Hooray for you, Mari Sasano.

I thought the Dude did a great job, and I generally like Maggie Gyllenhaal.

But I couldn’t get over the ick factor of becoming your interview subject’s groupie.

Yeah, I’m a big suck. I love my dog, and I love dog movies. They make me cry, because I love my dog so much. Hotel for Dogs made me cry. There. Laugh if you want to. I feel SORRY for you, not having an awesome dog that makes you cry just thinking about his awesomeness.

HfD is a nice story, certainly. A couple of orphans have been toting their dog from foster home to foster home. He has to be kept a secret, so clever little Friday (an adorable Jack Russell terrier) is left to fend for himself during the day. But when the dogcatchers lock him up, the kids have to bribe the mean man to spring him. So, they think, is this the end? Will they have to give up their dog to a “proper” home? No, because there is an abandoned hotel that they can keep him at.

This hotel is also residence to two other tenants already, a friendly mastiff and his friend, a Boston terrier (tears begin flowing…). Soon after, other dogs start showing up, and eventually they are actively finding and rescuing dogs, with the help of two pet store employees and an enthusiastic neighbour.

They get caught, but then everyone learns a valuable lesson about how everyone needs love, a home, and family. I am now puddles into a proper blub. Thanks, Don Cheadle! And I need not mention the many, many cute dogs in the movie.

Now, here are the problems. First of all, product placement for Pedigree? Yuck! Everyone knows hoe terrible commercial dog foods are. If you want to know more about quality pet foods, here is a link to a site that rates them.

And the very worst thing is that the pet store is SELLING PUPPIES, and possibly the Hotel itself has puppies for sale! Do not buy puppies from pet stores! Puppies in pet stores are likely from puppy mills, and are already picking up terrible behavioural problems from the get-go. You should get puppies from a shelter, or from breeders who are dedicated to good health, temperament, and home-raising. Here is a guide to buying a puppy, the right way.

What’s the deal with ditzy New York journalists who spend a lot of money on expensive clothing and then get rescued by very rich men?

This is not my life AT ALL. Except for the part about debt. I got one of those.

This movie came out in 2008, but I only got around to seeing it now. And it’s absolutely heartbreaking.

Jesira (Summer Bishil) is a Lebanese-American teenager. Her white mother sends her to live with her dad after catching her boyfriend trying to shave her bikini line (“The other girls call me Chewbacca!”). The reasoning is that Jesira doesn’t know how to act modestly around men, and some time with her father might teach her that, but the possible actual reason is that her mom has a new boyfriend she wants to spend more time with. The film is set during the Gulf War– Jesira’s dad seems to be overcompensating for being Middle Eastern by out-patrioting his neighbour Mr. Vuoso, a redneck army reservist (Aaron Eckhart).

So, basically Jesira goes from bad to worse. Her period starts and her dad buys her the gross regular pads, not the ultra-thin ones.  Her dad starts dating a woman and leaving her unsupervised. The Vuosos hire Jesira to babysit their bratty, racist kid. Then Mr. Vuoso rapes her. She meets a boy she likes, but then her dad forbids her from seeing him because he is black. Some nice neighbours (including the wonderful Toni Colette) notice something’s up and gives her an emergency key to her house.

Arrgh! So many layers of racism snugly fitted together with misogyny and politics. It’s a wonder that girl gets out alive, what with the sexual predation of her horrible neighbour, her father’s racism (“I didn’t make the world what it is.”) and  her mother’s neglect– never mind society’s overall objectification of women, while denying women any sexual agency. I mean, for some reason it’s OK to take sexy photos of 13 year old girls (hello, Miley Cyrus!) but it’s not OK for them to learn about sex, get birth control and say how they like it? Messed up. Consent gets really complicated, that’s for sure.

And the creepy suburban facade of perfection– yeah, nothing is private that should be, and there is so much hidden that is just plain evil. It makes me so angry (again!) for the failings of the nuclear family. They aren’t safe for women. Women need tight communities to protect them, and these bungalows-as-fortresses only isolate them.

To think of how typical this situation is, in any suburb in North America. It’s really painful.