I lose.
Really, really bad.
Chuck Klosterman talks about Snakes on a Plane better than I ever could. Until my next post, very soon.
ETA: Alright, so I'll just write out a response-lite to the article, in order to make this post less of a waste of space.
He pretty much talks about how Snakes on a Plane is an accident of a movie, which in normal circumstances would never have seen the light of day. He goes on to complain that this movie, if it weren't horrible enough (despite how amusing it may or may not be), will inspire other movies to be made the same way, depending on the box office success. And they'll all be failures.
While I wish I could say that I have confidence in those in the film industry to know this as well, it is pretty obvious that they'll try anyway, despite knowing better. I don't see what's wrong with that, really. Nobody knows what they want to see better than the people seeing it, and considering the quality of films today, I don't see how things could get much worse.
Actually, they could. I think I've just jinxed the entire industry.
However, Chuck seems to forget that this certainly isn't going to hold true for the entire industry. There will still be quality films, and ones that are still fun. I think it'd be a really interesting experience, at least once, to make a movie like Snakes on a Plane, but on purpose. A sort of Choose Your Own Movie.
Also, Chuck seems to think that future movies like and including SoaP, were made to be bad movies, in order to create satire. I don't think that the movie is satire at all. It's certainly aware that it's not a good movie, but I think it's aiming more to be a tribute to the great B-movies of the past. The sort of movies that the Angry Beavers used to watch. It can also be considered a Surrealist movie (at least if you look on Wikipedia), although I see the connection. Surrealist works include The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (book, people!), Monty Python, and even, to an extent, Family Guy, Futurama, and South Park. They all use surrealism, in normal-speak equals Random Fucking Shit (pardon the language). SoaP is the same way. It uses a completely weird and crazy situation in order to achieve humor.
But like Chuck, I think too much of it can be a bad thing. SoaP will work because it only takes little things from the fans, like one tagline or the title or the gratuitous sex and violence. People will look forward to seeing this in the movie, because it's more like an injoke than anything else. People didn't petition to have the line put in the movie - well, they might have, but petitions NEVER work - it just happened.
There! Is that better?
The Devil in the Details
Taylor Lauren Amato
posted by Taylor Lauren @ 7/13/2006 09:17:00 PM
3 Comments:
Don't feel bad. Chuck Klosterman can talk about anything pop culture-related better than anyone else ever. So, it's not just you.
Hm. I know my writing style's going to change - that's what I'm going for - but in comparison to that, I sound like a school paper. Well, I don't even need a comparison for that.
I'll get there. Explain less, and the like.
Can't resist commenting on Snakes (or on Klosterman, who's a pretty insightful critic). There will probably be a few other studios that will try to imitate Snakes', umm winding path, to box office success, but for the most part when studios jump into the blogosphere, they don't seem to get it. Instead they offer limited modes of participation that aren't all that exciting and probably won't affect the film in any significant way. I'd love to see a "Choose Your Own Movie" once, but I'm not sure it could be anything other than a novelty (kind of like experiments with Smell-o-Rama in the 1950s).
And of course you're right: B-movie satires or honest to God B-Movies do show up occasionally. Some are good, and others aren't, but most are incredinly affectionate to past B-movies. Bubba Ho-Tep (or pretty much anything with Bruce Campbell) and Tremors are good examples.
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