My Dog Skip Reviewed

ROVIN' AND RAVIN' WITH MIKE

My Dog Ski: The Second Annual Peanut.org Movie

Last year, fortune smiled on Cookie’s Fortune, the first film honored as the Unofficial Official Peanut.org Movie. The winner this year by a wet nose is My Dog Skip. Unofficial Official Peanut.org Movies are those that capture, perhaps with some melodrama, perhaps with some corn, something of the ambiance of a small southern town much like the one that is the home of the first community free-net in Georgia. The towns in these films are somewhat off the beaten path (although our own Sylvester is firmly established on the information superhighway), maybe in some way or other dealing with changes in the world around them, but mainly trying to get through the best the can, with or without a free-net.

There’s not much to this movie, just as there is not much to World War II era Yazoo, Mississippi. A bright-eyed kid (Frankie Muniz) has a rather authoritarian dad (Kevin Bacon), an indulgent mom (Diane Lane), a high school athlete neighbor (Luke Wilson) whom the kid considers a hero… you get the picture, a rather wistful picture at that, of a time long gone, when kids played with dogs rather than with Gameboys®.

And then there is Skip, who gives this languid little memoir of a film all the energy and heart of a Jack Russell terrier. The truth is, several Jack Russell terriers play the one title character. The dog hams it up in the best Jack Russell terrier style (one of the four-legged actors is none other than Moose, better known as scene-chewing Eddie on the television show Frazier). In its best moments, however, the film deals not so much with a dog as with a boy and a dog, a boy who is subtly growing up, while Skip retains an irrepressible puppiness.

A quibble here. I have an intense dislike for narration in movies, which are about showing, not telling. Entirely too much of the weight of this movie, especially the emotional weight is carried by the narration, much of it taken word for word from the book. The honeysuckle accent of Harry Connick Jr. smothers the film as kudzu smothers a farm.

You’ve surely seen already the film’s funniest image, of Skip apparently driving a car. There are funny moments, there are some scary moments, and there are some absurd moments when the plot turns to race relations, not so much absurd as oversimplified. This is a movie about a dog, but it escapes the neat categorizing of being a dog movie. Skip is no Lassie… or Rin Tin Tin, either. In many a southern family, Skip would have been called a "fyce," just a generic yard dog or boy’s dog.

This is a film without sex, drugs, nudity, or bad language. It is a gentle film, but there are a few moments in which a small hand may reach out in the dark for the comforting presence of a parent nearby. And, when you have a film about a dog, you know that… well, I don’t want to give away anything, but I think you can imagine. Let’s just speculate on a parrot film, in which the long-lived bird is left to grieve and learn lessons from its relationship with a former human companion.

This is a film for kids, and kids can deal with a few tears, especially when mixed with a generous helping of laughter. Much as I loathe this expression, My Dog Skip is a film for "kids of all ages." I know a few jaded film critics are resisting the tail-wagging good time that Skip offers, but that’s their loss. Keep your feet dry, though your eyes may be damp, your heart full of noble thoughts, and please clean up after your pets, so the rest of us can keep our feet dry as well.