Archives: A
- E F - N O
- Z Posters Who
We Are and Why We Do What We Do
BLU-RAY DVDs
Batman Begins
Black Hawk Down
Blade Runner
Casino Royale
Dark Knight
District Nine
Defiance
Fast and Furious
Fast and Furious movies set
Fifth Element
The Hangover
Incredible HULK
Inglorious Basterds
Iron Man
Kill Bill 1 & 2
James Bond Ultimate ed v1James Bond Ultimate ed v2James Bond Ultimate ed v3
Julie & Julia
Moon
Public Enemies
Rambo box set
Silence of the Lambs
Sin City
This is Spinal Tap
Terminator
Terminator Salvation
Terminator 2
Top Gun
Total Recall
300
Transformers: Revenge of Fallen
Ultimate Matrix coll
Twilight
Underworld
Watchmen (dir cut)
X-Men Trilogy
X-Men Wolverine
BLU-Ray for family DVDs
Bolt
A Bug's Life
Cars
Chronicles of Narnia set
Coraline
Ghostbusters
Harry Potter & Chamber of Secrets
& Goblet of Fire
& Order of Phoenix
& Prisoner of Azkaban
& Sorcerers Stone
Ice Age/Alvin + Chipmunks set
The Incredibles
Jungle Book
Juno
Kung Fu Panda
Monsters Inc
Nightmare Before Xmas
101 Dalmatians
Pinocchio
Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy
Pixar short films
Ratatouille
Santa Clause
Santa Clause 2
Sleeping Beauty
Spiderwick Chronicles
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White & 7 Dwarfs
Star Trek motion pictures set
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (1-3)
Star Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Transformers SE
Wallace and Gromit
Wall-E SE
We're Kidlet Safe
Search engine
by FreeFind
click to search site
Now in Release:
Alice in Wonderland
An Education
Avatar
Blind Side, the
Brooklyn's Finest
Green Zone
How to Train Your Dragon
Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
The Proposal
Red Clif
She's Out of My League
A Single Man
Waking Sleeping Beauty
DVDs on Sale:
An American in Paris
Batman
Begins
Blade
Runner
Blind Side
The Dark Knight
Day the Earth Stood Still
Die Hard collection 1-4
District Nine
Forrest
Gump
Gone
With the Wind
The Hangover
Indiana
Jones trilogy
Inglorious Basterds
Lord
of Rings trilogy
Ultimate
Matrix set
Monty
Python - Holy Grail
Moon
South
Park Movie
Star
Wars Trilogy (1-3)
Star
Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Terminator Salvation
Up
Wall-E
Watchmen - Ultimate cut
Woodstock
X-Men
Trilogy
X-Men Origins Wolverine
DisneyPixar/family DVDs
Alice
in Wonderland
Bambi
Beauty
and the Beast
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
Bolt
Cinderella
Coraline
E.T.
Harry
Potter yrs 1-4 set
Harry Potter
& Chamber of Secrets
& Goblet of Fire
& Prisoner of Azkaban
& Sorcerers Stone
& Order of Phoenix
Kung Fu Panda
The
Lion King
Mary
Poppins 45th LE
Pinocchio
Ratatouille
Shrek Trilogy
Simpsons Movie
Spider-Man Trilogy
Star Trek movies set
Star
Trek TOS (TV)
ST:TNG complete tv set
Star Wars Trilogy (1-3)
Star
Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Wallace and Gromit
Wall-E SE
Looney
Toons
Golden Age DVD
Volume
1
Volume
2
Volume
3
Volume 4
Volume 5
Volume 6
Rocky & Bullwinkle DVD
Season
1
Season
2
Season
3
Popeye the Sailor DVD
v.1 1933 - 1938
v.2 1938 - 1940
v.3 1941 - 1943
75th anniversary coll.ed.
Anaconda
Starring Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, and Eric
Stoltz
Screenplay by Hans Bauer, Jim Cash, and Jack Epps, Jr.
Animatronic FX by: Walt Conti
Visual FX by John Nelson
Directed by Luis Llosa
IN SHORT: Almost bad enough
to be good
Cranky walked out of the sneak preview of Anaconda with the crunch crunch of popcorn accompanying every footstep. Sometime soon, dear reader, if you are so inclined, you will be sitting in a theater with the sound cranked up and the extra large tub of popcorn in your lap. Your hand will be buried in the golden topping goo that passes for butter. The popped kernels will be heading for your maw when the title snake appears. The popcorn will go flying and you, too, will hear it go crunch crunch under your feet when you leave the theater.
Anaconda is not an original idea -- it's a little bit Jaws, a little bit Alien, and a little bit Moby Dick. As far as well developed stories go, let's be honest here. The entire point of movies like Anaconda is to get you from civilization to where the monster is. Once achieved, the point is to scare the bejeezus out of you. You know it's got the job nailed when nervous laughter rises to the rafters between onscreen attacks of what the film calls the "most perfect killing machine," the South American anaconda snake.
Any critic that saw this thing in a private room would have been bored silly. Which is one of the reasons I do my best to see flicks with real people.
The story details the efforts of a documentary film crew led by Dr. Steven Cale (Eric Stoltz) and director Terri Flores (Jennifer Lopez); the group seeks to find and film the legendary Shirishama Indians of the Amazon. In the midst of a torrential rainstorm on the river, they rescue Paul Sarone (Jon Voight), whose boat has been stranded. Sarone will waylay the filmmakers and get us to that bejeezus part I just wrote about.
With a terrible accent laid thick on top of the crazy gleam in his eyes, with every eyebrow wiggle, you can tell that Jon Voight is having the time of his life playing Sarone, to whom the capture of the 40-foot-long, mythological-monster-sized snake is worth big bucks. Voight is this movie's equivalent of Ahab. The capture of a live anaconda is his equivalent of the white whale. Voight's performance steals the picture.
In between attacks, you can have a good time guessing which hapless voyager will get chomped next. The ferocity of the snake attacks is where the Alien analogy comes in. Director Luis Llosa's choice to shoot the stalking sequences from the snake's point of view is drawn from Jaws, and it all works well. The animatronic snake looks about as real as I could imagine. The CGI snake moves on and off screen so quickly, you don't have time to dwell on whether or not it looks real.
Prepare to giggle, nervously.
On average, a first run movie ticket will run you Eight Bucks. Were Cranky able to set his own price to Anaconda, he would have paid . . .
$4.00
Anaconda is one of those flicks that is almost, repeat almost, so bad it's good. If you can't see it with a crowd, don't see it. But I saw it with a crowd, and it scared the bejeezus out of me.
 |
Click to buy films starring Jon Voight |
| Click to buy films starring Jennifer Lopez | |
| Click to buy films starring Eric Stoltz |