It's My Dog's World: I Just Live In It

Yet another reason to love Zachary Quinto: a dog adoption short film comedy

Besides the fact that he's from Pittsburgh, went to CMU, scared me as Sylar, crushed it as Mr. Spock, and did a dyno-mite job in the revival of "Angels in America."

Now: He and his rescue dog Noah (who appears to have a British accent) are starring in a short film about dog adoption.   And the project, directed by Sian Heder (who! wrote! for Men of a Certain Age, my favorite series of late), is blowing up on Kickstarter, which will also raise awareness about adoption, and feature pound dogs.   Enjoy, and spread the word.

 

 

 

I'm making a short movie about BSL

It's fictional...but it will deal, more than a little, with the emotional impact of Breed-specific Legislation (BSL for short) on two relationships.  Stay turned. I wrote it, the fantastic 48-hour film maven David Stott shot and directed it, the grand David Laundra shot and did sound, the fabulous Linda Laundra produced, and it stars the glorious Sharon Pinney and Pam Osowski. 

Special thanks to the Primary Stages school, aka ESPA, who created the class where I did it in the first place. And Chris Ceraso, who did extra amazing story editing and matchmaking.

Stay tuned. 

Dear Peter Berg....

1. Thanks for directing Hancock.
2. Thanks for the tone, which I would describe as "mythic frat boy."  However?  One less butt joke wouldn't have hurt the movie at all.
3. Thanks for casting Will Smith, and making him NOT use that killer smile, which made us all the hungrier for it.   (Did you know his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith help dog whisperer Cesar Millan get his start?)
4. Thanks for casting dog-loving Charlize Theron, letting her be byoooootiful, and allowing her to kick the emotional ass we all know she can.(Did you know she's a member of PETA?)
5. It goes without saying, thanks for casting my imaginary boyfriend Mr. Jason Bateman, who manages in this movie to make behaving like a reasonable adult very, very sexy.  (Let's see--did you see him in Dodgeball, A True Underdog Story?)
6. So...now that I have thanked you, will you please stop shaking the camera?  I know you're a Real Filmmaker.  You made the brilliant Friday Night Lights, and the shaky-cam made total sense in the film AND the TV show.  This movie, not so much.

But y'all...please go see it.  It's raggedy--but it's really something.

My Life As A Dog. Movie. Critic. Seriously.

Is there anything nicer than writing about movies AND dogs at the same time?  Probably not for me, except it is a special Roger Ebert-sized thrilled to have my review of My Life As A Dog quoted.  Two paws up---but make sure those paws are full of Kleenex.

Vicious Pitbull Video of the Day (Not)

The Savages: Dog (and Cat) is Love

Once again, I went to worship at the church of Philip Seymour Hoffman, maybe America's best working actor--I defy you to look at Jon Savage, the depressed Brechtian scholar who is at the center of Tamara Jenkins' new movie "The Savages," and find any trace of the blustering CIA dynamo he plays in "Charlie Wilson's War."  Or--my own guilty pleasure--the failed child star in "Along Came Polly." Hoffman walks into his character, puts on his clothes, and vanishes.

But then again, so does Laura Linney, who so definitely plays a not-so-successful playwright/temp of a certain age, I felt as if I were back proofreading at the law firm with my friends in the theater.  Reviewers sometimes talk about actors lacking vanity, and that is surely the case with Hoffman and Linney.  They are not trying to make the audience like them. They are just trying to be the people they are portraying.

What the reviews have all stressed is that it is a clear-eyed, unsentimental view of what happens when two middle-aged sibings have to join together to put their severely incapacitated father in a nursing home. Dad abandoned them long ago, and now he is lost in the shadows of dementia.  The mother is "out of the picture," as her children describe it.  All Jon Savage and Wendy Savage have are each other--Wendy's most reliable connection to the world is a cat named Genghis.  Jon does not have a reiiable connection.

What I loved about this movie was its absence of speeches, its refusal to go for a fake  huggy moment just to satisfy the greeting card reader in all of us.  What it did have, most surprisingly, is Genghis the cat and a dog named Marley who, without spoiling the movie, provide some of the narrative jet fuel in this quiet story about loving someone who will never, ever be able to love you back.

Charlie Wilson's War: Started by a Dog

Jeff and I went to see the film  Charlie Wilson's War for all kinds of good reasons:  Aaron Sorkin's snappy patter, Mike Nichols' inspiring direction (can something be heartfelt and cynical?--well, I say it can), and the double pleasure of watching Tom Hanks play against type (drunken! debauched! Go, Forrest!), and Philip Seymour Hoffman do just about anything.  (For you Mad Men lovers, you have John Slattery smoking AND dressed in a Santa suit, and for you Denis O'Hare freaks--c'est moi--he's there, too, playing a CIA stuffed shirt. And Amy Genius Adams, looking a little too adoring, but bringing that extra helping of smarts she brings to everything.)

Then there was the second layer of pleasure, the knowledge that the film's graceful greyhounds and cagey kitty were all animals trained by one of my animal rescue heroes, Bill Berloni.

The third layer was entirely unexpected, which was Charlie Wilson's explanation of how he got into politics in the first place: seems that when Charlie was 13, a vicious neighbor, an elected official, fed ground glass to Charlie's dog, killing the dog. Charlie got revenge by getting a driver's license, and, on election day, driving the black, disenfranchised voters to the polls, and telling them the sad story of his dog's demise. The neighbor lost by sixteen votes. And that, said Charlie, "was the day I fell in love with America."

And that was when I fell in love with the movie. 

NY magazine "discovers" more Pale Males

Oh, New York Magazine, how can you break my heart this way: your cover story, The Return of the New York Auteur, which focuses on the dominance of New York-based film directors in the latest New York Film festival, manages to cover not one, not two, but FIVE middle-aged white guys (Coen Bros., Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach, and Julian Schnabel)...without a single editorial acknowledgement of the unbearable pale maleness in our midst?  (And no, shoehorning Baumbach's ferociously talented wife, actress/writer/director Jennifer Jason Leigh, into the ungainly "how do couples work together?" article formula doesn't make it all better--she deserved her own damned article.)

Random

1. Oh, baby, I am so going to soccer girl empowerment flick  Gracie.   Because:  I just missed the joys of Title IX. Because:  the Shues, bro and sis, have always had something extra.  Because director Davis Guggeheim made Al Gore mad sexy.

And Dermot Mulroney (see photos) even looks good when he's rained on.

2. Leggings are not any lovelier the second time around.  Please stop wearing them, ladies.