Category: Dog Days of Summer

Pup Star: Better 2Gether

Directed by Robert Vince

Viewed on Netflix

Last week I reviewed the movie Pup Star, a vomit inducing charming film about a young Yorkie who entered a singing competition and traveled around the country doing nothing. This film was so unexpectedly horrible that as soon as I finished it, I knew that I had to see the sequel. There were so many stupid moments, so many inconsequential plot points, so many utterly pointless characters that I HAD to know how they were going to top that. Well, let me tell you, good readers, somehow someway they succeeded. And now their success has birthed a film that is somehow even worse than Pup Star. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Pup Star: Better 2Gether, a movie so bad that they managed to fit a terrible joke into the title itself. You don’t even have to see the movie to be harmed by it, you just have to be aware of it. That is an accomplishment.

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Pup Star (2016)

Directed By Robert Vince

Viewed on Netflix

And now for the film everyone has been waiting for! A film that combines the most popular film genre, talking dog movies, with the inexplicably popular trend of musical competition television shows into one bizarre conglomeration. This conglomeration has been brought into existence by a titan of the dog film industry, Air Bud Entertainment, the once great producer of quality movies such as Air Bud and The Search For Santa Paws, who have been reduced to making films like Space Buddies and Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups. We might examine those films at a later date but today we’re talking about Pup Star, the first film in the Pup Star series, and the first film, to my knowledge, that seriously tackles the weighty question of: what would a TV singing competition in a world where dogs can talk be like?

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A-X-L (2018)

Directed & Written by Oliver Daly

Viewed in Theatre

Summary: A sociopath befriends a piece of military grade hardware and refuses to give it back. He is handsomely rewarded for these actions.

Seeing the trailer for A-X-L was quite a shocker. Not because of the subject matter, everyone loves dogs, and robots are cool so it makes sense to combine the two, but because the entire story around those things looked like a sketch show parody of a kids movie from years gone by. Everything, from the focus on motocross as the protagonist’s EXTREEEEEEEEME sport of choice, to the robot dog acting somewhat like a regular dog even though it is a war machine, to parents who just don’t understand, and the villains being standard military people, all of this is so wonderfully dated that the entire production seems like a throwback to the ETs and Short Circuits of the past. That’s not to make an immediate judgement though, because a throwback like this could be something that reminds us why these ideas worked in the first place, or it could be a reaffirmation on why we don’t see many movies like this anymore. So does A-X-L work? Let’s dig a bit deeper and find out! (But the answer is no.)

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Pudsey the Dog: The Movie (2014)

Director: Nick Moore

Viewed on Amazon Prime

Summary: A dog meets a family who move to a dilapidated house in the middle of nowhere. Shockingly that isn’t the setup for a horror movie. The dog dances.

Today we’re going to be looking at our latest cinematic tour de force Pudsey The Dog: The Movie! Now, you probably have a few questions like 1) Who the hell is Pudsey? And 2) Why should I care? I can answer at least one of those questions right now. Pudsey The Dog is the World Famous UK Famous winner of hit reality show Britain’s Got Talent and consequently he was given his first movie role as a result of this victory. Interestingly, Pudsey won the show with his human owner, Ashleigh, who does not appear in this film. Wow Pudsey, way to instantly abandon your dance partner as soon as you get your breakout role, so much for man’s best friend. So, if this story isn’t about Pudsey and Ashleigh winning the show, then what is this story about? Strap in folks, because this one is going to be both odd and British.

But before we begin, let me show you what this movie is all about, Pudsey!

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Chihuahua: The Movie (2010)

Directed by Michael Amundsen

Viewed on Amazon Prime

Summary: A woman gets her mind put into the body of a chihuahua so that a bunch of people, who are much worse than she is, can tell her how awful she is and that she needs to change. An actually pretty nice family gets caught in the middle of this magic bullshit.

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Dog Days (2018)

Directed by: Ken Marino

Viewed in Theatre

Summary: People in California sometimes have dogs. And sometimes they don’t. And sometimes those dogs change their lives, especially if they do nothing interesting at any point in the story.

The Real Dog Days Of Summer Have Arrived

It had to happen sooner or later that a ‘Dog’ movie would come out in theater during this review series. As soon as I saw the poster for this movie at the theater, I knew that this was going to be a tough watch. This looked like a generic romantic comedy with dogs and I knew that were it not for this series, then I would have had zero interest in seeing this. But maybe, just maybe, this movie could surprise me. Maybe it could surpass its dog limitations and actually cross the line into good territory….but probably not.

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My Magic Dog (1997)

Directed by John Putch

Viewed on Amazon Prime

Summary: A boy with a dead mom has to make sure his evil Aunt doesn’t get custody of him. But when that isn’t happening he has to play matchmaker for his step-father! Also he should be way more concerned about the custody thing than he is.

Oh God Not Again

So while I was perusing the fine selection of quality dog-based films featured on Amazon video I noticed something that instantly caught my eye. One film in particular featured cover art that depicted a boy kneeling next to a dog that was in the process of turning invisible. Still reeling from my exposure to what may be the worst “film” I have seen so far for this blog, “Dude, Where’s My Dog?” I had no choice but to investigate this alternative disappearing dog film to compare the two while the first was still fresh in my mind. This looks like the perfect magical counterpart to the ‘science’ based disappearing dog in the previously mentioned movie, so let’s jump in!

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Sox: A Family’s Best Friend (2013)

Directed by Jason Horton

Viewed on Amazon Prime

Summary: A family having trouble getting along gets a little help(?) from a new dog who just happens to be telepathic. But this dog has problems of his own as a Federal Bureau of Dog Investigation agent is trying to track him down!

Is This A Thing?

So it seems that I have found myself a bizarrely specific niche of movies that I enjoy (?) watching and discussing. I was so completely baffled when I saw the first “A Doggone…” movie that I just had to keep exploring this strange, and relatively new, subgenre of dog based fiction. Part of what makes this so personally interesting is that the idea of a dog who has telepathic powers and essentially the mind of a human can get a little creepy especially when…well…we’ll get into that a little later.  Ah well, someone has to talk about telepathic dog movies, and if not me, then who?

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Dude, Where’s My Dog? (2014)

Directed by: Stephen Langford

Viewed On: Amazon Prime

General Summary: Dog appears. Dog leaves. Fart jokes happen. Dog appears again. Dog eats invisibility formula. Fat jokes happen. The children look for their dog. I beg for the sweet embrace of death.

Dude, Where’s My Title Ripped Off From?

Riding high on the totally relevant and not at all dated reference to the classic Dude, Where’s My Car?, Dude Where’s My Dog? Is…actually not really a rip off or even all that similar to the plot of the Ashton Kutcher movie. It’s just an excuse to make a “funny” title that could be a reference to a movie that’s….I haven’t seen Dude Where’s My Car? in more than a decade, so I don’t really remember it, but I can’t imagine it’s worse than this movie. Spoiler alert: This is probably the least enjoyably bad dog movie I have seen thus far into the Dog Days of Summer.

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