Year of the Dog
STARRING
Molly Shannon, Regina King, Peter Sarsgaard, John C. Reilly, Laura Dern, Thomas McCarthy
WHAT THE BOX DOESN'T TELL YOU
No Weimaraners - who are you kidding? This is not a movie about dogs (or people) worth making. I heard the original idea was Laura Kightlinger's and it was about cats, then it was stolen and manipulated by her close friend Mike White, unannounced to her. Of course they are now both in court over it and who really cares? Except, maybe this is a film that Kightlinger could have written better - even if it was originally about cats. What you get is something that tries to be funny, quirky and reverent. On most of those counts, it misses and the bright point of the film ends up being your own comparison of how many of the attributes of the dogs onscreen does your dog at home share.
WHY I WOULD RENT IT AGAIN
This is no Little Miss Sunshine or Napoleon Dynamite. What social commentary Year of the Dog makes is ineffective and the humanity it observes is torture, lacking the comedic undertones we've come to associate with characterizations of the oddities that show up in our daily lives, behaviors, and anecdotes. If you make a movie about life, and it is not an extraordinary one, it must have a poignant revelation that draws a conclusion or fosters a thought provoking revelation, sometime after shutting down the DVD player. Otherwise you might as well stick to the formula comedies and skip the IFC route.
WILL MY GIRLFRIEND/BOYFRIEND LIKE IT?
That depends; the film never saw a wide release and there is a reason for that.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Not really.
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