Snakes on a Plane slithers into public consciousness

The film Snakes on a Plane is not likely to earn any Oscar nominations for Best Screenplay.

Its plot involves a mafia witness who is flying from Hawaii to California to testify in a criminal trial. To knock him off, a hitman places a crate of vipers on the flight, and somewhere over the Pacific, mayhem ensues.


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But Snakes on a Plane may one day merit a case study at the Harvard Business School. The film, produced by Time Warner's New Line Cinema, represents one of the most dramatic examples of the internet's ability to transform the way that Hollywood makes and markets films.

A year ago, the project was virtually unknown, apart from the fact that actor Samuel L. Jackson had signed on to play the leading role. Today, more than two weeks before it opens, it has emerged as one of the most talked-about films of the summer.

The remarkable thing is that such a buzz has been generated not with an expensive television advertising campaign - Hollywood's traditional method - but organically through the internet.

"It's a phenomenon," said Russell Schwartz, president of domestic marketing at New Line, noting that the film had turned up more than 6m results on a recent Google search.

"We've got great audience awareness, and we're still two weeks out."

If the Snakes on a Planephenomenon can be tracked back to a particular moment, it would be the day last August when Josh Friedman, a screenwriter called in to doctor the script, mentioned it on his blog.

"It's the everlasting gobstopper of movie titles," Mr Friedman gushed.

Such zaniness apparently piqued the interest of other film bloggers. They weighed in, and soon Snakes on a Plane was spreading around the web like a virus.

Fans began posting their own video spoofs on YouTube, a community site featuring user-generated content. So popular has Snakes on a Plane become that "SoaP" has now joined the instant-messaging patois with a meaning roughly akin to "whatever" or "stuff happens".

At first, New Line executives puzzled over what to do. They were losing control of the film's marketing campaign before it had even been launched.

Their in-house lawyers were up in arms because the studio's copyrights had been violated as people cut and pasted footage from early shoots onto their websites. Eventually, however, they decided to go with the flow.

"We realized pretty early on that the best thing we could do was to let the fans own this movie," Mr Schwartz said.

New Line has done that to an extraordinary degree. The studio would occasionally further stoke the Snakes on a Plane phenomenon by leaking more material onto the web.

The film's director, David Ellis, even decided to re-shoot a few scenes in order to respond to online demands for more sex, violence and profanity. "We are taking a bit of a leap of faith here," Mr Schwartz said.

Seven years ago, The Blair Witch Project awakened Hollywood to the internet's possibilities as a promotional tool. Since then, it has become an essential part of film marketing campaigns - particularly for studios trying to reach a young, male audience.

While the internet has the potential to make Hollywood marketing more efficient, studio executives say its impact has not been uniformly positive.

In the old days, for example, they could edit trailers to make a drama seem more like a comedy, or vice versa, depending on audience tastes. These sleights-of-hand helped preserve at least a decent opening weekend for many mediocre films.

But those days are gone as the internet has allowed fans to share inside information and spout opinions about productions months before they open. "You can't cheat a film any more," one studio marketer lamented.

Tim Hanlon, senior vice-president at Denuo, a media futures consultancy within Publicis Group, believes Snakes on a Plane represents a broader dilemma for marketing executives in the internet era.

They are enthralled by the possibility of a cheap marketing campaign that becomes a sensation, with consumers using the internet to rave about a product and recommend it to others.

But they have to balance that possibility against a worrisome loss of control.

"It's a double-edge sword," Mr Hanlon said. "Marketers see what's going on and they would love to break through and be part of the phenomenon. But they cannot descend into anarchy."

For Mr Schwartz and New Line, the question is whether all the people blogging about the film will put down their laptops and pay money to see it in a theatre.

Regardless, he believes that the spontaneous, grassroots nature of the Snakes on a Plane phenomenon means it would be disastrous for a studio to try to re-engineer it for other films.

"These kinds of things are never by design," Mr Schwartz said. "Whatever the result, it will never be replicated. Thank God."

Colors (1988)

SYNOPSIS: Set in the East L.A. barrio, film stars Sean Penn and Robert Duvall as very different cops, both in age and temperment, hand picked for the city's anti-gang campaign. As partners, they daily drive their unmarked car through the warring Los Angeles neighborhoods. Their simple code of endurance: Keep peace in the streets at any price!

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WOODY ALLEN'S "SCOOP" (2006)

SYNOPSIS: The late U.K. journalist Joe Strombel (played by Mr. McShane) is being mourned by his colleagues - even as, stuck in limbo, Joe remains committed to pursuing a hot tip on the identity of “the Tarot Card Killer” at large in London. But how can his legwork get done now? Via the very much alive Sondra Pransky (Ms. Johansson).

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Official Movie Site.

Bug (2006)

The Warriors (1979)

EDITORIAL REVIEW: The Warriors combines pure pulp storytelling and surprisingly poetic images into a thoroughly enjoyable cult classic. The plot is mythically pure (and inspired by a legendary bit of Greek history): When a charismatic gang leader is shot at a conclave in the Bronx meant to unite all the gangs in New York City, a troupe from Coney Island called the Warriors get blamed and have to fight all the way back to their own turf--which means an escalating series of battles with colorful and improbable gangs like the Baseball Furies, who wear baseball uniforms and KISS-inspired face make-up. Pop existentialism, performances that are somehow both wooden and overwrought, and zesty, kinetic filmmaking from director Walter Hill (Southern Comfort, 48 Hrs.) result in a delicious and unexpectedly resonant operatic cheesiness. The Ultimate Director's Cut doesn't radically alter the movie--some of the editing is tighter, the Greek legend has been added as an introduction--with one exception: in transitions, scenes begin and end as scenes from a comic book. While The Warriors always had a comic book flavor (and Hill, in an interview, says he deliberately pursued that sensibility), this device--similar to The Hulk--seems a bit overkill. But it's a minor problem; the movie holds its own, even 26 years later. The dvd has no audio commentary, but there are four short documentaries (really, one documentary in four parts). These include excellent interviews with Hill, actors Michael Beck, James Remar, David Patrick Kelly, and Deborah Van Valkenburgh. The producers, the cinematographer, the costume designer, the stunt coordinator, and many others give lively and in-depth descriptions of how the movie came to be. One of these documentaries includes portions of a deleted scene that was used when The Warriors was screened on television; no other deleted scenes are included.

Bad Lieutenant (1992)

PLOT OUTLINE: Bad Lieutenant (1992) is the title of a film crime drama directed by Abel Ferrara and starring Harvey Keitel as the titular "bad lieutenant". The screenplay was written by actress-model Zoë Tamerlis under the name "Zoë Lund." Tamerlis also played a small role in the film. Tamerlis had been discovered by Ferrara and had starred in his earlier film, Ms. 45.

We first see Keitel's nameless character advising his two sons on how to answer back to their aunt Wendy, which serves as a foreshadowing of his behavior through the rest of the film, in which he takes a twisted delight in humiliating women, most notoriously in the scene where he stops a couple of underage girls without a driving license and demands sexual favors in exchange for letting them off.

The "Bad Lieutenant" also is a drug-using gambler who finds himself plunged into debt when the New York Mets lose the 1988 National League Championship Series. The turning point in the film arrives when he investigates the rape of a nun and uses this as a chance to confront his inner demons and perhaps achieve redemption.

Blockbuster Video, the largest video rental company in the United States, had a policy prohibiting the purchase and rental of NC-17 movies. An R rated cut was created specifically so that Blockbuster would rent out the film. The R rated version is a full 5 minutes shorter than the original.

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page got upset when he found out that the song Kashmir was sampled in the Schooly D song Signifying Rapper that played just after Keitel drops off his kids, powders his nose, and drives off at the beginning of the movie, giving a strong musical underline to the appearing duality of the anti-hero's personality. Unfortunately, the sample had not been cleared by Schooly D's record company. A lawsuit forced the removal of the song from the soundtrack on some VHS and all DVD versions of the film.

Hurly Burly (1998)

SYNOPSIS: David Rabe's popular play of Hollywood immorality and decadence is brought to the big screen by director Anthony Drazan and an all-star cast that includes Sean Penn, Robin Wright-Penn, Kevin Spacey, Meg Ryan, Chazz Palminteri, Garry Shandling, and Anna Paquin. The film is set in the Hollywood Hills and tells the story of Eddie (Penn) a drinking-smoking-snorting-womanizing casting director and his philandering partner-roommate Mickey (Spacey). Along with their buddies Artie and Phil, they sit around and pontificate about the meaning of life -- that is, the meaning of their lives, of which there is very little. Eddie is in love with Darlene (real-life wife Wright Penn), but she is also seeing the married Mickey. When Artie brings Eddie and Mickey a "care package" in the shape of a pretty, disillusioned hitchhiker named Donna (Paquin), they take turns throwing her around until, yet again, their own empty pathetic lives preoccupy their paranoid minds. As people and relationships deteriorate everywhere, the guys try to pick Phil by giving him the gift of a washed-up exotic dancer, Bonnie (Ryan). Of course she ends up just more abused than ever as she and the rest of the gang hit rock bottom.

O' Lucky Man (1973)

PLOT SYNOPSIS: Once again Malcolm McDowell plays Michael Travis, who comes face to face with an even more troubled society than in If. . . Here, he has become a conformist, caught up in rigid philosophies - either it is the petty bourgeois dreams of success or the naïve altruism of existential humanism. Anderson himself claimed in his preface to the published manuscript that Travis was 'an organic development from that work of five years ago'.

When the factory manager Mr Duff (Arthur Lowe) addresses Mick, 'Certainly, Mr Travers, Mick corrects him, emphasising 'Travis' Travis' is, of course, partly derived from travers, French for 'from one side to the other, or traverser, meaning 'travel'; Mick's journey across Britain apparently leads him everywhere and nowhere. The journey starts at the coffee factory, where Mick is a trainee and, because of his charm, is chosen as the successor to the mysterious Oswald, who has disappeared. Oswald is in Hitchcockian terms a 'MacGuffin', the device that triggers the narrative. Oswald is referred to, but his fate never explained. Maybe he is the man (Edward Judd) whom Mick encounters along with Sir James and the VIPs at the meeting with the African dictator Dr Munda (Arthur Lowe). Mick is fed before he leaves on his mission to be the representative of Imperial Coffee in the north. Gloria Rowe (Rachel Roberts) gives him coffee from her mouth, before seducing him, and the chairman (Peter Jeffrey) gives him an apple, the symbol of knowledge, a knowledge that proves disastrous for Mick.

Sexuality is also presented as a language of power. The women who feed Mick, Gloria Rowe, his landlady Mary Ball, (Mary MacLeod), Patricia and even almost Madame Paillard, Dr Munda's mistress (Rachel Roberts) - all try to consume him and thus reduce him to a puppet. In the church sequence, where Mick cannot touch God's food, but instead is breastfed by the vicar's wife (Mary MacLeod). In this scene, charged with absurdly sexual overtones, Mick eats and is 'eaten' by the devastating ideology of the Mother Church. The most bizarre aspect of sexuality in O Lucky Man! appears in the trial against Travis, who has been turned into a scapegoat for Sir James's criminal dealings, exporting 'honey to the Zingarans' in return for industrial investment opportunities, with keen assistance from politicians and the military. When the jury convenes, the judge (Anthony Nicholls) takes a break, goes into his office, takes off his red robe, lies down on the table while the female usher (Mona Washbourne) promptly whips him on the behind with a black leather lash. The severe punishment Mick receives, five years' hard labour, is the result of the judge's sado-masochism, his inclination to receive and deliver punishment.

On his journey north, Mick is driven away, typically bribed with a cheese, by two policemen determined to plunder a wrecked lorry. Later, Mick is tortured with electrodes by security police at the nuclear research laboratory and when he is arrested at Sir James's house, the officers beat him up. These symptomatically charged attacks on contemporary British society reach their climax when Travis attends an orgy, where the chief of police, the mayor, the newspaper editor and other local VIPs drink, watch porn, a live show and also solicit prostitutes. Mick, who does not appreciate the social chaos surrounding him, believes himself to be chosen and readily accepts the golden suit that the old tailor Monty (Ralph Richardson) offers him in Mary Ball's boarding house. The golden suit sets Mick on the track for yet more illusions, until Patricia reminds him that it is only 'nylon'. Patricia is only one of the many characters - Monty, the vicar's wife, the prison governor and the welfare lady (Vivian Pickles) - who try to warn Mick about his quest for money and power. Mick's social success seems assured when he is hired as an assistant to Patricia's father Sir James (the former assistant dies while trying to save mad Professor Stewart (Graham Crowden) from committing suicide by jumping out of the skyscraper window).

In prison Mick leaves capitalism behind him and instead turns to another philosophical system: altruism, illustrated by his having images of Albert Schweitzer, Maxim Gorky and Bertrand Russell on his walls and books such as Gorky's The Lower Depths and Russell's The History of Western Philosophy on his shelf. This lifestyle, however, fares as badly when he leaves prison, armed to the teeth with a book of poetry he has been given by the governor. He is robbed while preaching politics to East End Salvation Army soldiers, and he is unsuccessful in trying to save Mrs Richards from committing suicide in spite of mobilising Robert Browning, Adam Lindsay Gordon and Shakespeare. A final humiliation is the near fatal confrontation with the derelicts, paupers and meths drinkers. Here he gets stoned and is nearly killed by a rolling oil drum. This scene actually became one of the most vividly discussed in 0 Lucky Man! Corrupt politicians and crooked businessmen were legitimate targets for satire. Literature, philosophy, paupers and charity were more controversial. Anderson had foreseen these objections, particularly from his old colleagues within the political left.

The Boys Next Door (1985)

PLOT DESCRIPTION: The "boys next door" are Maxwell Caulfield and Charlie Sheen, typical California teens freshly graduated from high school. Daunted by the prospect of the Real World, the boys decide to go on one last fling in LA. But it's not all clean, wholesome fun: in fact, Caulfield and Sheen launch their weekend bash by beating up a gas station attendant, throwing a glass bottle at an old woman and murdering gay-bar patron Paul C. Dancer. Somewhere along the line, Sheen becomes repelled by their violence spree, but Caulfield seems to be sexually aroused by all the misery he's causing. And so it goes, without real rhyme or reason, until the bloody denouement. The Boys Next Door was the first non-documentary project of director Penelope Spheeris, who later helmed Wayne's World, The Little Rascals and The Beverly Hillbillies.

Rampage (1987)

PLOT: This bloody thriller is based on the real-life story of Richard Chase, the notorious "Vampire of Sacramento." William Friedkin's film soft-pedals Chase's gruesome crimes, although the gore content may still be a bit hard to take for most viewers. Alex McArthur gives a noteworthy performance as the killer, and his scenes are far more memorable than the film's somewhat pedantic examination of the insanity defense. Overall, Rampage is more likely to appeal to fans of psychothrillers and horror movies than courtroom devotees because McArthur's chilling lead turn is the reason to see the picture.

if.... (1968)

ABOUT THE MOVIE: Lindsay Anderson's film if...(1968), starring Malcolm McDowell as a schoolboy who leads a guerilla insurgence, imagines how repression, conformity and fusty ritual at an English Public School could lead to anarchy and bloody revolt. Its title is a sardonic nod to Rudyard Kipling's most famous poem, and its story a radical updating of Kipling's 1899 story-sequence Stalky and Co. , in which prankish rebels are groomed to police the Empire. Released at a time of unprecedented student uprisings in Europe and America, if... provided a peculiarly English perspective on the battle between generations-the perennial war of the romantically passionate against the corrupt, the ugly, the old and the foolish.


With hindsight, the forces of conformity proved better able to exploit the Generation Gap than their foes:Anderson was quickly out of sympathy with the post-1960s counterculture, and if... now seems presciently dense with ambiguity. It is stylistically varied-shot in both colour and black -and- white, a mix of mock-documentary and quasi-surrealism-and far more contradictory than first viewing or fond memory allow. Though its emotional surface is authentically anti-authoritarian, its intellectual substance, as Mark Sinker argues, is rooted in a deep familiarity with the symbols of English ruling-class values. No longer a vehicle for shock or dissent, if.... is today enjoyed comfortably, even nostalgically but for Sinker this renders its many knots and paradoxes, the moments of poetry that Anderson argued were cinema's raison d'etre, all the more fascinating.

The Last Movie (1971)

SYNOPSIS: With a barrage of cinematic distancing devices at hand (flashbacks and flash-forwards, super-imposed titles, missing frames, projectionist cue-marks placed in the wrong locations in a film reel), Dennis Hopper concocts a hallucinatory acid-trip concerning an American movie company making a western in Peru. In a remote mountain village in Peru, a Hollywood film company wraps up shooting a western and returns to California. Staying behind is a young stunt man, Kansas (Dennis Hopper). In the village, he takes up with the resident whore, Maria (Stella Garcia). At this point, the film flash-forwards to Kansas being crucified by the villagers. Back in the old time frame, the Peruvians decide that they want to make their own movie. Not having the necessary film equipment, but plenty of local raw material, the villagers construct the needed cameras, microphones, and sound recorders out of bamboo, and although the equipment is faked, the villagers substitute real, bloody violence for the make-believe violence of Hollywood. During this eruption of violence in the Peruvian village, the local priest (Tomas Milian) blames Kansas for the carnage. The priest decides that movies are the root of all worldly evil and convinces the villagers to seize Kansas.

The Night Of The Hunter (1955)

PLOT: Ben Harper has committed murder for $10,000. He hides the money and makes daughter Pearl and son John promise not to tell anyone where it is hidden, not even their mother Willa. In prison and awaiting hanging, Ben meets his cellmate, the Preacher, who tries unsuccessfully to get Ben to reveal where he stashed the money. When Preacher is released from prison he heads for the Harper home, intent on finding the money. Preacher charms Willa and wins her hand in marriage, only to kill her when she learns what he is really like. With only Pearl and John separating him from a small fortune, the Preacher unleashes the full force of his true, evil self.