I don't know in what sense the word was used by RRA, but one thing I know is that the hype for Snakes on a Plane was started and sustained by internet forums. Its growing popularity before its release was largely by word of mouth. But the problem was no had seen its preview or anything. The punchline by Samuel Jackson is funny indeed, and that was the only thing people knew before watching it. That it turned out bad (IMHO) is not shocking. The director had made 'cellular' and 'Final destination 2' before this. Neither of them are considered great works. What then was the rationale behind extra hype? Plane load of snakes? Samuel Jackson's dialogue? So the hype was negative in a way. Liking the movie after watching it is not negative. It is a matter of taste. I guess.

But I'm trying to understand what the word "geek" means and why it is used in a negative way. If I'm a fan of a movie and it makes me a "Snakes on a Plane" geek, then that's what I am. In the same sense RRA is a movie geek because he is obviously a huge fan of movies. I'm also a music geek. There are sports geeks. There are political geeks. If being a fan of something someone else doesn't like then each and every one of us are geeks.

Unless you hate everything.

Emo "Hate" geek.

Let me rephrase what I mean.

SNAKES ON A PLANE was hype without anything to hype with except a title.

And its nothing more than the most expensive Sci-Fi Channel Movie of the Week, and they weekly make movies that....ok, they just plain SUCK. SNAKES sucked.

I'm a movie geek, but I apparently call moronic fanboys "geeks," like my people in my region seem to call idiots "redneck," though everyone in East Tennessee is a redneck.

Yet to see it JG!

Don't bother, its shit..

BLADES OF GLORY 1/2
(First Viewing)

In 2002, two rival Olympic ice skaters were stripped of their gold medals and permanently banned from men's single competition. Presently, however, they've found a loophole that will allow them to qualify as a pairs team.

More marketing and star power than it is a funny movie. I have to admit, the draw of both Will Ferrell and Jon Heder is tempting (especially since I enjoyed Heder's last film, the overlooked SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS). And while this film has it's moments, it's not Ferrell's or Heder's finest work. Ferrell is a comic genius IMO but he didn't really show me anything new this time around.

We watched Snakes on a Plane the other night. Yes, it was an awful movie. It was predictable. It was ridiculously far-fetched, and it's characters were about as well-developed as a roll of film unfurled in the sunlight. The dialogue was as bad as bad can get. It was all those things. And I LOVED it. I squirmed and jumped and shrieked at all the times that I was supposed to. And I laughed when I was supposed to, too. It was one of those guilty pleasures, like a Fluffernutter, and about as empty of any worth, too.

I didn't think "Snakes On A Plane" would get this much attention. I tend to agree with you SB.

I am glad I didn't pay to see it, but it was one of those predictable, corny, unbelieveable, farfetched stories that simply put, was fun to watch. Sometimes you are in the right mood and frame of mind to kick back and watch a "nothing" type movie. This was fun. The fact that I would cringe at snakes made it a little more creepy to me, even though these snakes seemed exceptionally powerful.

Back when my kids were in Middle school or so, we'd rent scary movies every weekend. After seeing the biggies, we probably saw every lousy scary movie there was, but I have fond memories of some of them and so do my girls.

One short story video (I think Stephen King with 3 stories in one)was about a lady who hits a hitchiker accidently if I'm not mistaken. The hitcher haunts her every move saying, "Thanks for the ride lady." Ha ha - corny, but every time myself or my daughter's give a ride to each other for any reason, the other always say, "thanks for the ride lady." Don't know why that stuck but it did.

TIS

I love doing stuff like that with the girls. One day when my oldest daughter was home sick from school, on the way home from the doctor we stopped and rented a bunch of the Halloween movies.

Yes it is fun isn't it? We are talking about having a "girls day" soon and watching some movies they loved while growing up. I can't even tell you how many times we saw Ferris Bueller, Footloose, Pretty In Pink and all the movies of that era. I think had I had boys instead of girls, a whole different batch of movies would be in my memory.

TIS

I know what you mean. LOVE Footloose, and so does my daughter. Those days are such nice breaks from reality, aren't they??

See! SB and TIS have nailed it. That's exactly what I was trying to say. Snakes on a Plane IS horrible. There's no deeper meaning to the movie. But it is still really fun in a stupid way. It is absolutely mindless which is a nice change of pace every once in a while.

For those of you who didn't like the movie, or won't watch it, I completely understand. I'm a rarity. I actually like those crappy SciFi channel monster movies. I love to laugh at how horrible the acting is, and how fake the monsters look, etc... So I enjoy the poor film making because it makes me laugh. But there's a reason those movies aren't popular, it's because they are indeed bad. And Snakes on a Plane happens to be one of the best of the bad movies.

Seriously I'm happy I'm not the only one though because I might feel the need for therapy or something.

That's why I like so many of the grindhouse movies I've seen. They're so horribly done, you can't help but laugh. And do I even need to drop KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE into this discussion?

Killer Clowns from Outer Space is near the top of my Blockbuster Online list. I've never seen it. My family of course looks at the list and keeps asking me why it's so high on the list, but as soon as I say "It's one of the stupid movies I like... " they roll their eyes and say "oh one of those movies".

But yes Irish, the Grindhouse movies are basically along the same line as the B-Movie Horror flicks like the multitude of SciFi channel crap. It's fun because it's so bad.

Those who get it, get it. The rest seem to be close-minded, condescending, Oscar-loving "geeks".... or, they are people who just don't have time because life keeps them from watching crap. The latter makes more sense to me because they have families to take care of, and bills to pay.

I recently saw the Bourne Supremacy and was disappointed. I loved the first two films. I found it unreasonable that Bourne would want revenge on the CIA.... and we needed more on the romance between Bourne and Nicki... we hardly got to see any of that, and no flashbacks or anything! Poorly done.

I saw it a couple weeks ago and just loved it!!! I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. They never showed and romantic connection between Bourne and Nicki in the previous films, as far as I'm concerned. However, in this case, I was just as happy putting romance in the back seat and allowing for all the action. Just my opinion!!!!

TIS

In the original drafts, the Bourne/Nicki romance connection was made absolutely clear in that they both were an item before Bourne went amnesiac on her.

Ultimately, Greengrass was wise to dump it. Its still subtly clear in their scenes and dialogue ("You don't remember, do you?") so Greengrass can make THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM the best of the trilogy without story-junk getting in the way of the narrative. Plus, the audience at my screening LOVED Julia Stiles' smile at the end.

As for AngelaMarie's contention, I would argue this.

If Marie had lived, Bourne wouldn't have gone searching for his past. He says so in IDENTITY. But since she got skull-capped, he gets his revenge on the killer, but the pain stays. He apologizes to the poor girl whose parents he knocked off, but the pain stays.

So its part of this whole chain of events for him to get "revenge" by going home and knocking down the walls of the CIA.

Or, he's curious. Perhaps Bourne always knew that he willingly was engineered into an ass-kicking machine, but how does he know for sure? Its like those adopted kids who just can't put away trying to know who their real parents were.

But as soon as Bourne gets hooked up with the journalist, his war intensifies.

Its no longer the CIA mistakenly thinking he's gone rogue, or the CIA mistakenly thinking he killed agents in Berlin, its the inner-cabal of the CIA effectively going rogue themselves, killing anyone that gets in their way(even their own agents) and Bourne just fucks them up the ass.

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
(First Viewing)

An alien (Klaatu) with his mighty robot (Gort) land their spacecraft on Cold War-era Earth just after the end of World War II. They bring an important message to the planet that Klaatu wishes to tell to representatives of all nations. However, communication turns out to be difficult, so, after learning something about the natives, Klaatu decides on an alternative approach.

One of the best science fiction movies I've ever seen. And the special effects, for 1951, were very impressive. I loved the ending where the people of Earth are left with a choice and I thought it was cut at the appropriate time. Michael Rennie was so smooth and composed as the alien Klaatu. Likewise, the robot Gort was a menace not to be trifled with, even though he didn't have a line of dialogue. When you are able to put that fear and uneasiness into the audience without diglogue, you've done your job very effectively.

Good review. Not as good as SPIDER-MAN 3, but ok.

[quote=ronnierocketAGO Plus, the audience at my screening LOVED Julia Stiles' smile at the end.

I didn't know whether to touch upon the ending because I didn't know if I'd spoil it, but I loved it. I was in a packed audience and you could feel the excitement/tension build as the news story about Borne was playing. Seeing Stiles face was perfect.

TIS

Well, you could simply use [spoiler] text-function, or you can do what I do: I dance around them. If someone that DIDN'T see the movie read my review, they wouldn't get it.

But someone that did? Yup they get it.

I would also add that somehow, Greengrass makes the gimmick of BOURNE ULTIMATUM being built around the New York City ending of BOURNE SUPREMACY actually work.

I loved when Bourne broke into the office of the CIA director that was after him and was on the phone with him. The CIA director says to Bourne that he is in his office. Bourne says, "that's not likely". When the CIA Dir. says "why", Jason says, because if you were in your office we'd be talking face to face." I don't know, I just loved the whole thing. Oh, and I agree with the NYC ending is perfect. Any movie filmed in NYC is a plus IMHO. I'm all ready for a 4th installment.

TIS

On THE DAILY SHOW, Damon said that if a 4th BOURNE movie happens, it'll be called THE BOURNE REDUNDANCY.

I guess you could work something out, but its not essential. Its pretty obvious, without being pretty obvious, that the couple get back together and disapear.....Landy gets promoted probably(Director perhaps?) after helping to cause that whole cabal collapse with consequences all the way up to the White House*, and that CIA finally learns the lesson to just....try...to...fuck...with....Jason....Bourne.

*=One can only wish.

Of course it's not essential, and usually after three, if not even by two, sequels go downhill. I guess for me this is probably the only trilogy that I can't choose which one I like best. It'll probably be just as well to leave it at three, but money talks and this film was such a success, I think at some point there will be a 4th. Whether or not it'll continue to be successful, who knows.

TIS

THE CRYING GAME
(First Viewing)

An unlikely kind of friendship develops between Fergus, an Irish Republican Army volunteer, and Jody, a kidnapped British soldier lured into an IRA trap by Jude, another IRA member. When the hostage-taking ends up going horribly wrong, Fergus escapes and heads to London, where he seeks out Jody's lover, a hairdresser named Dil. Fergus adopts the name "Jimmy" and gets a job as a day laborer. He also starts seeing Dil, who knows nothing about Fergus' IRA background. But there are some things about Dil that Fergus doesn't know, either...

I will certainly take my hat off to Jaye Davidson. He gave the best female performance by a male I've ever seen. Granted the only ones coming to mind right now are Robin Williams as Euphegenia Doubtfire in MRS. DOUBTFIRE and Dustin Hoffman as Dorothy Michaels in TOOTSIE, but he still did a great job. Although I saw it coming because that was the only fact I knew about the movie going into it but it was pretty obvious as well. The first time I saw his hands onscreen I could just tell. Also, for those who have seen it, did you ever think Jody and Dil were brothers rather than lovers? In the beginning of the film we're lead to believe (or at least I was), these characters were lovers. But towards the end of the film, I saw a closeness that rather than sexual in nation was a brotherly relationship. Anyone else see that?

The Falls *
Directed by Peter Greenaway. This is an extreme endurance test, running nearly 3 hours and 15 minutes. Like his shorts that I reviewed before, here again he narrates 92 stories of people affected by VUE(Violent Unknown Event) whose names contain the word "fall" against the backdrop of images. However, the difference is that it is not a short (infact unbearably long). Any novelty in technique is quickly offset by tiresome (although somewhat funny) narration. It is a pity, as his images (note: they are,for a good amount, static) are really beautiful and show his mastery over visual technique. Coming back to the content, it is very similar to his earlier shorts - ornithology, water bodies, flight, maps etc. He also refers to his own works many times and the film is aware of its own existence in relation to other works.

I can see Universal trying to continue on without Greengrass and Damon, and perhaps even as a new DTV franchise.

I watched THE OUTSIDER (2005) last night, a documentary about James Toback making WHEN WILL I BE LOVED (2004, w/ Neve Campbell, Dominic Chianese, Mike Tyson), and absolutely fell in love with this non-mainstream writer/director! Not sure how I missed him until now -- he wrote Bugsy -- but his degenerate attitude is awesome! Now I gotta see all his films..... Apparently he's a favorite of Harvey Keitel, who stars in FINGERS (1978) with Michael V. Gazzo