Letters to the Editor
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I won't be watching the movie
Mainly because of what happens to the dogs.
But that doesn't make it a bad movie - if fact it seems quite realistic, particularly the way the dog are abandoned by by the people who should have looked after them.
Just because you don't like the lack of a happy ending doesn't mean it should be panned.
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Surprise, surprise
Stephanie pans a Disney movie. Who could have guessed? Stephanie pens another hateful screed about a Disney film. Who cares?
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Looking Forward To It
As a Siberian Husky owner - I am amazed by the training and discipline shown by the dogs just in the previews. I'm very excited to see this - and as far as seeing the dogs die - It's just a movie. No dogs really died.
I know it's upsetting, but it's just make believe. It's ok.
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'No Name Given'...
Make-believe? Guess you didn't read the part where the movie was inspired by a true story.
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The original Japanese film was great
I saw the original Japanese film, "Nankyoku Monogatari" ("Antarctica") when I was a teen, and thought it was a great film. The soundtrack by Vangelis is still one of my favorites. Unfortunately, the film itself doesn't seem to be available at all anymore, either on DVD or VHS.
As far as I can recall, the movie focused almost exclusively on the dogs and their struggle for survival once they had been abandoned, with minimal screentime devoted to the human characters. From the review it sounds like the remake devotes too much time to uninteresting subplots, but I plan to see it anyway.
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Thank you!!!
Thank you for the warning, Stephanie!!! I adopted some sort of Northern breed dog from the shelter a few years ago. I was interested in seeing this movie, but I will now wait for DVD.
Look, I know the dogs aren't really dying, but there's no way I could sit through a sad-doggy movie in a theater. Much better to be home where I can pull a blanket over my eyes and leave the room if I need to. Of course, I'll have to send Simone to the other room when the bad parts come on. I can't even leave Animal Planet on for her during the day because she gets upset when she watches Emergency Vets!
Did the LW who referred to this review as a hateful screed even bother to read it? I thought Stephanie's descriptions of the dog actors were lovely.
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Great review, Stephanie
I always enjoy reading whatever you've written. I won't be seeing this movie, and appreciate your insights into it.
My only question relates to the photo caption that accompanies the article. It says "Bruce Greenwood in 'Eight Below.'" But I see two actors from the movie in the picture.
How about giving the other actor's name? It seems from the review that he (or she) is probably the better actor of the two anyway...!
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Thanks for the warning!
People make jokes about my obsessive reading of spoilers (I won't see a movie unless I've read the spoiler), but this trait prevents me from seeing movies that will upset me. Dead dogs? No way. If I need a good cry I can always turn on Fox News. Thanks for the heads up.
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Sled Dogs
Although for the most part I enjoyed Zacharek's review of Eight Below, I can't help but take issue with the fact that much of her criticism is aimed at the behavior of the characters in it. In terms of human folly, the decision not to endanger an entire team of human rescuers for the sake of a sled team (no matter how beloved), seems at best, a tragic but understandable one. Please let me remind the readers here that the two dogs who died in this tale are far fewer than the number of dogs who die each year on the Iditarod (4 in 2005) sled race in Alaska.
As a disclaimer, some of my best friends are sled dogs, chinooks rather than huskies. Personally, I would just as soon play with them than watch a movie of questionable quality. For those in the mood for a sled-dog tale, however, I highly recommend A Dog-Puncher On The Yukon by Arthur T. Walden. It's "Eight Below" meets "Deadwood".
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Dead dogs
I am a dog owner and a dog lover, but I found this review and these letters fairly infuriating. Get a grip people. Dogs die. Thousands of them die every day in shelters, in fact. This is a tragedy. Two of them -- fictional, no less -- dying while trying to survive in the arctic is not a tragedy. It's a plot point.
I've noticed for a while now that Stephanie seems to have one criterion when evaluating movies: Does the director like people? Whatever that means. Now I know that there's something that trumps even that: Does the director like animals?
Please Stephanie just tell me whether the movie is well-made and effective. Misanthropes are interesting too.
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*shame, shame*
It's incredible to me how many people will cheerfully watch Hollywood movies featuring multiple human deaths, and call them "fun", but get all mushy over animals dying. I wonder if any of the folks here refusing to see this film for that reason would refuse to see the latest Bruckheimer travesty because of the death toll. As far as movies go, two human deaths would hardly count at all.
Don't get me wrong. I love animals, and was raised with dogs. But come on people. Death is a part of life; the only thing as natural as death is birth. Stephanie (and all the rest of you) finds this upsetting? You think the deaths of the penguin chicks was "disturbing"? Ha. Take a trip to your local factory farm. Go see what happens to surplus chicks at the poultry farms. They get stuffed by the thousands into plastic bags to suffocate to death. Go see the conditions that calves get "raised" in, all to put that nice cut of veal on your table. But I guess since those animals go to feed humans, it's okay for them to be tortured to death, eh? (And no, I'm not an animal rights fanatic. I eat meat, too. But I don't put one kind of animal above another, and I don't believe there's something sacred about dogs and cats just because the law allows me to keep 'em in my house.)
Get a clue, people.