Month: March 2006

President Bush, in his most recent State of the Union address, mentioned the need for tougher ethical standards in medicine, to guard against the nightmare scenario of human/animal hybrids. Surely he must have been speaking about Disney’s The Shaggy Dog.

In the latest retreading of one of Disney’s gimmicky animal movies, Tim Allen plays an inattentive father who learns a valuable lesson about family by being turned into a dog. All this and more in the creatively-named The Shaggy Dog. How many imagineers did they go through before settling on this title? While the man-to-dog-to-family-man transformation has long fascinated movie goers, is it maybe possible that it’s really just a lot cheaper to film a Bearded Collie for two weeks than Hollywood megastar Tim Allen?

Depending on this movie’s success, we can look forward to Disney’s next round of family-themed lycanthropy where a career mom learns why her kids are more important after she’s turned into a goose that lays golden eggs, a bully who learns compassion after being turned into a cat and sent into outer space and finally a touching tale where Don Knotts learns the importance of being alive after getting turned into a talking animated fish.

Speaking of being turned into something you’re not, Failure to Launch is about a grown man who would rather live with his parents than move in with Sarah Jessica Parker. And really, who can blame him? I’m “failing” to see the problem here, unless you’re talking about the movie’s confusing title. Is this a movie about astronauts? Nope, it’s yet another romantic comedy with a non-sequitur for a title, which is unusual because part of the romantic comedy formula — and romantic comedies are the most formulaic of any movie genre — means having to conform to a theme. See: Must Love Dogs (there’s a dog), Fever Pitch (guy likes baseball), Prime (still don’t know) and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton (Tad Hamilton). To avoid confusion in the future, please go easy on the theater patrons and just start calling romantic comedies Woman Finds, Changes Man: Episode LXVIII.

The movie poster inexplicably shows Matthew McConaughey leaning against Sarah Jessica Parker and states that “To leave the nest, some men just need a little push.” I’m going to need more than just a little push to get anywhere near that shaggy dog.

Next time, I’ll be reviewing The Hills Have Eyes and wondering why President Bush didn’t mention the country’s growing problem of radioactive mutant marauders.