Snakes on a Plane (movie review)

I normally wouldn't use this fave space to review a cheap thrills horror flick, but Snakes on a Plane is what's playing at Edgefield, and as a leading proponent of a computer language called Python, I thought I should see what Hollywood is up to with our nation's flag's icon.

Well, the predictable tripe. I'd have preferred more humor. Whacking that guy's head open with a baseball bat in the opening minutes sets the wrong tone, even if it's off camera. Remind me to cut back on the Red Bull (too expensive).

The perp never gets any return violence, which seemed unusually soft on crime, even for Hollywood. Having the snakes drop down with the oxygen masks was a nice touch: two terrors for the price of one.

Getting any real world nonfiction across to Americans is an uphill fight all the way, given moneymaking has abandoned all sense of social responsibility, given these powerful media and access to big distributors.

We could educate, or we could dumb down. Cowardly movie makers keep making the wrong choices, pandering to our reptilian psyche, bypassing the neocortex, and thereby needlessly destroying so many promising acting careers (or at least putting them in grave jeopardy).

So how do we Python programmers compete with all this negative imagery?

Well, for one thing, Hollywood seems to think snakes have poor vision (everything green and blurry). That's just pure projection on its part (goes with the moneymaking fixation). Snakes are way cooler and smarter than these cardboard cutouts, who still come across as slick compared to the awkward and hapless humanoids.

Anyway, I'm glad we're finally moving big pieces of the movie-making industry to brighter climes like Morocco. LA had its chance (the Golden Age is long over), although I'm not about to single out this one stupid movie as any worse than the rest.

Pssst... wanna see a really horrific snake? Click and scroll down (and think of Hollywood).