Lucky (2002)

If you chuckled at the lines "Marvelous judgement, but not particularly good taste" at the end of A Boy and His Dog. This might interest you.If you roared with laughter, This is for you!The interviews and information added to the disk are almost as good as the film.A very complex plot. Everyone takes away something different. Pay close attention to the ending and it makes sense - Sort of.Does a lot with a low budget. Plenty of droll humor, and subtlety.Not a kiddy film. This is as far from Lassie Come Home as you can get.If you are the kind of person who watches people and likes to know what makes them tick, you will find plenty to chew on.One of the better NOIR films. Quills is another. Subtlety of plot makes it fun for someone who doesn't want everything spelled out.A real treat in our Politically Correct TV sitcom world.

A writer who has lost his way hits a small dog one night while drunk driving. After taking the dog home and nursing him back to life (a dog called Lucky, by the way) the writer begins to hear voices and his writing improves. But what is the hidden cost? In many ways, the writing of this movie is by far its best strength, but also its weakness. The first ten or twenty minutes have some of the best writing I've ever seen in a horror film -- the monologue is crisp, well-thought out and transcends the simplicity and one-dimensionalness usually found in horror characters. The sad thing is, though, that while the writer is really good at this... they seem to lack the ability to move beyond this. The film never stops being self-reflective to move on to a real plot-driven film.Now, I'm not saying the plot is bad. A speaking dog telling a man how to write and then trying to run his life is a good story, especially when it leads to murder. But the plot doesn't evolve -- it's still in the same place throughout much of the film (and it doesn't help the action never leaves the man's living room).The dog's voice was annoying to me, and we could have used less of this (again, it tends to become repetitious after a while with no progress). But when your story revolves around the dog, I guess you're only given so many options.Another strength was the grotesque and violent (yet, in some ways comedic) sex scenes. The average viewer would probably be appalled by the violence and the man's cold callousness. And yes, there's necrophilia. But I think this is something many horror fans will appreciate -- I saw the film with two women, which was odd, but still found the scenes as appropriate as I did disturbing.Overall, the film is okay and in fact quite decent if you look beyond the dragging in the second half. As I've said, the writing is excellent and the acting in all cases is also great (everyone was perfectly in character and had that morbid humor I think was necessary). You could do worse than this, and if you're looking for evil dog movies, this beats the pants off stupidity like Wes Craven's "The Breed".

This film has nothing to do with the 'horror' tag it is being sold on it is more of a sit-com about a screen writer's delusions (in more ways than one). The film's central character provides a cliché ridden narration from start to end - on word count alone it would probably be enough for 4 films however the schoolboy shallows that are being scraped make it wearisome after the first five-ten minutes. Maybe this is intended but it makes any genuinely interesting (visual) details, and there are at least enough to count on one hand, seem forced.I think the only reason this film has been noticed in any way is though some cabal amongst screenwriters determined to see their profession on the silver screen, which judging by this effort must be resisted.The next bit contains SPOILERS.Into our hero's world comes Lucky as soon- to-be undead dog whose magical 'knowledge' helps our hero to hitherto unknown success (which isn't enough for a rags-to-riches story). The dog is as clichéd as the hero (I think velvety, pimp voices as signifying 'knowledge' outdated themselves in the early 70s) but his acting is marginally better. A major turn for the worse is seeing the sexual fantasies of our middle-aging hero in their full suburban banality, and for these segments the narration intensifies to full-on teenage angst. It would have been a far, far better movie if we actually saw the dog killing the women that provided the energy for his scripts rather than hearing the hero sitting at his computer.

I happened to be one of the few, very fortunate people to see this at a recent screening during the "first annual" NYC (Independent) Horror Film Festival, and let me tell you, it was a real treat! It was far and away the favourite-of-show (winning Best in Show by the judging panel, and - ballot tabulation not having been posted, I can only guess, but probably - audience favourite as well). Pray that some distributor has the good sense to overlook its idiosyncratic, non-mainstream nature and recognise it as must-see cinema. This is one hard film to describe without ruining surprises or giving away too much. The writer, Stephen Sustarsic, has done a great job of summarising it without including spoilers, so I will try to give you a feel for the movie instead of a synopsis. In Hollywood Speak, it would be The Secret Life of Walter Mitty meets Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, with dashes of Amelie and Twin Falls, Idaho (and possibly Crumb) thrown in for flavour. But it is definitely much more than the sum of its filmic predecessor parts. First and foremost, it has a loopy, loony, don't-take-me-too-seriously quality, augmented by the music (one almost expects an accordion from some French cafe to be playing in the background, as in Delicatessen or Amelie, but it's a bit more restrained than that), which absolutely belies the seriousness of what's actually taking place. But it is this deludedly, deceptively droll approach which helps take the audience by the hand and lead them willingly along to the abhorrent shocks that await.It also has similarities with films like Eraserhead - NOT the dreadfully slow pacing, but the way in which it takes an absolutely pedestrian look at a life filled with increasingly bizarre occurrences. Again, it is this dichotomy of style and substance - the absurdist, banal storytelling method used to describe horrific atrocities - which helps the audience accept and even welcome each new level of insanity that develops as the film progresses. This dichotomy is even further augmented by the casting. You have all seen the lead, Michael Emanuel; he is perhaps most recognisable as the guy who "lowered his cholesterol" in those ubiquitous TV commercials (and was also the husband in the McDonald's commercial in which the son gets the mother and father to believe each wants to take the other out to dinner by way of apology). He is the absolute, quintessential Everyman, the down-on-his-luck, wouldn't-hurt-a-fly kind of guy you wouldn't look twice at on the street. He is so normal, and so much the secret us, the part of us that "knows" we're doomed to failure and mediocrity, that you can't help rooting for him when he begins to succeed, no matter what the cost. And it is our belief in and acceptance of him as our own most prosaic self that helps us exonerate his actions and empathise with his plight.This isn't exactly entirely new territory, nor is it mind-bendingly innovative or inventive. Certainly there have been dozens of other films to explore ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, as well as the nature of sanity, the dual-edged sword of creativity, and the ways in which perception is more real than "reality." There are even numerous directors who have taken similar approaches to the story telling found in Lucky - Jean-Pierre Jeunot, the Cohen brothers, and Woody Allen (in their darkest periods) all come to mind. But this is good company to be in. And it has a smallness, a personability and charm to it, that makes you feel as if you've discovered the movie yourself, and want rush out and tell your friends, as I am trying to do here. So if you like absurdist serio-comedy with a sting to it, please, please, please be on the lookout for this movie, see it, and support it the best you can. You won't be disappointed!