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4) Taken (2009)

Does anyone else remember January 2009? January is a month for studios to dump their crap after the holiday Christmas season gobbles up all the money. Rarely do we see big movies released during this month, and barely any make more than $100 million. Not in 2009! Clint Eastwood surprised everyone on January 9th when Gran Torino expanded from limited release, opening to $29.5 million and ending up with $148 million. Then, on January 16th, Kevin James somehow led his movie, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, to a $32 million debut that ended with $146 million. Then, on January 30th, we got Taken, starring Liam Neeson, which shocked when it opened with $25 million and ended with $145 million. We never get $100 million earners in January and we got three in 2009, but what was the chance they would all end up within $3 million of each other after all showing incredible legs? It was a great time to be a movie lover. Lower expectation = higher rewards. If January 2009 can do it, why can’t the second weekend of May 2017 and Snatched surprise with a huge debut?

Taken makes for a good recommendation before Snatched because it’s different kind of story about a girl getting kidnapped in a foreign country. The abduction of a young woman, as hilaaaaaaarious as Schumer plans to make that concept, is usually a bad thing. In fact, Liam Neeson’s daughter in the movie is taken with the plan to get her addicted to heroin so she becomes dependent on the drug which would make it easier for her to comply when being forced into sex trafficking. Yeah, abducting women isn’t funny, but if your dad is Liam Neeson, then maybe there’s an action movie about your father kicking ass trying to rescue you. And if it’s the first Taken movie and not either of the sequels, then it’s a pretty damn good movie about a woman needing the help of a man… I mean, a father saving his daughter. Ugh, Hollywood, you’re so sexist.

5) Black Snake Moan (2007)

So with Taken, my aim was to show the dark side of abduction. Basically, you should prepare for the comedy version of this in Snatched by showing the dark side, so that the polar opposite nature of these comparisons might actually make Snatched even funnier. Or it could backfire. I don’t know for sure. But in that same vein, here is yet another take on being abducted. In Black Snake Moan, Christina Ricci stars as a young woman with an insatiable need for wiener. She’s not the fun kind of town tramp like Samantha in Sex and the City, where she’s having sex for pleasure. Ricci plays a whore who needs to have sex because of sexual abuse as a child because, well, women shouldn’t want to have sex for fun. There needs to be a reason. Men can want to have sex because their dong is clearly a gift from God and everyone should share that gift. Women can only want to have sex because they’re broken. Otherwise, it had better be for a baby. Sexist, right?

Anyway, Ricci is engaged and her man goes off to the military, so now she needs to have sex with everyone in town to fill her… needs. Yeah, her needs. She says no to her fiancé’s friend, and he gets mad and beats the hell out of her, leaving her for dead on the side of the road. Samuel L. Jackson finds her, decides to save her from herself, and chains her to his couch so she can’t run off and get plowed out by the nearest dude. It’s dark, I know, but it’s actually a decent movie. And since I’m a pervert, any movie about anyone getting banged by lots of men for any reason is a watchable movie to me. Maybe because I’m engaged now and I’m chained to my own metaphorical couch with one wiener forever.

Seeing as how Hollywood hates women and wants to confine them to a kitchen, I can imagine some men in Hollywood wanting to slow down Amy Schumer’s vagina and world domination in comedy. Chaining her to a couch might be just the way to do that. Or maybe it’s just a good way to make a half-decent movie, one that can prepare you for the comedic shenanigans of women getting kidnapped on vacation. At best, it’s an interesting way to prep for Snatched. At worst, it’s a reminder of why women should spend more money at the movies so women can get more jobs as directors so that women can star in more movies about women doing whatever the hell they want. Not movies about women being chained to stop them from having sex for stupid reasons. Down with Trump! Down with sexism! Down with all forms of inequality!!!

And with that, my friends, you have your five ways to prep for Snatched. Follow me on Instagram (RoseByAnyName) for article updates and fun pictures of me being a super nerd at the movies. Also check back next week to see how to prepare you for Alien: Covenant. Have a happy Mother’s Day weekend, everyone!

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