Pop Culture Happy Hour - Anaconda

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

The new Anaconda movie is a meta reimagining in which Jack Black and Paul Rudd play aspiring filmmakers who attempt to make… a meta reimagining of Anaconda. It’s not quite a reboot, it’s not quite a sequel, and it’s played for laughs.Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopcultureSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hi, Linda Holmes here. Somehow we are almost at the end of 2025. And I'm going to be honest with you, it's been a pretty challenging year for NPR and local stations. But here's the thing. Despite losing federal funding for public media and despite all the attacks we've seen on the free press, we're still here for you. We are still independent, a critical right guaranteed by the First Amendment. And with your support, NPR will not be silent. Here at Pop Culture Happy Hour, will continue keeping you company with thoughtful, engaging conversations about all the movies, TV, music, and more 2026 has in store. If you're already an NPR Plus supporter, thank you so much. We see you, and we're so grateful for you. If not, please join the community of public radio supporters

right now before the end of the year at plus.npr.org. Signing up unlocks a bunch of perks like bonus episodes and more from across NPR's podcasts. Plus, you get to feel good about supporting public media while you listen. End the year on a high note and invest in a public service that matters to you. Visit plus.npr.org today. Thanks. The original Anaconda movie came out almost 30 years ago. It starred Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, and some very deadly snakes. The new Anaconda is a lot of fun.

It's a meta-reimagining in which Jack Black and Paul Rudd play aspiring filmmakers who attempt to make a meta reimagining of Anaconda. It's not quite a reboot. It's not quite a sequel. And it is played for laughs. I'm Stephen Thompson. Today we are talking about Anaconda on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

Joining me today is Jordan Cruciola. She's a writer and producer and the host of the podcast, Feeling Seen on Maximum Fun. Hey, Jordan? Hello, honor to be here on the Anaconda Day. It's a big one. Also with us is filmmaker,

pop culture critic, and Iheart radio producer, Joel Monique. Hey, Joelle. Happy holidays, Stephen. Happy holidays to you. And rounding out the panel is Jordan Morris. He's a podcaster and the writer of the upcoming Marvel comic series Predator Bloodshed. Hey, Jordan. Hi, great to be here. It is a pleasure to have you. So many Jordans. Jordan Chrysiela, you can be Jordan Alpha if you want to, and I'll be Jordan Beta. I'll defer to your preference. So I can be Jordan Alpha for the day. I accept this privilege. In rooms with multiple Stevens, I just go by Stephen 1.0. Ah, very nice. So the original Anaconda, and you kind of have to put original in scare quotes, sent an assortment of 90s movie stars down the Amazon, where they were menaced and occasionally crushed and were devoured by giant deadly snakes. That film was a hit that spawned a handful of lightly regarded sequels.

The new Anaconda is heavy on meta references to the original film. Jack Black and Paul Rudd star as lifelong friends who grew up wanting to be filmmakers, but they've followed different careers. career paths. Paul Rudd's character is a struggling actor whose biggest role was a bit part on the TV show SWAT, while Jack Black's character makes wedding videos while yearning to shoot something more creative. For reasons too convoluted to list here, they wind up gathering their old friends and collaborators played by Tandieway Newton and Steve Zahn and head to the Amazon to shoot a reimagining of Anaconda. As you can imagine, this proves harder than it sounds.

Put your face right up next to the snake. I don't like it. I don't want to do it anymore. Give it a tiny bit closer? Like, this you gotta do? No, I don't quite have it. You got the shot. You got the shot. This is gold. Just give me one more second.

The new Anaconda is in theaters. Now, Jordan Cruciola. I'm going to start with you. What did you think? I'm going to start off this by saying, huge fan of original Anaconda, big movie in my house growing up. Hell yeah.

So I like never go into movies with baggage. Like, that's not my thing. I'm so remake, Redux. I'm like, I'm going to take it on its own terms. It is what it is. I was very nervous about the Jack Blackification of movies that happens when Jack Black is even standing near them, let alone the star of them. Not that that's a bad thing, but like the delight of Anacomacot is, it's so earnest. It's so taking completely seriously in the performance of John Voight, the entire premise.

And I didn't need the same movie over again, but I knew in my heart, like, I want Crawl, but with an Anaconda. So I will say all of that going in, I had a very fun time. The Jack Black quotient worked for me. Honestly, seeing 10D. Way Newton have this much fun was like soul healing. Steve Zahn was my MVP. If you bear the same concerns that I do by Anaconda, I think this is a best case scenario of this kind of Anaconda. And I would encourage you to see it in a theater with friends. Okay.

Jordan Morris, how about you? Yeah. I also like this a lot. I will say, like Jordan Alpha, I also have a deep love of the original Anaconda. I saw it in high school with a group of friends. And like the friends in this movie, we constantly quote Anaconda to each other. Like if I ran into them on the street, we would quote Anaconda to each other. So when I saw that part of this premise, I was like, it me, it me.

That's some niche representation that one can never expect, but I feel it can only be very pleasantly surprised by. Yes. It was wonderful to find that. see myself on screen. And I also really like this director's other movie, the unbearable weight of massive talent, the movie where Nick Cage plays himself. That is a kind of kooky premise that shouldn't work that I thought was a great movie. I like this like a little bit less, but I ultimately had a really fun time with it.

It's trying for a lot of different tones. It sometimes wants to be kind of a more grounded comedy. It sometimes wants to be kind of a crazy Anchorman sketch comedy. It sometimes wants to be horror and there's an action subplot that kind of hangs on like an appendix. But the movie cares about even less than I do. Yes. But I will say when like the snake hits the fan in this movie, it is so much fun. And I totally agree with the sentiment that like it's a blast in a theater.

Yeah. Okay. How about you, Joelle? I was eight when the original Anaconda came out. My parents had no thought process as to like what is appropriate for a child. So I definitely saw that at eight. And I loved it. And it became obsessed with it.

It's a great effing movie. Like, it's so fun. I thought this movie had a lot of fun, too. I think, you know, to Jordan Alpha's point, the chemistry between

Rudd and Black is so fun. Like, they are twinkling. You know, these are movie stars. Like, wow, the jokes are hitting. The clip he played at the top is my favorite part.

I once held a snake, once in Chicago, once in Florida. They moved faster in Florida. It was really scary. And so I was like really connected to it. I was like, okay, I too am afraid of snakes, but I'm fascinated by them. I thought, like, most of the comedy hits, you've got a couple of flat parts, but I think

Jordan Beda's point of trying to do a lot of different themes and tones throughout really hurts the movie overall because you don't ever feel confident about where it's going. The setup is perfection. Like, they really get friends who are amateur filmmakers gassing themselves up to perfection. Totally. This is a masterpiece. Don't change a word. No, dude, you killed it.

It's scary. It's emotional. It's funny when it needs to be. Dude, thank you. It's so the, your script is genius. We love it. We're going to go to the Amazon with $40,000 and make a big budget movie. Like, it's so good.

Thames. Thames. But, you know, once you're in the jungle and they're, like, getting into the action bits, my God, slows down a lot. The characters kind of fall apart a bit. It's just a little bit under what I was hoping for. Maybe I'm the stupid one because I had high hopes for this film. I'm glad you did. I'm glad you saw this poster and you were like, banger.

Better be five bad. I saw the trailer. I was like, Anaconda meets the Jumansi remakes. Yes, I want this. And I will say, like, I think I had a lot more fun because I did see in a theater. If you are a, I'm going to the movies on Christmas. And you're like, okay, Marty Supreme, you look great. But I'm just trying to have a jolly time.

It's Christmas and this looks kind of heavy. It's not going to be a bad pick. You're going to have a good ass time. Like, go with your buddies. I think you're right. This is a good movie with the family on Christmas. That's good curation. One of my questions going into this movie was how familiar are you going to need to be with the

original Anaconda? Because unlike the Jordans and Joelle, I had never seen Anaconda until about three hours before I went to the screening. Did you understand this one then? I'm too deep in. I did end up seeing the 1997 Anaconda right before this film. Amazing. And that, I think, really enhanced the experience. I think if you are somebody who, like me, saw arachnophobia and filed away, I have seen Anaconda,

and then realized shortly before the screening, no, I actually have to catch up on this movie. But I do think the lore of the first film, this is a film for people who love the first Anaconda, absolutely. And I think that you're going to appreciate this film a lot more if you have seen Anaconda 1.0. I'm glad that Jordan Morris mentioned the unbearable weight of massive talent, which was also directed by Tom Gormacken, you know, who does this as well. To me, these are very, very similar films. If you liked that film, you should definitely see this. They're both approaching kind of popcorn film history with deep, deep love and kind of

meta appreciation. If you like meta, this is a very, very, very meta film. It's kind of commenting on itself. It's kind of commenting on the industry and IP and the original Anaconda. And for me, I honestly, I just dug it. I agree that it's got subplots that kind of go nowhere. I definitely agree with the point about how tonally it's all over the place. It's kind of this shambling, amiable comedy about these friends, but there is a body count.

People have to be eaten by snakes. And so that requires kind of putting in place these very. superfluous characters in this very superfluous subplot in order to kind of get to a place where people are eaten by snakes. But for me, like, there is a certain kind of mid-budget, mid-tier, kind of lightness and playfulness to this film that was such a tonic in the middle of award season. You know, I recommend, see this right after you see Hamnet. Oh, wow. Okay. Yes. Yes.

If you need a pallet cleanser. Guys, can I make a suggestion? Can we get this started? Hamakonda. Oh. It's the Barbenheimer of 2025. The counter-programming bonanza of Hamakanda. Right.

Hamaconda. Jordan Morris. You know, I think we all kind of agree that like the tone stuff doesn't always work. I will be the one to say I loved the action parts of this movie, the snake chained. Chases were really fun, and my favorite parts of this movie were when this movie was being an Anaconda movie. So, hey, Snake Chase fans, there are stuff for you in this, too. There's some legitimate scares, and I think, like, the ultimate movie in this category, I think, for me, is Sean of the Dead, right? Like, I think that's the movie that nails this.

I think this doesn't nail it in that way. You know, because Sean of the Dead, the funny stuff is funny. You care about the characters. The horror stuff works. This isn't quite there, but I think by the end of the end of the... this movie, or at least in the back half of this movie, the characters get dumber. They get significantly dumber. And I think the movie is better for it.

I kind of maybe thought they should have been leaning into kind of that anchor man, a little more sketchy comedy the whole time because I think that works a little bit better for it. But I did like, by the end of it, I was whipping it up. Yeah. And see, Jordan, I kept thinking about walk hard is like my gold star comedy movie. And what I love about that movie is. as goofy and off the rails and weird as it is,

you genuinely care about these characters and, like, their outcome. Yeah. Obviously, like, it's supposed to be a two-hander between Rudd and Black, but Tendiwe comes in and they try to force this romance between her and Rudd's character, which didn't- Tendiwee Newton. Yeah, and it kind of tosses the story for me a little bit. Like, I didn't understand, like, why that needed to be, I guess they were like,

we have to have a romance. But in addition to, like, some of the secondary characters, I was like, if we had instead made her not just the love interest, but given her a little bit more character or been more of a person, we could have leaned into that comedy more and had like, I think in overall, like a much better time really focused on like these two friendships. Like I also didn't feel like we had enough of a breaking point between the two friends

just for like a good structure act of like rise and fall. Like they're always on each other's side. I'm just like, I wish there was a little bit more personal internal conflict in this comedy so that we cared a little bit more about the character. at the end. I do think the like rise in stupidity works with the action because the snake

guys, we talk about the snake. The snake design is really good. The snake's cool. The snake looks cool. Yeah, guys, that's of utmost importance. If you're talking about an Anaconda movie, how's the snake? The snake is great. And the biggest friggin' snake that's ever existed on this face

of this earth. The snake's big. Gargantuan snake. And it somehow still feels real. You're like, I'm for sure there's not a snake this large ever on the planet. But my God, I feel terrified. It's so big. And then, too, listen, there's a scaling of snakes in here that works really well, too. Like, at first you're like, that's a big snake.

And you're like, that's a big snake. It's like a really jump in moment for you. That works really well. And so I don't want to poo-poo all the action. I thought, like, to have a great-looking snake, I had a few jump scares in there, which surprised me. I wasn't really anticipating that the scares would work, but they did. Yeah.

If you go back and watch the original, the snake, it's that 90-CGI. It looks like the snake was made by the same couple. that made the Flying Toaster Screen Saver. Until you got those great rubber body shots. I think we all agree that, like, the four leads of this movie are, like, the four of the most charming, fun to watch people working in movies, and they're all great. Yes, special shout out to Steve Zon. Absolutely. I'm so glad we're, like, seeing him more these days.

It felt like, you know, when the original came out, he's not in it, but, like, this was when Steve Zon was everywhere. And now he's like back again. I think we're kind of in the middle of a little bit of a, dare I say, Zonisans. Oh, that one I saw coming. Camaconda was off the dome. I came up with Zamasans at the theater. So, you know, I teed it up a little bit better. I did wonder while we were watching the movie, he's giving this like kind of kooky, stoned

weirdo performance. I did wonder, was that supposed to be Owen Wilson at any point? Was it supposed to be him either playing his character or a guy from their friend group who looks exactly like Owen Wilson. Anyway, I'm glad Zahn is there, but his kind of weirdo performance had me wondering, like, oh, was that supposed to be Owen Wilson at some point? I do think the tonal melange is absolutely correct in explaining how this movie feels. I do think it actually helped me in this one because it was so much not the Anaconda that I wanted.

It's not just a straight-up, we're serious Anaconda-ing, which is what I want. the bouncing back and forth between things meant that I wasn't getting annoyed at too much of one stick that wasn't what I wanted. So actually the dipping platter that this movie presented, it gave me options to kind of bounce back and forth between things because I would have gotten really frustrated, I think, with more Anchorman bitziness. To me, it was a feature, not a bug. I'm not saying I'm the average viewer in this one. But the cocktail really sang for me. The gag that you guys do see in the trailer with Jack Black running and a bore taped to him. Oh, my gosh.

I was shocked to be reduced to absolute tears of laughter. I couldn't breathe. At a sort of point, I was laughing because I was laughing so hard. And I was like, this, this of all things. But yeah, it really... Faxmaster that was in charge of the pig, you, sir. You ma'am are a true all-star. Whoever gave the pig those weird puppety eyeballs.

Oh, my God. The pig's great. The pig's great. Oh, God. Bouncing off the top of Jack Flagg's head, that was comedy gold, got to say. What this movie made me realize about myself, in addition to I didn't know that I could be made to laugh that hard by a pig strapped to somebody's back. Me neither, honestly. I think I just love a movie in which weirdness.

try to make art. Yes. A thousand percent. This movie has a lot of fun with the idea of like, what are our larger themes, right? Intergenerational drama. And that was really, really funny. Because, I mean, one of the things that I felt watching Anaconda was like, oh, man, the real snake is man. You know, it's very much like the vibe of that movie.

My friendly Noverine went, Manaconda. But to me, there actually is a theme of this movie that I love and found deeply. inspiring, which is like if you have a chance in your life to make art, it doesn't have to be the great American novel. It can be a reboot of Anaconda because you love Anaconda. And I found that stuff really, really inspiring and sweet. Yes. Good actors performing badly is such a hard thing to do.

And I thought they aced it because they come at it with such earnestness and, like, fullness that, like, what you see to your point, Steven, is like friends just having fun and like that being the joy of crafting the art and my heart was so full. Like I make shorts with my friends all the time

and exactly the same conversations really like, I'm just nervous about the scene. Like when they're pitching stuff to each other like around the table, I was like, you could just tell that everybody involved like just loves the process of making movies.

And I think my heart really felt full in that. Like even there's a moment at the end where they're getting to present their film and I thought where they present it is so perfect and lovely. Yes. I was like, this is an excellent choice. I loved that. I'm so glad to hear you both bring that up because, like, I don't know if it's just because it's like, we're in a desert and my thirst must be slaked or something.

But, like, when I see things that are like, when I, it's either clear that it's like something's so indie and it's like friends just making something together or this, which is like a meta thing about friends making it, I get emotional. Like, I get fully emotional. I'm like, this is what it's all about, you know? AI could never. AI could never. Exactly. AI could never reboot Anaconda. Feels like restorative.

And I'm not saying the movie doesn't do like its thing well that it's doing, but it's also like, wow, is this my whole like constant existence state that like I watch Anaconda and like, you know, filmmakers should keep going. Like, it's hard, but they should keep going, man. All right. Well, I think it's safe to say we got a kick out of this one. Yeah, a kick. We want to know what you think about Anaconda, new and old. Find us on Facebook at Facebook.com slash PCHH and on Letterboxed at letterboxed.com slash NPR Pop Culture. We'll have a link in our episode description that brings us to the end of our show.

Jordan Cruciola, Joel Monique, Jordan Morris. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you, Stephen. Yeah, what a blast. Hamaconda. Amnaconda forever. This episode was produced by Carly Rubin, Kayla Latimore, and Mike Katzif, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music.

Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson. We will see you all next time.