There are movies that you love because of their bravado, their “Sod-you!” accomplishment; movies like Citizen Kane, A Clockwork Orange, The Royal Tenenbaums. There are movies you love because of their heartfelt authenticity and conviction; movies like Kes, Wild Strawberries and The Son’s Room. There are movies you love because they’re breathtakingly fun and stylish; movies like North by Northwest, Fight Club and Pulp Fiction.
And there are movies like Anaconda, which are generic, uninspired, ersatz and leaden. I saw Anaconda at the age of 17, drunk and lairy, with a bunch of mates in the Worcester Odeon and I loved every minute. What made me fall so deeply in love with this piece of trash, this celluloid swindle? It wasn’t the spectacle of Jennifer Lopez asking “Is it just me, or does the jungle make you really horny?”. It wasn’t the sight of Jon Voigt’s dirty-old-man leer. It wasn’t Ice Cube bellowing “We don’t know shit about the shit we’re in!”. It wasn’t even the comedy Englishman dispatching a baddie with a 9-iron and the war-cry “There’s an arsehole in one!” It was all these moments and more. A cornucopia of hyper-real movie logic, sketchy exposition and bad special effects, Anaconda will live unsullied in my memory as the most unintentionally, gloriously silly movie I’ve ever seen.
On June 7th, James sent me an email. How I managed to avoid reading it for a month I don’t know, but today I did, and this is what it said.
Just when you thought it was safe to venture back to the b-movies…
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/anacondas/index.html
Leering; bad puns; atrocious acting – all guaranteed!
Seven years later – a sequel! No matter that the original was a stinking pile of dung that sank without trace. Presumably the executives behind this are hoping that the law of dimishing returns will somehow be turned on its head by this re-run in which scientists travel to the depths of the Borneo jungle in search of – oh! – a mysterious orchid which holds the secret of eternal youth. I only hope it’s out in the UK when Courtney and I are back in August so I can return to the scene of the crime to see its sequel.
I especially like that it’s called Anacondas. You can almost hear the studio execs: “Ah yes, it worked for Alien and Aliens, and they were good movies, so why can’t it work for us?”
