Pop Culture Cuisinart

The International Astronomical Union determined today that Pluto is too small to be an "official" planet. It has been reclassified a dwarf planet, meaning it will have to turn in it's planet club membership card, though it may have more success in the lower weight class. It is unknown how much offense Pluto will take at being refered to as a dwarf. The solar system will remain composed of the eight classical planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus(feel free to insert your own tacky butt joke here).


Who you calling dwarf?

and I must say, Snakes on a Plane exceeded all of my expectations. I can't remember both entering and exiting a theater this excited about a film. Generally I'm either really stoked going in and then dissappointed by the filmmakers vision, or I'm not expecting much and surprised when I like the movie. In this case my expectations were moderate, it's a movie about snakes on a plane, I knew it wasn't going to be Citizen Kane. I love Sam Jackson and I'm even willing to forgive his missteps(cough, Formula 51, cough, The Man), but I knew there was potential gold in mixing the Baddest Mutha F***er in Hollywood with killer animals(see Deep Blue Sea). It helped that the crowd was great and I was quickly swept up in the enthusiasm of the audience. Did the CGI snakes look computer generated? Absolutely. Was the plot ridiculous? Uh, yeah. But that's ok, it's not Shakespeare and doesn't have to be. Besides who wants to sit through a movie with a complex multilinear plot structure, and throughly fleshed out characters when its 96 degrees outside? You'll overheat your brain, in the summer you should stick to material that's more viscerally reactive and believe me SOAP delivers that. Think of the most preposterously entertaining and visually arresting ways a person can be bitten by a snake. Snakes on a Plane has your personal snakebite fetish covered. Add in your gratuitous B movie T & A, a healthy dose of camp, fantastically terrible dialogue, and a highly unlikely albeit satisfying ending, and you have Snakes on a Plane. You should see it, and when you do lean back and enjoy the tasty cheese.




He's tired of all the mutha f***ing snakes!

Striptease send-offs at funerals may become a thing of the past in east China after five people were arrested for organizing the intimate farewells. Of course I was unaware they were en vogue now, I might have to write a will. (We're all here to say goodbye to our dear friend Brad, but before we do Peaches and Kaylee will jello wrestle.) Police swooped in last week after two groups of strippers gave "obscene performances" at a farmer's funeral in Donghai County, Jiangsu province, the Xinhua news agency said. Apparently in China it's not uncommon for performers to be used to entice guests to attend a funeral. Chinese tradition conveys that the more people who attend a person's funeral, the more honored they are considered, this led to wealthy families employing troupes of performers to attract a crowd. This has evolved now into having exotic entertainment now at many funerals. Two hundred showed up at last week's funeral. Five strippers were detained and local officials "issued notices concerning funeral management," The Chinese News agency reported. Now village officials must submit plans for funerals within 12 hours after a villager dies. And residents can report "funeral misdeeds" on a hotline, the report said.(I guess necrophilia is out too then.)