Bob Strauss: Snakes on the brain
As dopey pop culture obsessions go, I'm far more behind the folks who are having fun with "Snakes on a Plane" (not opening until August 18) than people who think celebrities giving birth is major news (and then mistake themselves for cool by referring to the infant as, say, Tomkitten, then questioning the parents' choice of exotic baby names).
"Snakes" sounds like it'll be a good, silly watch; as the title so obviously states, it's about Samuel L. Jackson battling poisonous serpents in an enclosed space thousands of feet up in the air. As if that weren't enticing enough, it's directed by David Ellis, a former stuntman whose two previous filmmaking efforts, "Cellular" and "Final Destination 2," combined lots of scares and laughs very effectively.
It's the title alone, however, that has already made "SoaP" an Internet phenomenon. Thousands have worked up posters, songs, minimovies and other expressions of the "Snakes on . . ." theme. But I must say I'm a bit disappointed with the overwhelming literalness that marks this explosion of cyber-creativity, even if it is based on a sublimely literal movie title. Surfing some of these sites, I found endless drawings of snakes on things, and photos of the actual reptiles on things as well. About as inventive as any of this got was a drawing of creepy crawlers spilling out from under a Sudoku grid (timewasting fad on a timewasting fad?) and a rather alarming photo of what seems to be a boa in a toddler's bath (I'd link to it if I didn't think it qualified as some form of child pornography).
For the most part, though, I saw lots of pictures of plastic snakes on toy planes, stick figure animations that went to predictable places, and some nicely rendered poster art that, when it wasn't a direct interpretation of the film's theme, was built around some fairly lame wordplay ("Snakes on a Featherbrain" with a peroxide blonde victim, etc.). The songs I heard just seemed to dance around the movie's obvious plot points, too.
I got bored pretty fast, and stopped looking for anything worth linking to. While I'm sure there are great "SoaP" artifacts out there on the Web, and I find the mass creativity this whole grassroots movement has inspired a generally positive thing, I don't know if I want much more exposure to it over the next four months.
Then again, it would sure beat hearing anything else about celebrity babies if a few "SoaP" artists could really come up with something clever.
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