When You Wake Up a Snake

So anyway, I watched about three quarters of Anaconda last night when I got home from the pub. Wow. What a magnificently, breathtakingly, staggeringly shit moment of cinema history. I'm well aware that a film called Anaconda, about a big ass snake in a swamp is hardly challenging the world of High Arts, but betcha by golly, is this film bad. What I did't know before I started watching mind, is the number of Real! Hollywood! People! cropped up. Jennifer Lopez, I knew took a starring role, and obviously was going to be the token survivor, alongside Ice Cube (who I didn't know was in it). What I didn't know was Jon Voight was going to show up displaying a riciulous display of laughable pantomime ham acting as a lunatic hunter with no actual idea what he was even doing there in the first place, and also can't make up his mind whether he wants to kill the crew, the snake, himself, or the film. I'll settle for the latter. What rounds this mysterious A list cast off perfectly, is the inclusion of Owen 'Llama looking through frosted glass' Wilson, who does his "Gee Wally, I just wanna drink moonshine and have some fun y'all" routine for about five minutes, and then all you see is his shaggy-dog hair disappearing down the gullet of the most ingeniously unrealstic looking big ass snake. Add into the mix a token chesty female who was so insignificant I can't even remember how she snuffed it (although, given every character somehow ended up inside the snake, that's a safe bet), a 5 year old childs vision of what an Engish photographer should look and sound like (a straight Alan Cumming lookalike who's be trained at the Royal Academy of Brtish Pomposity) and some boring git who spent 99% of the film laid on his back in the cabin and was apparently J-Los love interest. Awful.
I wouldn't want to ruin subsequent viewings of the film for anyone by revealing the ending, or the best bits, but there are some howlingly bad efforts right across the board here. Personally, the snake itself was the icing on the cake, because I'm terrified of snakes, but even this lesson in special effect no-nos was too screamingly hysterica to take seriously. Firstly, it appeared to have super-snake powers which not only allowed it to be almost as big as the entire boat, it could move quicker than lightning, had impeccible eyesight, hearing, and movement sensors, to the extent it could attack with it's head and tail simultaneously despite them being at opposite ends of the boat, and had facial expressions, and made "aaaargh" and "eeeeeek" noises when it was in pain. Clears the effects crew forgot half way through they were dealing with a snake and used and leftover effects from the Jurassic Park goody box.

Last night I went for a pre Christmas drink with my ex girlfriend Anna. There really aren't enough people in the world like her, and I mean that in a good way. I can't believe I forgot to ask about her robotic arm though, I'd been saving that question all year.