Anaconda

This gem, straight outta '97, combines my love of giant snakes and bad acting.

Just the opening credits of this mess are hilarious. Owen Wilson? Jennifer Lopez? Fucking ICE CUBE? Holy shit, is this the dude who plays Machete?! IMDB has let me know that oh my, yes it is. Whatever, he didn't even survive the credits.

Jennifer Lopez is some kind of hunter or scientist or some shit. There's also some other skank who's with Owen Wilson who wears tiny shorts and a button up shirt that's tied in the middle like every 90s sex symbol. You can always see her bra. "Is it just me or does the jungle make you really, really horny?" - Direct quote from Owen Wilson's character to hers. Yeah, they'll be lasting long. Horror film rules say he and his slutty broad bite it first; probably whilst banging in some secluded area. Well, either them or Ice Cube. Nothing carries a death sentence in a bad thriller like expressing your interest in orgasms or being an ethnic minority.

There's this dude in the beginning who's trying to bang J-Lo and somehow he bags her by talking about the mating rituals of fireflies. Yep. That's it for me. Flashing insect butts get me hot every time. I'm surprised they don't make pornos about bioluminesence.

Please prepare yourself for Jon Voight's character. He may have begotten Angelina Jolie, but his unidentifiable, South American accent leaves MUCH to be desired. Portuguese? Spanish? Nobody knows. Either way: bad. It is also important to note that he has a disgusting ponytail.

Don't watch this movie unless you're into cliched and poorly-written horror film characters.
The strong, female lead: "I am tough, sexy, and also know science."
The snooty British guy: "I've brought expensive wine on a boat that has such minimal facilities that I have to defecate in a bucket"
The sexy couple: "We serve little more purpose than to make sex jokes and die spectacularly"
The helpful older guy who turns out to be evil: "Hey guys, I know lots about the jungle. On an unrelated note, I'll totally kill you to make some money." Important to note: must be killed 30-40 times for death to be achieved.
The cool, black dude: "Aaww hell no, I ain't getting eaten by some snake" Unfortunately, sir, the likelihood is that you will.
The guy everyone forgot about until he saves the day: "Hey! I'm alive! Remember me? No? Oh..."

Also, don't watch it if you have an issue with dead monkeys.

I realise it was 13 years ago, but did they really make this movie seriously? "Okay okay, I've got an idea. We'll get a bunch of D-list actors and a couple of music stars and put them on a boat in the amazon where they're going to get eaten by a giant snake." "Dude, why didn't I think of that?!" Because it's retarded. Side note: if it were a reality show, I think I'd watch it. Can we make that happen somehow?

The dialogue, acting and special effects are out-of-control ridiculous. There is actually a scene that includes a CGI Anaconda that's on fire and still trying to eat people. Don't you think writhing in pain would be a priority over satiating its hunger? I don't know about you, but nothing curbs my appetite quite like being lit on fire.

This movie sucks. I wouldn't recommend watching it unless you're very intoxicated. Or stupid. Stupid works too.

The Lion King

Okay, okay, first off I want to say that I have seen The Lion King an unreasonable number of times since it came out when I was 6. In no way do I dislike this film. However, it's always fun to observe in-discrepancies, even in your favourite things.

From the get-go, I think we need to observe the fact that one of the most beloved characters in this film is a baboon. Baboons, in case you're not aware, are fucking TERRIFYING (Don't believe me? Check here). Through no amount of cartoonification can I be convinced that Rafiki is going to do anything other than rip my face off with his terrifyingly large canine teeth and then perhaps rub his big gross butt on me. In the film, they made it a nice, non-offensive blue-ish colour. In reality, a baboon's butt is not only a frightening shade of bright red, but also disgustingly lumpy and weird. (Look!)

The version I have has a new song added to it called "The Morning Report" which replaced the scene where Simba pounces on Zazu. This new addition straight up sucks for a number of reason. For one, the song isn't even good and is only like 30 seconds long. For another, the original scene was better because it showed a major bonding moment between Simba and Mufasa as he taught him how to hunt. In its place is a bizarre attempt to cut together various parts without having to bring the original voice actors back in.

Moving on, can we address that Simba and Nala are in an arranged marriage? Sure, it works out in the end because they fall in love or whatever, but what if it hadn't? What the fuck are we teaching children? "Okay, so maybe you don't love this guy, but you should marry him anyway because he's going to be the freaking king." Okay, maybe that IS a good lesson for young girls. I'm sure she could find herself a manstress on the side.

As a young child I thought to myself "How does Zazu know that the Rhino sitting on him is female?" The answer has become perfectly clear to me and the only response I can muster is "Ew."

Watching this film through adult eyes is a very strange thing. You realize that in one scene, Mr.Bean is preventing Randy Taylor from being eaten by Cheech and Guinan.

All the lions have these well-thought-out African names. In fact, I think "Simba" means "Lion" in Swahili and "Mufasa" means "king". Scar, on the other hand, has a very poorly-written Bond-villain-esque name that seems to have come directly out of exhaustion. "Fuck this, I am too tired to think of a good name for this character. Let's draw a scar on his face and name him Scar." Also, how did he end up so lanky? They chalk it up to him missing out on the "brute strength" gene. In real life, however, this probably means he's underfed. I like to think it is as a result of him being rude to the huntresses and them being like "Fuck you, dick, you can't have any of the zebra carcass."

Now, we ALL love Timon and Pumba, but the fact remains that no matter how you slice it, Timon is kind of a dick. He takes credit for Pumba's ideas and tells him that he's stupid and smelly all the time. That's really not a healthy relationship by any means. Hey kids! Do you want to be like one of your favourite film characters? Just undermine your overweight friend until they submit to you and you'll be able to ride them everywhere! and all this is even if we disregard my feelings on the topic of subjecting children to bad puns.

I really can't get into how many insects and grubs a lion cub would have to eat on a daily basis in order to reach a healthy level of protein and taurine, but I'm only 20% serious about that. What I AM serious about is the fact that Johnathan Taylor Thomas grew up to be fucking Ferris Bueller. This frightens me.

On to the "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" scene: I know you guys haven't seen each other in a long time and were childhood friends or whatever. And yes, I get that you're falling in love, but aren't your people in another land slowly dying of starvation? Is this REALLY the ideal time to be flirting and throwing yourselves into ponds on ropes? Come on!

This part where Rafiki shows up to show Simba the error of his ways reminds me of something. A young guy meets an eccentric old dude in a jungle area and the old man shows him his true potential and that his father isn't really dead after all - in some way or another. (Oh, and his father is voiced by James Earle Jones). I get the feeling we're suddenly in the Dagobah System.

So when he sees his father's ghost or whatever the fuck, he is like "Look, Simba, I know you're happy in your perfect paradise life, but you're going to have to deal with the fact that isn't good enough. Go fucking get your shit together and be king, otherwise you don't love me." Seriously. Mufasa essentially tells him that if he doesn't go be king, he has forgotten his father. Pretty intense shit. I mean, I guess some lives are in the balance or whatever, but don't you think his dad would want him to be happy? Not when his dad is secretly Darth Vader and also the dude who says "If you build it, they will come." While we're on that subject, how did the father have such a deep, intense voice and the son gets stuck with Matthew Broderick's pubescent squeal? Simba's mother has a deeper voice than him. Maybe it's all the grubs.

I don't have much else to say except that you should check out the slo-mo fight between Simba and Scar. It gets pretty comical, there, for a moment or two "Aaah! You lion pawed me in the face!" "I am leaping through flames to defeat you"

Lessons learned: Don't fuck with the king of the lions, even if you think he's dead; don't fuck with the king of the lions even if you know he's dead, because he'll help somehow; make friends with baboons because they won't murder you, but will, instead, be very friendly and can fight like Bruce Lee.

Chocolat

I found myself watching Chocolat because it was the most interesting thing on at 1am on a Friday night when all my friends are busy. I thought "Oh hey, I'm a chick and I'm drunk, this movie should be entertaining enough." The cover lead me to believe that Johnny Depp would be a prominent feature.

This movie disappointed in ways I was unprepared for. Mostly, this film is about a deeply religious, very set-in-its-ways French village in what I think is supposed to be the 1950s. Seriously, though, who the fuck knows? I mean, it's France. Those guys are like "What? It's been more than 20 minutes since the revolution? Ca ne me interesse pas."

For some reason, even though I know it's the only way they can make a film about France and release it in America, the France-esque setting mixed with a group of people speaking in American (and, for good measure a few English) accents is infuriating. I think this one broad is some kind of Eastern European. They like to throw in random French words to seem like it makes sense, but it really fucking doesn't. This film has the odd feeling of being dubbed from French without actually having been dubbed.

Anyway, I was like "Oh hey, at least Johnny Depp is in this, even if the plot sucks big, pseudo-French dick, there should be some eye candy or some such shit."| Uhhh... no. He doesn't show up until past the half-way mark, and when he does he is a classical-guitar playing vagabond with a ponytail. Yaaaaaaaay. and by "Yay" I mean "Ew, please shower and get a fucking haircut you disgusting beast"

Of course, far before that, the viewer has to deal with all kinds of various bullshit. You get your tired fish-out-of-water story when some bitch who saunters around Europe with her daughter born out of wedlock turn up in a super-religious town. We are all very surprised when she wins everyone - even the most disgruntled old woman - over with her delicious fucking chocolates. Oh, and by the way, that old woman has diabetes. Obviously she likes the chocolate-slinger, since she's the only one in town who will give her sugar.

Our beloved main character bitch who peddles chocolate also takes in a woman who's husband is abusing her (Her husband being portrayed by one of the Nihilists from The Big Lebowski) who miraculously starts to wear makeup after she's rescued.

Blah, blah, motherfucking blah, Johnny Depp and his band of gypsies turn up on a big boat and the big crew of haters in this town obviously start hating on them and being like "Heeey, you're different, please leave".

I haven't finished it yet, but my guess is that chocolate broad wins over all their hearts and minds with chocolate and maybe some bullshit speech about how all humans are created equal, whether they're sluts, chocolatiers or dirty dudes with ponytails.

Finished the film. Diabetes lady dies and ponytailz gets his boat lit on fire. Overcoming adversity is as easy as melting a pot of fucking refined cocoa beans. They did manage to forgo the big, preachy speech, but instead we we're handed something even more horrifying. One of the last scenes in this film shows the antagonist trashing the chocolate shop and accidentally getting a small piece in his mouth. He tastes how delicious it is, falls in love and starts rolling in the chocolate. I almost wish I were joking.

Moral of the story: Haters gonna hate, but give them chocolate and they might stop hating after they light your boat on fire even if they're nihilists.