Cinematic Dog FetchDog FetchDog.com

Shakespaws

2009-10-13T00:00:00Z

The Dog Film, 2009, 90 minutes Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is enduring proof that amateur theatricals can be lots of fun. In that spirit, actor Seamus Mulcahy - who works as a dog sitter when he's not walking the boards - has created an homage to the Bard by directing...

Coraline

2009-08-03T00:00:00Z

Laika/Focus Features, 2009, 100 minutesTo view the trailer, go here. As bad as things seem at any given moment, they could always be worse, much much worse. And that greener grass on the other side of the fence could very well be an illusion. Those are lessons they don't really teach...

Retro Reel: Our Man in Havana

2009-07-20T00:00:00Z

Sony Pictures, 1959, 111 minutesAdd this to your Netflix queue. You can ask a Neopolitan Mastiff to do a Norwich Terrier's job of ratting, or ask a Bloodhound to run like a Saluki. And dogs being dogs - that is, creatures who aim to please us humans - they would do their darnedest to...

Whatever works

2009-07-09T00:00:00Z

Sony Pictures Classics, 2009, 92 minutes To view the trailer, go here. Woody Allen takes a break from the gloom that dominates Cassandra's Dream to tell the hilarious tale of Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David), a chess-playing pessimist and self-described "genius" who walks with...

Hachiko Monogatari

2009-06-25T00:00:00Z

Mitsui Co. Ltd., 1987, 107 minutes Available here; to see a video montage, go here. Hachiko is one of the most celebrated dogs in canine history, an Akita who has embodied fidelity for several generations of Japanese people; he's immortalized by a statue in Tokyo's Shibuya Station. This...

Up

2009-06-08T00:00:00Z

Disney, 2009, 96 minutesTo view the trailer, go here. As current economic indicators are making obvious, sometimes there's no way to go but up. That's one important message of this newest story from the hyper-imaginative minds at Pixar. On the night before he's court-ordered to enter a...

Valentino: The Last Emperor

2009-04-02T00:00:00Z

Now playing at Film Forum.Many of the fashion world's most talented designers are devoted dog lovers, and Valentino Garavani is no exception. The master couturier whose creations have been worn by four decades of beautiful women - from Jackie Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor to Gwyneth Paltrow and...

Nature: Why We Love Cats and Dogs

2009-02-13T00:00:00Z

Premieres nationally Sunday, February 15 at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS. Full disclosure: I'm one of the dog people interviewed for this documentary - that's me sitting on the gray sofa, wearing a bright blue sweatshirt and struggling to curb the enthusiasm of my very excited dog Lazarus. But even if...

Hotel for Dogs

2009-01-15T00:00:00Z

If you were one of many moviegoers fortunate enough to catch a sneak preview of this film, which hits theaters on Friday, January 16, then you already know that it's one of the very few releases in recent history with equal appeal to grownups and kids (so long as all family members are dog...

Marley & Me

2009-01-09T00:00:00Z

Even if you didn't much care for author John Grogan's phenomenal best-selling book of the same title, odds are you will find this movie adaptation impossible to resist. With "Marley & Me," director David Frankel ("The Devil Wears Prada") has made...

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

2008-10-10T00:00:00Z

How much you enjoy Beverly Hills Chihuahua may depend on your age, or how adorable you find tiny little dressed up talking dogs. I saw the Disney movie with my 11-year-old daughter. She can't wait to see it again. I couldn't wait for it to end. The movie tells the tale of Chloe, an absurdly...

Daisy Kenyon

2008-09-29T00:00:00Z

Daisy KenyonTwentieth Century Fox, 1947, 99 minutesImagine a cinematic cross between Sex and the City and the 1940 Ginger Rogers classic Kitty Foyle, and you've got this movie, in which a single New York career woman must choose between two men: one married and rich, the other single and...

A Little Vicious

2008-08-20T00:00:00Z

The Doc Tank, 1991, 30 minutes Available at The Doc Tank (www.thedoctank.com)To view a clip, go here: http://www.thedoctank.com/galleyOnce upon a time in the late 1980s, there was a dog named Bandit who lived in a sketchy part of Stamford, Connecticut. Then, Bandit bit a neighbor brandishing a...

Red

2008-08-14T00:00:00Z

Magnolia Pictures, 2008, 98 minutes Is there any way to review this movie without giving some of it away? Probably not. And for many dog owners, the movie's lacerating catalyst may be too much to bear. So let's get it out of the way: this film, based on a novel by horror writer...

The Bear

2008-08-11T00:00:00Z

Sony Pictures, 1988, 93 minutes It's rare for a movie that portrays dogs as "bad guys" to win over dog lovers. Yet Jean-Jacques Annaud's documentary-style masterpiece about an adorable, orphaned bear cub managed to win over this dog lover. As the cub and the older Kodiak bear...

Kit Kittredge: An American Girl

2008-08-04T00:00:00Z

Like all her American Girl counterparts, Kit Kittredge has the determination, courage, and pluck to overcome the obstacles of her day.In case you haven't known any little girls in the past 20 or so years, each American Girl in the wildly popular doll, book, and now movie, series, represents...

Retro Reel: The Three Lives of Thomasina

2008-07-31T00:00:00Z

Disney, 1964, 97 minutes Thomasina - the talking pet of the title - happens to be a cat, but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty for dog people to love about this underrated Disney classic. Based on the book by Paul Gallico, who also authored The Poseidon Adventure, it dramatizes the...

The Dark Knight

2008-07-29T00:00:00Z

Warner Bros., 2008, 152 minutes In director Christopher Nolan's sequel to Batman Begins, the underdog doesn't stand a chance in a world gone crazy with corruption. This movie paints a bleak picture of contemporary Gotham: In the gritty city, everyone has a dark streak - even an ostensibly good guy...

Riding in cars with dogs on film

2008-07-21T00:00:00Z

The motorized motif of dogs in the car - or truck, or army transport - is one that crops up often on film. So if you're not planning a road trip with your own Rover any time soon, here are a few cinematic suggestions in which you'll catch a glimpse of a dog - or 101 dogs - being taken for a ride....

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

2008-07-14T00:00:00Z

Criterion Collection, 1988, 172 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue For those who take the long, romantic journey of this lyrical film, director Philip Kaufman's adaptation of the Milan Kundera novel, remember: good dogs come to those who wait. Karenin, the shambling, shaggy-eared...

The Cave of the Yellow Dog

2008-07-11T00:00:00Z

Tartan Video, 2005, 93 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue This movie is in the FetchDog Top 20 The Cave of the Yellow Dog boasts a classic dog movie plot: resourceful child finds stray dog, child tangles with parent about keeping stray dog, until the stray dog... well, you should...

Cinematic Dog reaches a milestone

2008-07-10T00:00:00Z

Back in February of this year, FetchDog's Cinematic Dog blog posted our humbly opinionated list of the Top 20 Dog Movies of All Time. And ever since, we've been working hard to review all of them for movie hounds eager to get the full picture on each fetching flick. This week we reached a...

The Incredible Hulk

2008-07-08T00:00:00Z

Universal, 2008, 114 minutes To view the trailer, go here. The Marvel Comics superhero The Incredible Hulk, green-giant alter ego of fugitive physicist Dr. Bruce Banner, was born in May of 1962. One year later came the TV premiere of The Fugitive, about an...

101 Dalmatians

2008-07-01T00:00:00Z

Walt Disney Video, 1996, 103 minutes Available on Amazon.com There is evil.and there is EEEEVIL, and in this live action remake of the Disney animation classic, Glenn Close, as the iconic Cruella De Vil, is pure EEEEVIL. Cruella is so EEEEVIL, her gloves have their own claws. Visually,...

Tightrope

2008-06-26T00:00:00Z

Warner Home Video, 1984, 114 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue Clint Eastwood produced this crime thriller, starring as Wes Block, New Orleans police detective and single parent to two young daughters and three dogs. His assignment: track down the serial rapist-murderer...

Boynton Beach Club

2008-06-23T00:00:00Z

Sony Pictures, 2005, 95 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue This romantic comedy follows the funny-sad love lives of seniors in a Florida active-adult community to show that elders - the human and canine variety - still have much to offer. Director Susan Seidelman, directing a...

My Life as a Dog

2008-06-18T00:00:00Z

Criterion Collection, 1985, 110 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue In this classic Swedish film, 12-year-old Ingemar has little he can count on. While he lives with his angry, ailing mother and volatile older brother, his truest companion is a small, expressive female dog,...

A Kid's Take: Air Bud: World Pup

2008-06-16T00:00:00Z

Walt Disney Video, 2000, 83 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue I think I've watched this movie about 23 times. Which means I figure I'm good for another 15 viewings at least. Everything about this movie makes you feel good. Even the music - now I sing along when they play the song called...

Retro Reel: The Awful Truth

2008-06-11T00:00:00Z

Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment, 1937, 93 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue This is one of the all-time screwball comedy greats, earning its director, Leo McCarey, the 1938 Academy Award for Best Director. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne (nominated for the Best Actress Oscar)...

A Boy and His Dog

2008-06-09T00:00:00Z

First Run Features, 1975, 90 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue This movie is in the FetchDog Top 20 We've had occasion to blog about this cult classic of the canine cinema before - read about it here and here - but somehow we've managed not to review it until now....

Retro Reel: The Ugly Dachshund

2008-06-06T00:00:00Z

Disney, 1966, 93 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue In this cute update on "The Ugly Duckling," Fran (Suzanne Pleshette) has a beloved champion Dachshund, Danke, who's expecting a litter of pups. When Danke delivers three female doxies at the animal hospital, Fran's...

Retro Reel: The Thin Man

2008-06-04T00:00:00Z

Warner Home Video, 1934, 91 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue This was the first in what became one of the most popular detective serials ever. And no wonder! I know what you're thinking: Marabou! Martinis! Myrna! And you're right - although you forgot to add the slightly...

Sex and the City

2008-05-28T00:00:00Z

New Line Cinema, 2008, 148 minutes To view the trailer, go here This is the year's most hotly-anticipated movie, and its imperial setting - the city of the title - is the dog-crazy metropolis known as New York. So it's no surprise to see a wide variety of canine characters on screen, all portrayed...

Retro Reel: Lured

2008-05-27T00:00:00Z

Kino Home Video, 1947, 103 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue Imagine "Sex and the City" crossed with "Murder, She Said," set it in postwar London, and you've got this black-and-white Douglas Sirk thriller that's nothing like the lush Technicolor...

Fluke

2008-05-22T00:00:00Z

MGM, 1995, 94 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue Director Carlo Carlei directs this unusual and very moving story, based on a seriocomic novel by James Herbert, about a workaholic who dies in a car accident and is reincarnated - as a Golden Retriever. His new identity enables...

The Shaggy Dog

2008-05-21T00:00:00Z

Disney, 2006, 99 minutesAdd this title to your Netflix queue It's very weird being a dad who's turned into a dog! In the first part of this movie, people from an evil laboratory where they experiment on animals go to Tibet where they steal a dog who has lived for 300 years. They want to...

Eight Below

2008-05-14T00:00:00Z

Disney, 2006, 120 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue This movie is good for kids and good to dogs. There will be some painful moments here for dog lovers, in this tale (based on real events) of eight sled dogs who are left behind for months at a scientific station in the...

A Kid's Take: Eight Below

2008-05-14T00:00:00Z

Disney, 2006, 120 minutes All dogs who pull a sled for miles like this are brave, but these dogs are really something. I think they should make little moccasins for dogs who have to go out in the winter like that. I really don't know how dogs could survive this long alone. Maybe the movie should...

Retro Reel: Eyes Without a Face

2008-05-08T00:00:00Z

Criterion Collection, 1960, 90 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue In director Georges Franju's ultimate artful horror movie, serial killer/plastic surgeon Dr. Genessier has his reasons for instructing his assistant Louise to kidnap pretty young women: His daughter Christiane,...

Retro Reel: Port of Shadows

2008-05-06T00:00:00Z

Criterion Collection, 1938, 91 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue This movie is in the FetchDog Top 20 A trio of Gallic heartthrobs - Jean Gabin, Michele Morgan, and a spunky terrier mix - head the cast of this moody masterpiece by Marcel Carne, who adapted Pierre Mac...

Flashdance

2008-04-30T00:00:00Z

Paramount, 1983, 94 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas and director Adrian Lyne have two important things in common: 1) both are lightning rods for cinematic controversy (think Lyne's searing exploration of marital infidelity's consequences in Fatal...

Where the Red Fern Grows

2008-04-28T00:00:00Z

Sterling Entertainment, 1974, 98 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue This movie is in the FetchDog Top 20 This film adaptation of Wilson Rawls' beloved autobiographical novel about a poor young boy in the Ozarks who dreams of having a pair of purebred hunting hounds - and works...

Retro Reel: The Incredible Journey

2008-04-24T00:00:00Z

Walt Disney Video (VHS), 1963, 80 minutes Available on Amazon.comThis movie is in the FetchDog Top 20 In recent years, movies about dogs have supplied the featured canines with celebrity voices. But in the "good old days," animals' thoughts, feelings, and intentions were conveyed...

Marie Antoinette

2008-04-22T00:00:00Z

Sony Pictures, 2006, 123 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue If they gave an Oscar for creative canine casting, this film would have won - and not just because Bow Wow Wow's on the soundtrack. Director Sofia Coppola uses dogs to humanize her heroine, starting with the first...

A Kid's Take: Far From Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog

2008-04-16T00:00:00Z

Twentieth Century Fox, 1995, 81 minutes - add this title to your Netflix queue Let me tell you first about one of the best parts. I got a knot in my stomach when the search planes kept flying over over and didn't see the lost boy and his dog. But if they had, the movie would be very short....

Million Dollar Baby

2008-04-09T00:00:00Z

Warner Home Video, 2004, 132 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue On the night of the 77th Academy Awards, dog lovers had good reason to root for this tale of a young woman who dreams of glory in the boxing ring. That's because it's really a dog story - even though it's not...

Retro Reel: The Courage of Lassie

2008-04-07T00:00:00Z

Blue Sierra, 1946, 92 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue This movie is in the FetchDog Top 20Here's everyone's favorite factoid about Lassie: She was almost always played by a male Collie (the male of the species being a larger, more imposing screen presence). But this film...

A Kid's Take: The Incredible Adventures of Wallace & Gromit

2008-04-03T00:00:00Z

BBC Video/Warner Bros., 1989, 85 min.Add this title to your Netflix queue These three movies are crazy! Wallace is an inventor, and Gromit is his dog. They're made of animated clay (the same guy who made them, Nick Park, made the movie "Chicken Run," which you gotta see). Gromit...

Retro Reel: Benji

2008-04-01T00:00:00Z

Good Times Video, 1973, 87 minutes Add this title to your Netflix queue The past truly was a simpler time. Thirty-five years ago, a scruffy and endearing little mutt appeared on movie screens and stole our hearts, and all he had to do was run by. This is the "Benji" that...

El Perro

2008-03-26T00:00:00Z

Cameo Media, 2004, 94 minutesAvailable on Amazon.com This movie is in the FetchDog Top 20 Shortly after I adopted a large, white pit bull named Angus from Animal Care and Control of New York City, I found myself fielding questions from passersby as to whether I'd seen El Perro, and whether Angus...

White Dog

2008-03-24T00:00:00Z

Televista, 1982, 89 minutes Available on Amazon.com If the gorgeous white German Shepherd who stars in this weird, yet utterly compelling, film were a human, he'd be somebody like Sir Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter - at least while he's talking to Jodie Foster: riveting, evil, yet somehow deeply...

Lady and the Tramp

2008-03-19T00:00:00Z

Disney, 1955, 76 minutes - add this title to your Netflix queue Available on Amazon.com This movie is in the FetchDog Top 20If I could turn back the clock and re-do my Vassar education, I'd major in film with a concentration in dog movies, and I'd write my thesis on this masterpiece of Disney...

Retro Reel: Good-bye, My Lady

2008-03-17T00:00:00Z

Warner Home Video (VHS), 1956, 95 minutes Available on Amazon.comThis movie is in the FetchDog Top 20 Of all the likely things a poor 12-year-old boy could find out in the Mississippi swamps, a purebred Basenji is not high on the list. Yet that's just what young Claude, a.k.a. Skeeter...

Dick

2008-03-13T00:00:00Z

Sony Pictures, 1999, 94 minutes - add this title to your Netflix queue Cinematic Dog connoisseurs know a movie co-starring a canine isn't necessarily kiddie fare. It follows that a comedy about two teenage girls can be serious fun for adults who take their humor dark. This is one smart,...

101 Dalmatians

2008-03-07T00:00:00Z

101 Dalmatians Disney, 1961, 79 minutes - add this title to your Netflix queue Available on Amazon.com This movie is in the FetchDog Top 20 Just because a movie is animated doesn't mean it's strictly cute kid stuff. Need proof? Watch this sterling example of classic Disney...

Retro Reel: Greyfriars Bobby

2008-03-05T00:00:00Z

Disney DVD, 1961, 91 minutes - add this title to your Netflix queue This movie is in the FetchDog Top 20 There is no greater exemplar of the canine quality of loyalty than Greyfriars Bobby, a Scottish dog whose fealty to his master became legend. When Old Jock, a poor shepherd, dies in...

The Road Warrior

2008-02-27T00:00:00Z

Warner Home Video, 1981, 95 min. This movie is in the FetchDog Top 20.In the post-apocalyptic future (or is it our present??), due to the inability of man to control his greed and his violent impulses as a result of it, society has been destroyed. Now all that remains is a wasteland ruled by...

Retro Reel: A Dog's Life

2008-02-25T00:00:00Z

1918, 40 minutes - add this title to your Netflix queue This movie is in the FetchDog Top 20.In director-actor-all-around-genius-control-freak Charlie Chaplin's silent masterpiece (and first million-dollar picture) the Little Tramp teams up with a homeless female mutt named Scraps. The two become...

The Counterfeiters

2008-02-22T00:00:00Z

The Counterfeiters (Sony Pictures Classics, 2007, 98 minutes) View the trailer here. Academy Award nominee, 2008 In the course of human events, people sometimes did terrible things to dogs - and used dogs to do terrible things to other people. One example is the abuse of...

FetchDog's Top 20 Dog Movies of All Time

2008-02-20T00:00:00Z

Here are FetchDog's reviewers' picks for the Top 20 Dog Movies of All Time.We have not reviewed all of them (yet), and we're still looking for some Fido flicks to recommend to fans of this fetching sub-genre. Tell us your favorites. We'll consider adding them to our "Top 20" list and our...

No Country for Old Men

2008-02-19T00:00:00Z

Paramount Vantage, 2007, 122 minutes - add this title to your Netflix queue In nearly five decades of watching Oscar telecasts - a statistic I shudder to contemplate - I cannot recall anyone ever thanking the dog.Behind every great movie, there is invariably a great dog, on one side of the...

The Savages

2008-02-18T00:00:00Z

Fox Searchlight, 2007, 113 minutes To view the trailer, go here Academy Award nominee, 2008 Even though my favorite film of the New Year is called The Savages, let me assure you the title does not refer to any of the three animals (one dog, two cats) who appear in the film....

Retro Reel: Umberto D.

2008-02-18T00:00:00Z

Criterion Collection, 1952, 89 minutes - add this title to your Netflix queue Academy Award nominee, 1956 In postwar Rome, whole segments of society were on the way to new bourgeois heights. But one had nowhere to go: the old-age pensioners, men who had spent their best years in public...

Retro Reel: Old Yeller

2008-02-18T00:00:00Z

Disney, 1957, 83 minutes - add this title to your Netflix queue "He made me so mad at first that I wanted to kill him. Then, later, when I had to kill him, it was like having to shoot some of my own folks. That's how much I'd come to think of the big yeller dog." If you don't...

Retro Reel: High Sierra

2008-02-18T00:00:00Z

Warner Home Video, 1941, 100 minutes - add this title to your Netflix queue There are lots of tough guys in the classic 1941 gangster movie High Sierra, but only one of them has four paws, scraggly fur, and an overslung jaw that would make Edward G. Robinson jealous. His name is Pard, which...

Cassandra's Dream

2008-02-15T00:00:00Z

The Weinstein Company, 2007, 108 minutes To view the trailer, go here The title of Woody Allen's newest - and quite possibly darkest - film is also the name of a dog: the underdog Greyhound that wins chronic gambler Terry Blaine (Colin Farrell) money in a race, which he uses to...

A Kid's Take: Underdog

2008-02-14T00:00:00Z

How many times can you say "Oh, no!"?Shoeshine shows he's a brave dog when he runs from the guy with a needle and smashes the chem lab all up. But the villain was most villainous when he said, "Don't worry, little doggy, this will only hurt . . . A LOT." I liked the...

Underdog

2008-02-14T00:00:00Z

Walt Disney Pictures, 2007, 82 minutes - add this title to your Netflix queue How can you not love a Beagle - the true underdog of the canine world, no flash or glitter, but a come-from-behind kind of dog, as witness the great showing for the breed at Westminster - who has super-powers to save the...

Best in Show

2008-02-13T00:00:00Z

Warner Brothers, 2000, 90 minutes - add this title to your Netflix queue If you don't think this is one of the funniest movies ever, then you're not a dog owner. Or neurotic. (Wait: aren't they the same thing?) But I am, and I think Christopher Guest's skewering of the various pathologies...

Retro Reel: I Know Where I'm Going!

2008-02-12T00:00:00Z

(Criterion Collection, 1945, 91 minutes) - add this title to your Netflix queue Fiercely independent Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) has always known where she's going - and right now she's headed to Scotland to marry one of England's wealthiest men, who has proposed to her, Cartier ring and...

Because of Winn-Dixie

2008-02-07T00:00:00Z

(Twentieth Century Fox, 2005, 106 minutes) - add this to your Netflix queue Wayne Wang directs this irresistible adaptation of Kate DiCamillo's children's book. This is the ulti-mutt shaggy dog flick, in which a lonely girl named Opal (AnnaSophia Robb) moves with her minister father (Jeff Daniels)...

The Adventures of Milo and Otis

2008-02-05T00:00:00Z

Columbia Pictures, 1986, 75 minutes - add this title to your Netflix queue It would be hard to imagine a more sweet-hearted film than this gently meandering tale of a Pug (yes, he's one of the more intrepid manifestations of the breed) and his best friend, a marmalade kitten. Any narrative is...

Year of the Dog

2008-01-31T00:00:00Z

(Paramount, 2007, 96 minutes) - add this title to your Netflix queue Let me warn you: the title of this strange but moving film is "Year of the Dog." Not "Year of the Dogs and Dog Owners Who Live Happily Ever After." If you remember that writer-director Mike White wrote...

Dealing Dogs

2008-01-29T00:00:00Z

(HBO Documentary Films, 2006, 70 minutes) - add this title to your Netflix queue Available on Amazon.com The instigators of this powerful investigative documentary, members of Last Chance for Animals, went undercover with hidden cameras to spotlight one notoriously inhumane Arkansas...

The Godfather, Part II

2008-01-23T00:00:00Z

(Paramount, 1974, 200 minutes) - add this title to your Netflix queue Cinephiles agree that The Godfather, Part II is a rare example of a sequel that actually surpasses what came before it. Half sequel and half prequel, it follows the ever-less-idealistic Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) as he...

Retro Reel: Mon Oncle

2008-01-21T00:00:00Z

(Criterion Collection, 1958, 116 minutes) - add this title to your Netflix queue We had Buster Keaton; France got Jacques Tati. Great prizes both. Tati created the marvelous character of Monsieur Hulot, a sort of idiot savant who was often oblivious to the modern world roistering about him but who...

Shrek 2

2008-01-17T00:00:00Z

Shrek 2 (Dreamworks Animated, 2004, 92 minutes) - add this to your Netflix queue In this hilarious sequel to the instant-classic, postmodern fairy tale Shrek - which gets a nice callout in I Am Legend when Will Smith recites dialogue verbatim - the green ogre (voiced by Mike Myers), his...

Retro Reel: The Rules of the Game

2008-01-15T00:00:00Z

(Criterion Collection, 1939, 106 minutes) - add this title to your Netflix queue "The more I see of men, the more I like dogs." That line has been attributed to Madame de Stael as well as Peter the Great, and a viewing of this film will remind you why it will always ring true no...

Juno

2008-01-09T00:00:00Z

Juno (Fox Searchlight, 2007, 92 minutes) To view the trailer, go here Everyone's talking about this quirky take on the difficult topic of teen pregnancy, which features a crackling script by Diablo Cody, fine performances from an ensemble cast including Jennifer Garner...

Balto

2008-01-07T00:00:00Z

(Universal DVD, 1995, 78 min.) - add this title to your Netflix queueThis animated feature, "the true story of an American hero," recounts (in admittedly fictionalized, child-friendly form) the actions of the famous sled dog who in 1925 led a team through perilous weather to bring...

Kid's Eye View: Balto

2008-01-07T00:00:00Z

(Universal DVD, 1995, 78 min.)Available on Amazon.com Balto feels left out, just because he's half wolf. But this is how Balto proves himself a hero; if Balto wasn't there, kids would have died all over town. And here's a secret: when I watch a movie, I imagine all the characters as my...

The Simpsons Movie

2007-12-31T00:00:00Z

The Simpsons Movie (Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2007, 87 minutes) - add this to your Netflix queue DVD also available at 7-Eleven stores, $21.99 As Homer gorges himself at Krusty Burger, one little piggie taping a commercial with Krusty the Clown is about to get the hook...

Retro Reel: A Dog of Flanders

2007-12-26T00:00:00Z

(Paramount, 1959) Available on Amazon.com Poster available on Posteritati There are some movies to avoid when in a fragile emotional state; anything labeled "A Family Classic!" certainly applies. That's because, while you can count on a booster shot of moral uplift at the end, in the...

Charlie Wilson's War

2007-12-21T00:00:00Z

(Universal, 2007, 97 minutes) To view the trailer, go here. Tom Hanks produces and stars in this film, based on the book by George Crile, about hard-partying congressman Charlie Wilson, Texas Democrat, who teamed up with right-wing Houston socialite Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts) and...

P.S. I Love You

2007-12-17T00:00:00Z

Warner Bros., 2007, 122 minutes To view the trailer, go here. Director-writer Richard LaGravenese adapts Cecelia Ahern's chick-lit novel about Holly Kennedy (Hilary Swank), a young widow coping with the death of her adorable Irish husband Jerry (gorgeous, blue-eyed Gerard Butler)....

I Am Legend

2007-12-14T00:00:00Z

I Am Legend (Warner Bros., 2007, 100 minutes) To view the trailer, go here.The last-man-on-Earth theme of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel has been adapted for the screen twice before - as the 1971 Charlton Heston sci-fi classic The Omega Man and before that, as the Vincent Price vehicle The...

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep

2007-12-12T00:00:00Z

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (Columbia Pictures, 2007, 111 minutes) - Opening December 25, 2007 To view the trailer, go here. If you saw Millions, you doubtless remember the freckle-faced young actor Alex Etel as saintly little Damian. In The Water Horse, Etel plays a boy named Angus...

Retro Reel: Boudu Saved From Drowning

2007-12-06T00:00:00Z

Boudu Saved From Drowning (Criterion Collection, 1932, 84 minutes) - add this title to your Netflix queue. Remade in 1986 as Down and Out in Beverly Hills, and again in 2005 as, simply, Boudu, Jean Renoir's dark comedy about an ungrateful vagabond features a shaggy black mutt who's only slightly...

I Am an Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA

2007-11-20T00:00:00Z

HBO Documentary Films, 72 minutespremieres November 19 at 8 pm on HBOClick here for a schedule of repeat showings.I have a confession to make (actually, I have many, but let's take them one at a time). In my desk drawer are what appears to be 10,000 pages of address label stickers, which bear my...

Amazing Grace

2007-11-13T00:00:00Z

Amazing Grace (Fox Home Video/Bristol Bay, 117 minutes, available on DVD November 13, 2007). Click here to view the trailer. This movie takes its title, and key portions of its soundtrack, from the hymn composed by John Newton (here played as a wise old man by Albert Finney), a...

Reservation Road

2007-10-15T00:00:00Z

Reservation Road (Focus Features, 2007, 102 minutes) - Opening Friday, October 19, 2007 Director Terry George (Hotel Rwanda) helms this haunting story, based on the novel by John Burnham Schwartz, of a family's devastation after their 10-year-old son is killed by a hit-and-run driver. You...

The Brave One

2007-10-14T00:00:00Z

In director Neil Jordan's new movie The Brave One, Jodie Foster and Naveen Andrews play an engaged couple out for a nighttime walk in Central Park with their German Shepherd, Curtis. Tossing a ball for Curtis to fetch, they stop for a kiss and a cuddle - only to find the dog has gone missing. Upon...