Word: dog
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...Emma Roberts of Nancy Drew), 16, and Bruce (Jake T. Austin of TV's Wizards of Waverly Place), 11, have been in five foster homes since their parents died three years ago. Thanks to a combination of determination and Bruce's mechanical ingenuity, they've managed to keep their dog Friday with them secretly the whole time. Their latest foster parents, Lois (Lisa Kudrow) and Carl (Kevin Dillon) Scudder, are such dimwits, they haven't noticed Friday swiping the bacon off their breakfast plates. (Apparently there are characters dopier than Phoebe Buffay and Johnny Drama...
...about him, they'd likely puree him for dinner. It almost seems as though we're about to head into some tough ethical territory, a sort of tween version of the 2008 critics' darling Wendy and Lucy, which featured Michelle Williams wrestling with the bleak prospect that her beloved dog might have a better life with someone else. Then Friday leads his young owners into an abandoned hotel, vacant but for two adorable stray dogs, and suggests, with a sidewise crook of his fluffy white head, that he'd prefer the Hotel Francis Duke to Chez Scudder anyway...
...dogs are remarkably well-behaved and easy to train and exhibit no desire to examine each other's privates. Or, for that matter, fight. Are they dogs, or are they large gerbils? Complaining about the plausibility of a children's movie is generally a pointless venture - the best kids' films include major flights of fancy - but parents should go into Hotel for Dogs prepared to defend their right to not bring home each and every dog at the shelter. Real dogs are nothing like these dogs...
...Hotel for Dogs worthy of Malia and Sasha's time? The adults are cartoons, the production values basic at best, and the ending is mindlessly sentimental, but overall it's an amiable experience. There are so few good theatrical releases for children that for many parents, this will suffice. The great films, the ones that challenge and entertain, like Wall-E, are rare. More often children are offered fare like The Tale of Despereaux, which had parents up in arms over how scary it was for a G-rated film, or Bolt, which was cute but began with a noisy...
While Wyeth works, his favorite dog Eloise, a miniature black poodle with a just-so Continental clip, digs holes and sprays both the artist and his watercolors with dirt. When Eloise thinks it is time to get out of the cold, she trots up to Wyeth's watercolor pan and tips it over with her nose. The artist nuzzles into her curly fur, murmuring a ritual incantation, "Eloise, ocean breeze!" Then he comes home with her and Rattler, the gold hound depicted in Distant Thunder...