Movie Sighting: Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is a romantic comedy featuring oodles of headlining stars all vying for the limelight in a 125 minute span. The various subplots highlight love in its many stages and permutations: the innocent crush, platonic love transformed into romantic love, parental love, love sustained and nurtured through a long relationship, etc. The stories are all intertwined and virtually all of the characters are suitably paired by the end of the film (though not always with the same partners as in the beginning). Except for one major character deserving of scorn for cheating on his wife and lying to his girlfriend, there seemed to be a "happily ever after" for all of the characters by the film's conclusion— with one notable exception*.

One teenaged couple, played by Emma Roberts (Grace) and Carter Jenkins (Alex), are on a mission to consummate their relationship during a school lunch break. They plan to meet at Grace's home while her parents are at work. When Alex walks in the door, he's greeted by the lovable family Boston Terrier named Pushkin. He brushes her aside and dashes up the stairs to Grace's room where he scatters long-stemmed roses on the floor and gets in a compromising position on the bed, using his guitar as the proverbial fig leaf. Grace's mom arrives home, discovers Alex naked in her daughter's bedroom, high jinx ensue. Pushkin and Alex engage in a brief tug of war with his boxer shorts before he runs out of the house in shame.

Everything works out well for Grace and Alex of course, but what about poor, neglected Pushkin? All she wanted was some attention and affection. On Valentine's Day of all days, was she not entitled to some puppy love too? A treat, a walk in the park, a few throws of the ball: are these things too much to ask for your dedicated canine companion? Oh, Hollywood and your anthropocentric plot lines...

Pushkin says, "I made you a Valentine. I left it in your favorite pair of shoes."

* One notable exception that I can recall anyways. The movie didn't really keep my interest so it's possible that I've forgotten some minor resolution in the plot.

Movie Sighting: Tron Legacy

I was dragged along to see the new Tron movie by my boyfriend. Since I'm the one with the Netflix account and I often get unusual foreign and/or period drama pieces, I suppose it was my turn to sit through a movie I really had no interest in seeing. Actually, it was better than I thought it would be (the soundtrack by Daft Punk was really energizing), but what really was a pleasant surprise was Marv, the main character's Boston Terrier rescue. He only makes short appearances in the beginning of the film which is a shame because it would be interesting to see what kind of illuminated doggy outfit they could have made for his persona on the Grid.

Although I have not seen the original Tron film, I've been told I'm not missing much. Tron Legacy stands well on its own, but I wonder if the original film might have also been made better with the inclusion of a Mugsy dog.