A Steady Diet of Film

there are no Snakes on a Plane puns left to make

Okay, like many of you (or least, everyone in SF) I went to a late night screening of Snakes on a Plane this week (in case you've been wondering "why does anyone care about these damn snakes or how they got on that plane?!" Neva Chonin is here to help).

In the ensuing coverage I was a little surprised no one addressed a very gross scene towards the end when a black passenger is called upon to fly the plane after both pilots have been killed or incapacitated. He radios down to the flight control tower for landing instructions interjected with a lot "we's about to fly this plane, dawg" jargon that seems to be assigned to any black character who's suddenly had some monumental responsibility thrust upon them. Which was pretty jarring since all the absurdity of the story and its characters are otherwise played straight. I was reminded of the, uhm, awful Soul Plane.

The NY Observer's Choire Sicha has a much more positive view of the racial make up of SoaP's body count (she also perfectly sums up the joy many of us share about critics being forced to watch movies with the hoi polloi when studios abstain from industry screenings).

I enjoyed Snakes on a Plane a lot, it was a ton of fun and it would probably hold up seeing it again without a crowd of drunk people. But it's obvious that when Ronny Yu (Bride with White Hair) left due to "creative differences" with Samuel L. Jackson attached that new director David Ellis (Final Destination 2) ceded a lot of creative control to his bona fide movie star. If only because the director's imdb profile lists professional surfing as one of his past professions and the surfer character in SoaP is one of the least convincing aspects of the story (yes, moreso than the underlying concept of the film).

posted by Erin @ Saturday, August 19, 2006