Well if it.s movie review time, I recommend Little Miss Sunshine. A little dark, and very entertaining. Has a great finish!

Down with the soulless minions of orthodoxy!

Snakes on a Plane does what movies ought to do--it entertains. Start to finish, it`s just fun.

I am disappointed it isn`t doing better box office, just because I enjoyed it so much, I think everyone ought to see it. Well, everyone with a sense of humor, that is.

I like to think I have a sense of humour, but I`m afraid it vanishes completely where snakes are concerned.
Darn you, phobias!

How did you manage to aquire a snake phobia? There can`t be a whole lot of snakes roaming the wilds of Canada...

Personally, I didn`t see a snake in person until I moved to So. California... well, except for the 25 foot Boa Constricter that a neighbor had for a pet... in a trailer park... hmm... I guess a better question would be, Why am I not afraid of snakes...

Frightened by a garter snake at age five? I don`t know why I`m phobic, just that I am.

I think the whole having-phobias thing is about as arbitrary as having-food-preferences thing - some people love seafood from the get-go, some utterly loathe and despise it, and most people fall somewhere in between.
Now, spiders are creepy, and I am not fond of lizards, but my response to snake - alive, dead, or photographed - is visceral and immediately, emphatically negative. Seeing Snakes on a Plane would be the stuff of nightmares for months - assuming I could actually watch the whole thing. I could barely stand to see the trailer. I`m not sure how I would cope with an entire movie - running screaming or going fetal are just two possibilities...

[Edited to add:
For obvious reasons, I haven`t checked the link; I suspect that it`s not snake-phobia safe. Those of you sans phobia can check and see if it is, as I suspect, a depiction of the Narcisse Snake Pitshref>, which are somewhere between two and four hours from me.]

[Edited again to add: Okay, so that didn`t work. Here. Cut and paste this, then:
www.brandonsd.mb.ca/ecood/Caving%20Pictures/Snake%20Pits.htm ]

My niece has a pet snake, some kind of python or something. It is a good way for her to avoid all contact with me. As a mammal, I have a built-in aversion to snakes, since they are a natural predator of my species. So I suppose I will be passing on the movie, too. I am just not into being scared, at the movies or anywhere else!

Down with the soulless minions of orthodoxy!

since they are a natural predator of my species

No snake is a \\\"natural predator\\\" of any species too big for it to eat. Maybe some of the hugest anacondas could choke down a human, but even those are usually smart enough not to waste energy trying to kill something that has a good chance of killing it first.

Sure, if you stomp a snake or, as in a recently reported case of sheer idiocy, pick up a rattler by the tail (the equivalent of picking up an adult human by the pinky finger) and try to kiss it, you\\\'ll get chomped. But that\\\'s self-defense not \\\"natural predation\\\".

No help to the snake-phobic, I realize, but true nonetheless.

Me, I won\\\'t see the movie because I don\\\'t want to see the snakes getting killed because some idiot human uses them as a weapon. Also, I hear at least one dog and cat get offed, and I *really* can\\\'t take that. Kill all the humans you want, but leave the poor other beasts alone! Sheesh!

Cheers!

Yes, when I said my species, I was actually thinking of my ancestors several million years ago. And I probably should have said threat rather than predator? Anyway, you are perfectly correct, but I still dinna care for the nasty things.

Down with the soulless minions of orthodoxy!

My scare-equivalent would probably be Cockroaches on a Plane. *shudder*


*********
\\\\\\\"Life is too short for grief. Or regret. Or bullshit.\\\\\\\" -- Edward Abbey, Vox Clamantis in Deserto

I can see where a snake phobia would rob the movie of its fun. If it had been Spiders on a Plane, I probably would\\\'ve taken a pass.

But what about if you have a Samual Jackson phobia?


--
A precariously balanced mixture of myopic optimism and rampant paranoia.

...or were you gone for a longish while, but are now posting again?

If so, I might be able to get away with the following atrocity:

Huzzah! upside down is still around!

Kill \\\'em all.

As quickly and without pain to the animal as possible, but exterminate them. They\\\'re a big stinky, furry menace.

Then again, maybe I\\\'m biased. I just moved into my girlfriend\\\'s apartment and she has two cats which, despite our best attempts, are stinky and fur shedding. One, in particular, is highly neurotic and, if she can\\\'t get past the dog (did I mention there\\\'s a young Rottweiler in the apartment too?), she\\\'ll just pee in the corner. What fun!

i\\\'ve seen cats get ripped apart by dogs. you seriously can\\\'t understand why a cat might be terrified of a rotty? have a heart, man.

i went to war for my country and all i got was this lousy stump.

When it comes to cats, I have no heart.

\\\"CAT, n.
A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.\\\"

You, sir, are a bastard.

I might be slightly biased, though, having had cats around all my life. I know they`re little psychic vampires (Don`t believe me? Pay attention, cat owners, next time you get hurt or sick--I bet your cats will be all over you; when I shot myself, all four cats we had back then gathered around my feet while I called my mom, just staring at me. I`d like to think it was compassion, but...well, they were cats), but all the same, they`re adorable, soft, purring psychic vampires that make me feel better when I\'m down.

--I am powerless over my addiction to parenthesis.--

You tell him, girl!

I\\\'ll third that sentiment.

I don\\\'t like small dogs or cockroaches, but I don\\\'t get off on the idea of hurting them either. That\\\'s simply sick and wrong. Period.

*********
\\\"Life is too short for grief. Or regret. Or bullshit.\\\" -- Edward Abbey, Vox Clamantis in Deserto

I never said (or meant to imply) I get off on hurting them, and yes, Ambrose Bierce is a little extreme, but come on. I was going to go into a whole rant about how useless cats are, but it really doesn\\\'t matter. It\\\'s not like I\\\'m going to change anybody\\\'s mind or miraculously compel them to remove that MEOW egg-shaped sticker from their bumper.

At least a dog can be an ersatz progeny for a young, committed couple. The fact that one can (in most cases) leave their cat(s) home alone for several days with large bowls of food and water speaks only to how little they need/want/like you.

Hmm, if you really want to push the case (and I want to do so with a pinch of irony), a dog is a progeny for - what? A couple who never wants their \\\"kids\\\" to grow up, that need \\\"being needed\\\"? Because that is what you get with a lot of dogs: something to apply yourself too every single day. The thrill for many cat owners is exactly their independence and non-neediness. Personally, I feel that makes for better relationships...

ps - But I like dogs as well.

I suddenly realized that cats occupy that liminal space between Needs pets and Neglect pets. Needs pets, like dogs, show a strong level of sentience, recognition of tones of voice (and, some say, actual words), distinct emotions, and the downside that they can\\\'t be left home alone for more than, say, a day. Day and a half, tops, half a day if it\\\'s especially young/neurotic/passive-aggressive.

Neglect pets, like your basic fish (goldfish, et cetera), birds, and some reptiles, can be left alone for days, even weeks. For instance, as long as you feed it the requisite mouse before you leave and keep its warming rock plugged in, your average King snake couldn\\\'t care less if you\\\'re gone for four or five weeks.

Cats are a special case. Unless you have a sandbox and a large auto-dispense system for food and water, a cat is good on its own for up to a week. In most cases.

Anyway, I\\\'m kinda ranting at this point, but really, for all I care, every cat on this planet can kiss my ass.

Oh, and peegee? Yeah. I used the term \\\"ersatz\\\" in front of progeny for a reason. Basically, everything you stated in your response.

I`m not sure I quite agree with that... all of the cats that I`ve ever owned definately noticed when I was gone for extended periods of time, even when other people were taking care of them...

1) Your title`s first, third, and final words? NEVER combine those on the internet. Just trust me. No, don`t search!

2) The phrase King Kong has to show up at some point is damn near zen.

1) That`s just my subversive nature peeking out a bit... I usually keep it on a short leash, but it slipped its chains and whipped out for a bit... and aren`t you lucky that I couldn`t figure out how to slip a ball-gag into this post...
...oh, the torture! My mind is bound and dominated by double entendres!

2) So true... so very, very true.

and

It`s not what you think... I promise!

Consider this: if we all waited for things to make sense before posting, this site wouldn`t exist.

Some things fit into posts and threads in orthogonal ways that defy logical explanation. Gratuitous?

Besides, I only referenced ball gags that one time, and it was totally topical, I swear.

i, um...

Alex andra set me up! Entrapment! Entrapment!

[got deleted before]

biteability remains one of my favorite words.

I mean how much can you hurt them? I figure once the boot comes down they pretty much have a very shoty time to realize oh crap.

...short time to realize, ``Oh, crap.``

This message brought to you by the preview button and the letter R.

I had a biology teacher cut the head off of one and keep it in a terarium for a few months to demonstrate... um... uh... Okay, I do not remember why. But my point is that it kept on crawling around. She said it would keep going like that until it starved to death. Which, apparently, takes a very looong time.

Reality is the leading cause of stress in the world today.

Um, I mean a cockroach, not a cat. Cause that would have been just so wrong.

Reality is the leading cause of stress in the world today.

The circle is now complete! Huzzah!
(*hits stopwatch*)

Um, did you just make functional links?

(Hmm. All this time they never needed quotation marks? How come nobody told me?)

Subject? Wha? Oh yes. Gratuity in movies. Hey, if paying to see the over-the-top insanity that is Snakes on a Plane is wrong, I don`t wanna be right.

That Bael guy owes me money.

Reality is the leading cause of stress in the world today.

It was that bad and more.

Okay, I can accept a 25 foot ape. I can accept a mysterious island with vicious natives sacrificing to the ape. I can even accept the Jurassic Park aspects of it, as they were in the original film.

But Naiomi Watts running at full speed barefoot through a jungle and across shards of volcanic stone? Getting whipped around like a rag doll by said ape and still being able to walk with no whiplash or sprains, let alone dance and juggle? Standing on top of the Empire State Building in mid-winter, wearing only a thin white dress, without freezing and being oblivious to a 1200 foot drop six inches away from her feet?

Feh.

The special effects were top notch, it was beautifully shot, and Jack Black was very good as the sleazy filmmaker. Past that, it was dreck.

I loved it. Naomi Watts et al brought so much more emotion to the picture than I was expecting. It was gorgeous (except for the insects, and some of the dinosaur bits), and cinematic in the best sense of the word. I`m not sure I`ve actually seen the original, but there was something about the atmosphere that Peter Jackson created that really worked for me. It felt like a classic movie, only with the amazing special effects and whatnot that are available today.

I did have a problem with the scene where our heroine and the enormous ape skate around on a frozen lake in Central Park. I don`t care how cold it was that year, there`s no way King Kong wouldn`t have smashed through the ice. That bit was annoying because it was too much; it messed up the whole suspension-of-disbelief thing I had going on. The rest of it I was willing to play along with.

Oh, and those big brown eyes on Adrien Brody didn`t hurt. I wonder if I still have that copy of The Pianist...

Surprisingly, Intuitor agrees with you. I say `surprisingly` because Intuitor is home to the Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics page.

I don`t know that I`d say the movie is bad exactly; I wouldn`t buy it for home viewing, but I`m glad I saw it in the theater. Like Jurassic Park movies, if you can`t watch it on a big screen and with booming speakers, it isn`t all that spectacular.