ANACONDA (1997)

A sweaty group of nerds take a boat down the Amazon River in order to make a documentary about a long-lost indigenous Amazonian tribe.  Along the way, they make the wise choice of picking up a hitchhiker. This dude immediately starts talking hella mad shit.  Then before you can ask “How the fuck has HBO still not discovered Robert McCammon?”, there’s a big ass computer-generated snake floating around eating people.

I remember seeing ANACONDA in the theater back in 1997 and being severely disappointed at how bland, weak and soulless it was. It hasn’t gotten any better with age.  Zero blood, zero gore, zero nudity, zero tension.  Just a bunch of actors running around some crappy-looking boat collecting a paycheck.  The idea of a large killer snake hunting humans is ripe with entertaining possibilities, but none of them are present here.

For some misguided reason I thought it would be fun to revisit ANACONDA for a review. Maybe I was too young to enjoy it back in 1997?  Maybe it’d be fun to giggle at?  Nope. Instead, I just sat there dumbfounded that it was even worse than I remember it being. Shit script, Danny Trejo’s name in the opening credits even though he dies during the opening scene and only has around 1:22 minutes of screentime, bland colours, bland acting, bland cinematography, bland action scenes, bland special effects, bland dialogue…you know what?  Fuck this movie, fuck this review.  I’ve already wasted too much time on this stinky bowel movement. Watch it if you want, maybe you and your friends will get some laughs out of it. Just don’t expect a good movie.

[Note: As I was proofreading this review, I noticed that today is April 11 and ANACONDA was released 26 years ago today on April 11, 1997. Happy birthday, you boring piece of fuck.]

Part 2 - Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (2004)
Part 3 - Anaconda 3: Offspring (2008)
Part 4 - Anacondas: Trail of Blood (2009)
Part 5 - Lake Placid vs. Anaconda (2015)

FREEBIE AND THE BEAN (1974)

Making eye contact with a naked man in a bubble bath, touching random men as they urinate in a bowling alley restroom, playing grab ass with your buddy in a children’s playground. These are all fun weekend activities, but it’s also a small snippet of what police detectives James Caan and Alan Arkin are up to when they are assigned to protect a high-ranking criminal from unknown assassins. You’d think that squirreling the target away in a secluded location would be a wiser course of action, but no, these two psychopaths go on a no holds barred rampage all across San Francisco like they’re in the fucking Purge!

Cold-blooded murder, sexual assault, driving a car at high speed through a marching band in a parade, assaulting people left and right, driving their car into an occupied apartment, multiple counts of theft, dozens of vehicles damaged or destroyed, looking at pornographic magazines around children, firing guns in public, jumping a moving train with a car, assaulting a man in order to steal his motorcycle, having a car illegally towed, no seat belts ever, assaulting a drunk guy with a metal pipe, murdering a guy in a dentist office, randomly accusing your wife of cheating instead of simply having a conversation with her…I could brush all of this bad behavior aside in the name of (poorly written and dated) comedy, but the racial and gay slurs were just too goddamn much. Life is short, and I don’t have time to waste on that weak-minded bullshit.

Homophobic and racist behavior aside, FREEBIE AND THE BEAN isn’t funny, entertaining or worth watching. Yet somehow it ended up being one of the bigger box office hits of 1974, so what the fuck do I know. I’m glad I watched it, just for the learning experience, but I’ll never watch this stinker again. Skip it.