Snake Oil: "Anaconda, reviewed."

Jack Black and Paul Rudd can’t save this ssssssssssstinker. (Sony Pictures)

You’ll want to sit down and do some exercises to limber up your brain before you try to process their supernova of perverse inspiration: Their new “Anaconda” is no mere reboot but in fact a midlife-crisis comedy about four pals who travel from Buffalo to the Amazon (as played by Queensland, Australia) to knock out a no-budget, guerilla-style remake of the 1997 Sony Pictures trash classic “Anaconda,” a fondly recalled object from their youths.

Still on the fence? Your stars are Paul Rudd and Jack Black, those winningly youthful 56-year-olds whose shtick is, like Rudd’s face, evergreen.

My Washington Post review of Anaconda, a toothless nomedy, is here.

War Horse: "Death of a Unicorn," reviewed.

What drag, this unicorn death. My review is in your Washington City Paper.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Ant-Man and The Wasp

The just-fine firm of Lily, Douglas, & Rudd, LLP (Marvel Studios)

I saw a review headline earlier today proclaiming Ant-Man and The Wasp "the perfect summer movie." I could easily name 20 perfect movies released during the summer going back to Jaws, released the summer before I was, but the phrase "a perfect summer" movie almost invariably refers to movies that aren't very good. 

Ant-Man and The Wasp isn't Not Good. It is, as my pal and editor and occasional (today!) Pop Culture Happy Hour panel-mate Glen Weldon observed in his review, fine.

I'm going to see it again tonight, in fact, but only because it's on a bill at the drive-in with Incredibles 2, which I've not seen yet, and because I haven't been to the drive-in in I think two years. I won't stay for the third feature, Avengers: Infinity War, because that movie will end at 3 a.m. and it's a 55-mile drive back to the District. But I'm glad that screening is happening.

Anyway, please enjoy our PCHH dissection of Ant-Man and The Wasp. It's fine.