Mustache on a Plane

Friends,

I am a victim of a Hollywood hype machine. I saw Snakes on a Plane and I liked it. Shame on me. You do have to admit that the entire buildup for SoaP (cute, eh?) was ingenius. Agreeing and publicizing that New Line was making a move called Snakes on a Plane, land a star that would star in a furniture commericial if promised residuals, then fuck with the production to make it PG-13 (which still exists in bits in the film...for example, ole Sammy L says "shoot" to express displeasure in a scene instead of something more Jacksonian like "fuck" or "mother fuck"), start an on-line groundswell, then bam, millions of dollars. Brilliant and it caught me like a fish in a net.

The movie was popcorn fun. All kinds of silly shit, snakes, a few laughs (some intentional jokey stuff, others self-consciously bad film moments) and I liked it, God help me, I liked that movie. Now, I have to go on a Merchant & Ivory film fest or deep character-study, depressing-as-all-shit-but-good watch-a-thon to balance this out.

But this movie got me thinking...what's next? There will always be bad action films, but this one essentially flaunted all the things that make it bad and dared you to like it because of those things. Does that mean Steven Seagal will become a box office draw? Jean Claude Van-Damme going to kick split his way back into our hearts? Patrick Swayze going to wow us with his backwoods karate? And how will bad action films be accepted and reviewed now that SoaP exists and excelled monetarily? What about badness in general? Chuck Norris is now some ridiculous bearded icon because of his consistent shittiness whether it is his MIA movies or Delta Force or that goddamn Walker Texas Ranger. Are we supposed to revel in its crapulence, or turn our nose up at it? O, SoaP...what have you wrought?

And, you know, fuck all that. You want to know why SoaP is so popular? Mustache, mustache, mustache. You got Samuel L Jackson killing snakes, swearing, shouting at people, spouting crap lines...and he's the baddest motherfucker in the room because of that mustache. I say it was a conscious choice of Mr. Jackson to grow that stache. Who would you trust in a snake-filled plane to be the man with enough balls to get you through that ridiculous shit? Well it sure won't be the FBI agent without the mustache. Or the surfer dude. Or any of the eye candy ladies. In fact, Sam Jackson, is the only mustachioed man in that entire film. He is the concentration of manliness for the whole film which is why he is the hero. You got that? Mustache on a Hero! Yeah!

Here's a photo:


You see that look of confusion? It's because Sam can't believe that the snake would show such contempt for him and his gloarious mustache. Goddamn that's a man. And a mustache.

VIVA EL MUSTACHE!!