The opening ditty that sets the stage for 20 Centimeters harkens back to the days when Rodgers and Hammerstein ruled at the box office with musical tales of ordinary folk bursting into song. But this ain’t your mother’s Sound of Music!

Drawing from a wellspring of influences, most notably Pedro Almodovar films, with a dash of My Own Private Idaho and TransAmerica, 20 Centimeters is the story of Marieta/Adolfo (Monica Cervera), a pre-op narcoleptic transsexual.

But that’s where the comparisons to other cinematic works subside; this original movie stands on its own two cha-cha heels.

In order to earn money for her operation, Marieta sells her body and survives in squalid living conditions complete with nosy neighbors and a dwarf as a roommate/friend. Marieta is able to leave this world behind during her narcoleptic episodes, which come alive with song and dance numbers (the best among them are sequences featuring songs from Madonna, Dusty Springfield and Queen).

The fantasy elements do not detract from Marieta’s very real desire to have the titular 20 Centimeters removed to make her transition complete; the real life trials and tribulations of the transgender experience are presented with aplomb and just enough depth.

20 Centimeters takes an interesting story, peoples it with intriguing characters and lets you get under their skin, in a world where reality and fantasy collide with a visual panache that sparkles even on the small screen.

Where to begin with Snakes on a Plane? Was it the Internet hype that compelled moviegoers into the theater, like so much cattle being herded to a cinematic version of a slaughterhouse? Was it the dashed hopes that one could be viewing the next big cult movie, only to walk away feeling cheated?

The answers to both are a resounding yes.

What could have been a so-bad-it’s-good movie experience fall as flat as a soufflé in the oven after the oven door is opened and closed repeatedly. It’s like the powers that be behind this flick ran out of steam, aside from coming up with a catchy title and figuring out how to make Samuel L. Jackson’s line, “Get these mother fucking snakes…” become the catch phrase du jour.

While I don’t look for a lot of character development and subtext in my thriller flicks, I do expect there to be at least one person to root for, and I didn’t find that here. As a matter of fact, I think I was rooting for the snakes more than the humans.

You would think going into the cinematic quagmire that Snakes presents could be taken as another sign of how insipid and vacuous some Hollywood movies have become, and you would be right.

Snakes is probably best viewed through the eyes of “buyer beware,” but ultimately ends up being a case of “buyer’s remorse.” The real winners were the movie theater patrons in Arizona who most likely got a refund when live snakes were set loose in the theater during a viewing.

Quinceañera follows the travails of a pregnant 15-year-old who is kicked out of her home and creates a new family with her great granduncle and gay cousin.