Dog Days

I saw this movie because I wanted to see a movie, and I thought my other two choices were unacceptable. Then I saw a trailer for The Meg, one of those other two choices then playing in town, and I decided it might have been acceptable after all. Nevertheless, I stayed and watched this movie. A year from now, this review will be a valuable record of the experience, because by then I will probably have forgotten that I ever saw it. It was a nice movie with an attractive, middle-market ensemble cast, set in a sunny west-coast (U.S.) city, eking romantic comedy out of the relationships between several thinly-interconnected families or individuals and their respective dogs. The overall message was that dogs make people's lives better, and the movie gets that across without resorting to a single anthropomorphic canine, talking mutt, or fancy animal trick. For this it is to be valued, at least during the 15 minutes remaining before all memory of it disappears.

The only thought related to it that lingered in my mind while I was walking home from the theater was how close the movie hewed to the line between laugh-aloud funny comedy and that other type of comedy that is taking the silver screen by storm these days - the kind that makes you want to smack yourself in the head, or hide your face in your hands, groaning and squirming in discomfort. The gags in this movie scattered about equally on both sides of this line. Both kinds of jokes worked in their own way, but I have to admit that I prefer the belly-laugh type.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Slacker dude, who is dog-sitting for his sister while she and her hubby cope with newborn twins, gives his guest the full benefit of a stoned-out experience when the mutt goes on an unscheduled pot brownie trip. His sweet revenge includes waking the dog up for a walk the next morning when it clearly wants to stay asleep. (2) ... Um ... (3) ... Nope. I can't think of any other scenes that made it for me. Sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have waited until Wednesday to write about something I saw last Saturday. Or maybe I should have seen The Meg. Based on the trailer I saw, I'm pretty sure I would be able to come up with two more scenes that made it for me. Nevertheless, I didn't dislike this movie. I would just recommend waiting to see it until it starts playing on cable TV.