PawParazzi (2018)
Directed by Ari Novak
Something that’s become a running theme in these dog movies is that frequently they are not at all what they appear to be. As we saw in the previous Dog Days of Summer post, Doggie B was in no way what the box art advertised but viewing that was an amazing experience that would not have been possible had it not caught me so off guard. Tonight we’re facing a similar situation. Look at that movie poster. Look how front and center that dog is. I should have known. I should have known that this was a trick and that this adorable dog was not really what the movie was going to be about. I failed. And now you get to witness my shame. So please, join me on a journey through the incredibly deceptively named PawParazzi.
Gird Your Loins, For We Have Horrible Puns Incoming.
PawParazzi is the story of a young starlet named…London Bridges. Oh god, really? That soon? We’re already doing a groaner within seconds of starting the movie? Don’t worry, because the puns get even worse. We hear hilarious joke names like Taylor Spears, Dustin Thimberlake, and Dame Rudy Bench. I can’t say I expected to see a movie that makes Pup Star’s musician puns great by comparison. Anyway, these sound like place-holder jokes that were meant to be with an actual joke then but they forgot and figured no one would care anyway. Or maybe someone was going to but then they got terrified by the monstrous talking dog co-anchor of the news show shes being interviewed for and left the production?
London Bridges Is Such A Jerk! We Know Because…People Say So!
Anyway, London Bridges lets everyone know that she is going to join an independent movie so she can work with…sigh…Dame Rudy Bench in the drama…sigh…There Will Be Oil. But *gasp*, once the camera is off, London isn’t a nice actress at all, but actually a mean lady who is upset because she didn’t know that There Will Be Oil will be a gritty production that doesn’t have Hollywood luxuries! In fact, London is such a jerk that when she gets driven to the farm she has the audacity to ask for the driver to put on the air conditioning, and even worse, she wants people to not make fun of her for bringing a pretty reasonable amount of clothes considering we have no clue how long she’s going to be here. Also her adorable dog Latte is there. Latte does nothing.
London Bridges And The Mystery Of Her Casting In This Film.
But don’t worry, London commits unforgivable crimes by…not giving a performance that the director of the movie wants? I can see how that could be frustrating, but the director is practically snarling when she doesn’t give him gold in one take. He clearly didn’t like London from the moment he saw her, which is so bizarre because shouldn’t the director be familiar with London’s skills or typical roles? This isn’t a massive Hollywood production so I’d assume this director would have some say in who plays which part. Why hire someone you don’t think can act to be the lead of an indie Drama? Fine fine, it is bad that London doesn’t remember all her lines, but I stand by that London Bridges isn’t nearly as obnoxious as this director is being but no one cares that he’s being obnoxious!
Oh Yeah, There Are Bumbling Crooks. Because, Why Not?
While this is happening, a pair of crooks decide that they need to steal a special necklace given to London Bridges by…some kind of organization that recognizes London Bridge’s talents? It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that the crooks drive from Hollywood to a small town in Michigan, and somehow know exactly where London Bridges is, and arrive to steal the special necklace. You might be wondering, where has the dog, who is front and center on the cover of the movie, been this whole time? She’s been hanging out at the house, just waiting for someone to dare walk into this room and try to steal from her beloved owner! What does she do when trouble arrives? She whips out the old angry eyes, the surefire method of scaring off intruders.
We Can’t Call The Police…Because A Movie Has To Happen.
Shockingly, Latte’s demonic eyes do little to scare off the crooks, who try to get away from the farm with their stolen necklace in hand. However, due to some allegedly wacky antics, they have to abandon their car and run into a massive cornfield where they spend 90% of the rest of the movie. A reasonable person might say that this is an easily solved plot, call the police and have them apprehend the crooks while the people making There Will Be Oil beef up security. London can’t do that though because…for some reason it would be terrible for her reputation if people found out that crooks stole from her? It’d make sense if, say, the director didn’t want people to know that he didn’t give a crap about his actors and forbade someone from calling the police. But now I’m applying logic and there is no room for that in PawParazzi.
Time For The Real Movie To Start!
Now that all this setup is out of the way we are able to get to what this movie is really about. After London tries to convince a hunky farmhand to help her get her necklace back, he agrees, but only if she’ll help him do farmwork, because the movie is being shot on a working farm and he’s the only farmhand there, on a huge farm that has many animals and fields? London has no choice but to work on this farm, and we are treated to the most magical part of the story, London Bridges doing farmwork! She feeds chickens, she brushes a goat, she helps bring in the corn, it is a smorgasbord of bullshit that I don’t care about because I came into this movie hoping for a cute dog movie star and I didn’t get it because all this movie is about is a moderately spoiled actress doing farm work and getting talked down to by the farmhand, Tom, because she’s a city slicker who doesn’t understand how country life works.
Quick side note before I get back to her dumb this movie is. I love it when these low budget family films portray Hollywood people as out of touch or awful to everyone, or not having any real talent. I love it because I know that deep down every person involved in this production would literally kill someone to work making crappy dog movies for someone like Disney or Dreamworks and that this is the biggest case of movie-based sour grapes. I don’t disagree with them about Hollywood people being assholes, but come on, these guys would love to be those Hollywood assholes.
Time To Check All The Typical Movie Boxes.
It feels almost pointless to talk about the plot of this movie anymore. London Bridges does farmwork with Tom, they try to investigate by going into town and ‘asking around’, and London barters all of Tom’s corn so she can give gifts to the film crew who we NEVER SAW HER BE MEAN TO. This is ‘Going Through The Motions’, the movie! ‘Stuff like this usually happens in family films, right?’ The Movie! What’s most disappointing is that both London and Tom have dogs, but these dogs never do anything but sit around. I was expecting at least some dog shenanigans, but we get absolutely nothing. The only funny moment involving a dog is when the typical ‘falling out once the second act ends’ thing happens and London storms off after arguing with Tom. What’s funny about this is that Latte is with her and after storming off, London has to awkwardly hold open a door for Latte who saunters through after London’s dramatic exit.
Are We Done Here? Not Yet? Okay Fine, Here’s The Ending.
Let’s finish this. Eventually the crooks make their way out of the never-ending corn field and arrive in the nearest town to sell London’s special necklace and get the hell out of dodge. There are about a dozen reasons why stealing a hyper-specific and ultra valuable necklace from a celebrity is a terrible idea, but the one reason it doesn’t work out for them now is that it is revealed that this necklace is made from play jewels. This does lead to one of the only genuinely funny scenes in the movie so I’m gonna let that slide. Of course, London and Tom show up to stop them, of course no one gets hurt, of course London and Tom end up getting together and London finally realizes the self-evident truth that country life is so wholesome and good and anyone who might disagree is a moron.
Oh God I’m So Happy To Be Done With PawParazzi.
This is the kind of dog movie that is the most frustrating for me. I gave a lot of flak to Abner The Invisible Dog but at least that movie was kind of about the dog, even partially. Maybe this is more due to the marketing or the people in charge of the poster, but I watched this movie because I was hoping for a Beverly Hills Chihuahua-esque pampered dog story. If Latte had been the one doing farmwork, instead of or along with London, that probably would have saved the movie, but I cannot abide any dog movie that tricks the audience into thinking there will be more dog than there actually is. There were a lot of scenes that were funnybad, but not enough to make watching this worthwhile, certainly not enough to make up for all the horrible pun name non-jokes.
I Own None Of The Images Used Here, They Belong To Their Respective Copyright Holders.
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