Movie Review Hotel for Dogs

Hotel for Dogs (2009) 

Directed by Thor Freudenthal 

Written by Jeff Lowell, Mark McCorkle, Bob Schooley

Starring Emma Roberts, Jake T. Austin, Lisa Kudrow, Kevin Dillon, Don Cheadle

Release Date January 16th, 2009 

Published January 19th, 2009 

Is there any hotter movie star in the world right now than the pooch? Dogs are a big box office hit these days. From the Beverly Hills Chihuahua to the animated Bolt to the box office king Marley, the dog is boffo box office. The latest example of doggie dominance, Hotel For Dogs, hasn't lit up the box office quite as well as its predecessors but it's coming around, hence why I have gone back to actually complete this review.

Hotel For Dogs tells the story of an orphan brother and sister, Bruce (Jake T. Austin) and Andi (Emma Roberts). They are a pair of troublemakers who make trouble to get out of bad foster homes. The latest one has them living with a pair of wannabe rock stars, (Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon) who refuse to feed them anything but scraps and cereal.

They are scheming a way out until their kind, caring social worker  Bernie (Don Cheadle) tells them they will be separated if they can't make this home work. The biggest obstacle for Bruce and Andi is hiding their beloved pup Friday, a gift from their late parents.

One day, when Friday runs away, Bruce and Andi track him down in a rundown hotel where several other dogs are hiding out from the no good dog catchers. Bruce and Andi decide that all the dogs need to be cared for and using his wizard-like skill with gadgets, Bruce begins building ways for the dogs to get help when they can't be there.

Meanwhile, Andi befriends Dave (Johnny Simmons), a boy who works in a local pet store. He and his friend Heather (Kyla Pratt) agree to help out and provide the puppy chow and all four agree that there are other stray dogs out there that need their help and a caring roof over their heads. The Hotel For Dogs is born.

Are there any cheaper ways to achieve sentimentality than orphans and puppies? Really? Director Thor Freudenthal and crew have built a gadget of a movie meant to play on any and all sympathies. Surprise, surprise, it works. Sure, it's cheap, tacky and sentimental but Hotel For Dogs is also undeniably sweet, cute and fun.

Emma Roberts is a winning little star with a big bright smile and energy to burn. She is the perfect heroine for a movie like this, combining the innocence and gumption needed to keep the movie from becoming treacly. Jake T. Austin is also perfect casting. The star of Disney's Wizards Waverly Place could play this role with his eyes closed; everything about Hotel For Dogs matches the modern Disney model of pre-teen live action TV shows like Wizards, I-Carly or Hannah Montana.

Sweet without being cloying and sentimental without being pushy, Hotel For Dogs is great family entertainment built to make dog owners cry and everyone else just say awww.

Movie Review John Tucker Must Die

John Tucker Must Die (2006) 

Directed by Betty Thomas

Written by Jeff Lowell

Starring Jesse Metcalf, Brittany Snow, Ashanti, Sophia Bush, Arielle Kebbel, Penn Badgley, Jenny McCarthy, Taylor Kitsch 

Release Date July 28th, 2006 

Published July 29th, 2006 

The most striking thing about the new teen comedy John Tucker Must Die is its impressive online ad campaign. Taking full advantage of the zeitgeist grabbing MySpace.com, the producers of John Tucker Must Die created the films official website on MySpace. They recruited teens in the films target demo to spread word about the film on their blogs and on MySpace message boards and they plastered every inch of the site with pictures of star Jesse Metcalf whose hunky visage was the selling point for the films target audience of teenage girls.

By the time the film actually arrived in theaters it really didn't matter if the film was any good, the marketing had worked like gangbusters in turning out the exact audience demo the studio had been trying to attract.

Now that that is out of the way the question remains; is the film any good? It's not a simple answer. On the one hand I as a 30 year old male film critic felt the picture was derivative, lazy and not nearly as funny as it thinks it is. On the other hand, watching the film in a theater crowded with teen girls cackling at the films every turn of plot, I can't deny the film is effective in many ways.

Jesse Metcalf is the titular star of John Tucker Must Die but the lead role actually belongs to Brittany Snow as Kate. Always the new girl, thanks to her mom (Jenny McCarthy) and her misadventures with men, Kate arrives at yet another new school once again as an outcast. Being her usual anonymous self, Kate flies below the radar observing the goings on at her new school and particularly the goings on surrounding the school super-stud John Tucker.

Tucker is captain of the basketball team and is currently dating the head cheerleader Heather (Ashanti), the valedictorian Carrie (Arielle Kebbel) and the schools top causehead Beth (Sophia Bush). Because the girls run in different circles they know nothing of each other and John Tucker. Kate knows because John has taken each of them to the restaurant where she works.

One day John's girls are fatefully thrown together and one just happens to mention John. All hell breaks loose between the three girls and eventually engulfs poor Kate. Asking the logical question why they are beating on each other when it's John they should be mad at, Kate sets in motion a plot to get revenge on the cheating, lying John Tucker.

The plot and poster might give one the impression of a dark comedy about a high school murder plot. Unfortunately, John Tucker Must Die is not nearly as ambitious as its title. The girl's revenge plot is more mean spirited than it is vengeful. The early plotting involves turning John into the poster boy for STD's, spiking his water with estrogen and tricking him into wearing a thong in front of all of his buddies.

When none of these plots is able to derail the surprisingly resilient John Tucker, the girls hatch one final plot. After John finally breaks up with each of the three plotters, they decide to turn Kate into John's ultimate fantasy girl. Using their inside knowledge of his likes and dislikes, they will get John to fall for Kate and then have her dump him like he dumped them.

My plot description is a little more straightforward than the film itself which is often distracted ogling its supermodel cast. There is no one in the cast of high school age and rarely do you see a face that does not belong on a magazine cover. Seriously, what planet is this movie from planet Maxim in the FHM universe. It's difficult to take anything in the film seriously when you are distracted by more than fifty of Maxim magazine's future and even former cover girls (star Arielle Krebbel is one of Maxim's top 100 hotties).

Like so many broad teen comedies, John Tucker Must Die wants it both ways. It wants to be broadly comic but also have honest pathos and characters we care about. Well, you can't have it both ways. Director Betty Thomas and writer Jeff Lowell needed to make up their minds at some point and decide if John Tucker Must Die was going to be a dark teen comedy a la Mean Girls or a more sensitive but broad film like those awful Freddie Prinze Jr movies from the late 90's early 2000's.

Is this American Pie or a movie Hillary Duff turned down. John Tucker Must Die doesn't know what it wants to be. Thus it winds up a beaten mutt of a movie with elements of any number of different movies with no real center of its own.  

With all of the obvious problems of this film I certainly cannot and will not recommend it. However, I can't completely write the film off either. Watching the film with a nearly sold out audience filled with girls from 12-16 who roared with laughter throughout, I could not help but be struck by the effect the film had on its target demographic.

I'm not actually sure if I am impressed or a little frightened by how well John Tucker Must Die hits with teen girls. It tests so well that it must have been tested to death upon its initial completion so that each scene would hit the target audience just right. A scientific approach to filmmaking that I find terribly disturbing. I'm honestly conflicted. On the one hand, who am I to deny people a calculated good time? On the other hand this is not art in any way shape or form.

There likely was little to no artistic effort put into crafting John Tucker Must Die. It is a product tested and sold to a market of consumers pre-destined to want to consume and enjoy it. A filmic symbol of our mechanistic society that meets the exact needs of consumers no matter what needs they may be. This mechanism however robs us of humanity and experience.

Watching a film should be an experience that reaches out to the audience and leaves them with a sense of having been a part of something, like all great art. Movies like John Tucker Must Die are merely mass consumed quantities like popcorn or chocolate bars. Easily digested and disposed of. They contain minor pleasures and empty calories but leave no trace of themselves later.

An example of what I hate about modern Hollywood, John Tucker Must Die is the ultimate in product placement. The product just happens to be the film itself rather than a McDonalds or Coca Cola. John Tucker Must Die is itself a mass consumer product of disposable value and forgettable minor pleasures. The ad campaign and MySpace site may have a place in marketing history, but the film is more forgettable than that bag of fritos you finished off sometime ago and cast into the abyss of an empty garbage can destined for a landfill.

Movie Review Over Her Dead Body

Over Her Dead Body (2008) 

Directed by Jeff Lowell 

Written by Jeff Lowell

Starring Paul Rudd, Lake Bell, Eva Longoria, Jason Biggs

Release Date February 1st, 2008 

Published October 10th, 2008 

Why such an inelegant title? Over Her Dead Body is a phrase that conjures up images of a fumbling, olde timey Catskills comic. The film however, is meant to be a modern romantic comedy about ghosts, psychics and the afterlife. Written and directed by first timer Jeff Lowell, Over Her Dead Body combines a bit of the plot of Ghost with a dash of every other random rom-com you have ever seen. And, unfortunately, the familiarity of this enterprise isn't its biggest problem. An overmatched cast of low watt stars fails to spark any tension or romantic chemistry.

When Kate (Eva Longoria Parker) was killed on her wedding day she had no idea that she would be sent back to earth to take care of unfinished business. A difficult woman, Kate refused to listen to the heavenly messenger who was to give her an assignment back on earth. Thus, Kate takes things into her own hands. Feeling that it is her job to keep her would-be fiance, Henry (Paul Rudd) safe from any woman who might replace her in his regard, Kate begins tormenting poor Ashley (Lake Bell). Ashley claims to be a psychic, she performs readings in her apartment between gigs as a caterer.

Ashley was approached by Henry's sister Chloe (Lindsey Sloane) who is determined to get Henry out of his funk over Kate. Her theory is that if Henry could contact Kate one last time maybe he can finally move on. Henry however, is not a believer and needs some convincing. With the aid of Kate's diary, Ashley manages to know enough to get Henry's attention. Soon both are distracted from the psychic stuff because they are falling for each other. Then, enter Kate with her unfinished business.

Jeff Lowell wrote and directed Over Her Dead Body and despite the clunky, obvious title, his writing shows a good deal of potential. His direction is a bit slipshod and he misses some important moments, but it is easy to see that there could be some very strong work in Jeff Lowell's future. Where Lowell needs improvement is in his direction of his actors. The performances of each of the three leads are often flat and thus fail to stoke what should be a tensely comic situation. Each of the actors is affable and good natured but many of their most important and dramatic moments are played as if the actors didn't realize it was a real take.

Paul Rudd is an actor who has really grown on me in the past few years. His spot on wit and timing honed with help from the absurd school of New York comics from the Stella crew to the long unheralded Eugene Mirman. The improv shows, some of which can be found on YouTube among other video sharing sites, have given Rudd a coat of ironic armor that he puts to good use in Over Her Dead Body. His slightly detached air keeps him somewhat above the fray, allowing him to comment slyly on the other characters.

Lake Bell is a young actress I'm not very familiar with. Over Her Dead Body is her first starring role and though she is often lost and overwhelmed, she is likable with a light in her eyes that portends talents not on display in this minor trifle of a movie. She may never grow into an Oscar nominee, but the next Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan tag is perfectly placed. As for Ms. Longoria Parker, she plays the diva well but the role is underdeveloped for an actress of her limited appeal. By limited appeal I don't mean she is unappealing really, rather that she is just not a big star.

Rounding out the cast is Jason Biggs as Ashley's best friend and partner in the catering biz. I've always liked Biggs but his choices have not been the best since he was so very good in the minor Woody Allen comedy Anything Else. In Over Her Dead Body Biggs is the victim of unending indignities that culminates in a moment that threatens the balance of this already awkward little movie. You will know the scene when you see it, try not to wretch as I did.

Imagine for a moment Reese Witherspoon going head to head with Halle Berry, their names alone evoke more tension than anything sparked between Bell and Longoria. But then, that is reviewing the movie that over Her Dead Body isn't. Over Her Dead Body really isn't that bad a movie. In fact, if you wait for it on DVD in just over a month from now, you likely won't be disappointed. TV is likely the best format for this.