Where_you_leadNot my dogs. My dogs are delightful and, although somewhat malodorous, devoted to me. Follow me everywhere, gazing up at me, longingly, hoping I have chicken in my pocket… but even when I don’t, they are on me like white on rice. Here they are napping by my desk. If you want unconditional love, get a dog.

The deplorable dogs are three of the movies I rented last week: Untraceable, The Brave One, and The Flock. Depressingly deplorable AND disturbing. The Brave One was just boring: predictable girl-with-a-gun. Waste of time. Can Jodie Foster get more boring?

TBO was violent, but the other two were disturbingly so. Not car-wreck shoot-the-bad-guy violent, but human beings doing very bad things to other human beings. Are there really such bad people in the world who do this kind of stuff to each other? I guess… probably on an SSRI. I can’t think about it.

And is this entertainment? Not for me. "A pornography of violence," Hal called it. For once, I’m glad the boys were not watching the movies with us but glued to their computer screens in their imaginery worlds where you can get banned for saying "hell."

Dogville, on the other hand, was fascinating. A play in a movie. Very slow moving, unfolding inch by inch, brilliant acting, a stellar cast. But I have no idea what it was about. Something about morality, no doubt… I couldn’t quite grasp it. My Key West friend and fellow movie buff Maureen wrote this to me:

"Can’t wait to discuss Dogville with you – watched it twice; wanted to understand it better so rounded up three very heady intellectual friends and enticed them over with free pizza dinner so they could explain it to me."

Maureen says one of her intellectual friends nailed it. I need to find out what it’s about, then watch it again…

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