power than we think.
Guy-Jean de Fraumeni is the producer/writer/director of award-winning European and American feature films. He has been a judge at major film and TV award competitions, including the Oscars, the Emmys and various film festivals. Sarah Halsey assists him.