First, here is an incredible doggy video that you should watch. That is my dear friend Callie. I have seen her successfully perform the nose trick, so don’t judge her for being distracted by the bright lights of impending TV stardom.
Also, I have a very sincere movie recommendation for you. It is “Marley & Me,” which I knew I would see as soon as I saw that billboard advertisement of the puppy tied up with a big red bow, but I’ll admit that I did not expect to actually enjoy it beyond the gratuitous cute-puppy antics it promised to offer.
How pleasantly surprised was I when I discovered on the bus ride to Boston that this movie is, in fact, a wondrous cinematic achievement of humorous and tragic proportions! I do not like it when people laugh out loud at movies or otherwise make unnecessary noises (my incessant questioning of “What just happened?” and “What is going to happen?” aside), but I will admit to having laughed out loud at many a chase-Marley-he’s-getting-away! or look-at-what-Marley’s-eating-now! scene. Laughed Out Loud!
But the true glory of this movie is in its succeeding in taking over the No. 1 spot from longtime champion “Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey” (which took over the spot from “The Fox & the Hound”) as Most Tearjerking Movie About a Dog.
My shoulders heaved. My throat closed up. My chest ached. I blew my nose through three tissues. That was One Good Cry, folks, not seen since “Wall*E”! (And I love a good cry at the movies, particularly in public spaces, such as a crowded bus or, memorably, a Chilean movie theater displaying a subtitled “Armageddon.”)
I can’t find it online, so I will paraphrase my favorite moment here, which I think will eventually go down in the annals of cinematic history as one of the greatest movie speeches ever.
So Marley’s old and sick, and the vet tells Owen Wilson (the “me” from the movie’s title) that 90% of dogs don’t make it. OW says, “Where did you get that number?” and the vet is confused. So OW explains thusly:
“I ask because I bet that number is from a study of normal dogs, and Marley is not a normal dog. She is special.”
Actually, there was more, but I can’t remember it, so I’ll have to try to hunt down that speech on the Internets. But you get the gist. It was a good one, based on what I heard through my racking sobs.
In Stitches 