For the third season of Ten Movies we’re watching the films of Jennifer Lopez. You may know her as J Lo, or Jenny from the Block, but back in the day she was a young actress looking for a place to shine and one of her earliest roles was the giant snake horror-thriller Anaconda.

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Is the giant snake movie any good? Well, Hemal and Brian did not entirely agree on the quality of the film as a work of art, but did agree that if you like giant snake movies on the whole, you will be pleased with Anaconda. They also both enjoyed the work of Jon Voight, who plays a malevolent, supercilious villain. (Sounds like maybe he’s kind of a malevolent, supercilious person in real life, so there’s some real verisimilitude here.)

The film also stars a number of other supporting actors who would go on to do good, or at least recognizable, things, including Ice Cube, Owen Wilson, Eric Stoltz and – despite Hemal’s reluctance to admit it – Kari Wuhrer.

Join us as we discuss this cinematic work, its impact on the culture, its relative wokeness in casting a Latina in a starring action role 20+ years ago and what it tells us about Ms. Lopez and her place in the American popular canon. Also we talk about the various ways the snake ate people. There were a lot.