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the audience applauded

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Absolutely Fantastic

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

by Dane YoussefONCE-TIME "Kid-In-The-Hall "Bruce McCulloch has one good-as-gold nugget of an idea here. 'Cause speaking from personal first-hand experience, the dog park is one special, magical place. The true place for any dog, dog owner and dog lover.The dogs are given some amount of room to roam and socialize, good or bad. And so are their owners.And you know.... movies are filmed all the time in Canada, American movies even! For the sake of wide roaming space and less cost. There are Canadian movies... made in Canada. But so very, very few.... But... this does.Garofolo's pretty much just phones in the stock-type Garofolo role, knowledgeable about relationships and life with the usual sardonic wit. Except her usual genuine humor here is gone, thanks to her un-character and lines due to the "script" courtesy of McCulloch. She might have been better cast in the Lorna role. But no, Janeane has too much of a pulse.Bruce actually gives himself a substantial supporting role as the "his" of a pathologically married "His and Hers" couple with Garofolo. She still seems almost human, almost possible. She seems to persevere through this incompetence.He's always been a bad actor, but in skits, it's easier to forgive. And with this unfinished first draft of a script and monotone direction, all the actors more or less sink. These actors can act. But his movie manages to convince you they can't. So Bruce's horrible thespian attempts fit right in.Every ounce of blame goes to the man who half-conceived this big ball of half-considered, unfunny awkwardness-- McCulloch. The characters, duller than dullest. Nearly every single line of dialogue and scene feels awkward and mishandled.Not one person in this whole damn thing... comes off as believable. Or really all that insightful.All throughout, McCulloch seems to lack the ability to write a decent romantic scene, a full-fledged written character or a line of dialouge that hears well. When it comes to writing personally, he should well- stick to skits. Or maybe just checks--if any of them are any good. Better than this."Dog Park" has no mood. Every scene is badly staged. It was so bad, I damn near expected this thing to have a laugh track.While many of these types exist out there in the world (the sad-sack jilted lover, the cynical sage advisors, the seemingly perfect couple, the superficial couple, the weird oddball, the nypho and the love-scorn pessimist), the movie takes these stock-types and injects no humanity into them whatsoever. No one feels authentic, or even interesting.Other Canadian folk like Harland Williams nothing special and especially awful. He plays the Neo-weirdo Lorna goes out with after she reaches that point when a woman gets so lonely and dying from cabin-fever, she rushes to go out with the first guy she sees. But after the date... he calls her back with a message she desperately, desperately needs.But yes, Bruce and co. I agree wholly that Andy 'n' Lorna are made for each one another. These two, so boring--without any personality or interest--that you'd have to go the morgue to find people who are less alive. These two were made for each other. Two big empty non-existent zeroes.Over the years, McCulloch has developed one tin cauliflower ear for dialogue. As been said by pretty much every other on the planet who saw this, the only performance, character and scene of fellow "Kids In The Hall" brethren Mark McKinney as Dr. Cavan, an insightful and bizarre dog psychiatrist. There's just not much about the movie overall. Just no real effort. No special insights about dating, relationships, nature--human or canine. No interesting people, philosophies about relationships or anything resembling a good movie-going experience.Now if you'll excuse me, as I write this, it's 7:30 on the dot. The dogs are at the door, with Christmas morning anticipation. Tails wagging, eyes fixated on the door. It's time for our evening constitutional, the high point of our day. As dog owners know, the local dog park is a treat. They're like late-night singles night clubs up in the city after hours. Anything goes, and often does...--A Long-Time, Long-Term, Life-Long Dog-Lover, Dane Youssef

Luke Wilson stars as a woebegone fellow who goes from one mating situation to another in DOG PARK. His gal pal has just left him and he meets Natasha Henstridge in a bar. One date, and she is done with him. He then runs into a blonde who loves to sleep around and is insatiable in the sack. Through all of this, he takes his dog to a dog park. He also is friends with co-workers Janeanne Garafalo and Bruce McCullough, who are a couple and may be getting married soon. Problem is, McCullough (also the film's writer/director) is cheating on her, which Wilson knows, much to his regret. The whole thing comes to a head in the dog park. The movie should be funnier than it is, and the drawing card -- Wilson -- sort of sleepwalks through it. Also, in reality, it is a chick flick and therefore unsuitable by viewing by real men. I made the mistake of watching it all the way through.

My initial reaction to Dog Park was that it was a deeply personal film from a writer intent on conveying his own sense of loneliness and cynicism towards life and relationships -- accompanied by a glimmer of hope, conceded in a subtle connecting glance across a crowded park by the film's two protagonists. Dog Park is a very smart film with a real, albeit subtle, depth, which is missed by most -- as evidenced in the majority of the user comments. Close examination brings to mind another film, Medem's Los Amantes del Circulo Polar, and the provocative ideas it evoked about the circle of life, the role that coincidences play in that life, about fate, and pain, loneliness and the desire, ultimately, to find, and be loved by, that one special person.A chance meeting in a bar by two lonely people on the rebound, establishes what will constitute the film's love story. Their meeting is awkward, and uncomfortable, and at least one of them is sure that they've seen the other before, somewhere, maybe "...at the dog park." They take some personal jabs at each other before the two settle into an introductory conversation and quickly realize that there is something surprisingly beautiful about that person sitting across from them. They segue to an apartment only to wind up in a bathroom where one of them is getting sick, while the other gracefully consoles them. Shot from high above the bathroom window, we watch as the two embrace each other, taking note that this is the last time they will grace the screen together for the good majority of the film.The guy is Andy, played by Luke Wilson, an endearing serial monogamist who has been stranded in one romantic relationship after another since the eighth grade, engaged in a sort-of quest for that one special person to share his life with. He slowly discerns that his most recent 'bad date' might actually be that special person he has been seeking all his life, confiding to a friend about her, "Have you seen somebody in a certain light and you felt like you knew everything about them?" His corresponding love interest is Lorna, played by Natasha Henstridge, an equally endearing person who is so emotionally dented by one too many ugly break-ups that she can't even conceive of getting into another one. She wants true love, and realizes early on that she might actually find it with Andy, but is just unable to gamble being hurt again, best articulated in their post-date phone conversation where she shoots down his offer of a follow-up date. Her facial expression says everything, pointing out the divergence between what she really wants and what she is able to do. She is clearly caught in a personal struggle between her protective instincts and her desire to be loved -- and stranded in her own loneliness.Along for the ride are several other characters, both human and canine, including Kathleen Robertson, Andy's ex, who has dumped him for a sex-obsessed loser, Gordon Currie, who just happened to be the fellow who dumped Lorna. There's also Janeane Garofalo and Bruce McCullough, the seemingly perfect couple representing, at least for Andy, the ideal relationship he desperately longs for -- that is, until it begins unraveling in front of him. There's also several interesting background characters, namely Lorna's bestfriend, Rachel (Carey), Andy's blustery girlfriend, Kieran (Lehman), and Lorna's Mr. Wrong, Callum, played Harland Williams, a contradictory sort, whose wild-eyed goofball antics are only offset by his extraordinary insightfulness. With the film's progression, it becomes apparent that these characters are inexplicably linked together by chance, romance and an unwavering devotion to their dogs.Speaking of dogs, everybody in the film has one, or at least shares one, and all of them are seeking counsel from the local animal psychologist, Dr. Cavan, played by Mark McKinney, who plays the straight man to all the craziness going on around him. In a way he represents the audience, understanding partially the cyclical nature of what is happening; the dogs are showing signs of stress because they are reacting to their owners' stress. McKinney's straight-laced, pseudo-analytical antics and inability to relate to other human beings, including his own children, provide some of the more hilarious moments.Cinematically, Dog Park walks the line between dark and quirky and completely hilarious. It also seems to be pushing some kind of bizarre cosmic diagram. McCullough seemed to have designed the plot around this weird 'life-is-cyclical' idea, mentioned before and evidenced numerous times throughout the film. Actually, I lost count how many times situations or elements are twice repeated in the film, each with a differing outcome. A pick-up story, 'exchanging phone numbers after an automobile accident' is utilized twice in the film, each time with a much different tone. Locations, lines of dialogue, dating habits and minor characters appear or are stated twice with their relevance becoming much clearer on the second go around. Even a number, specifically one-hundred, appears twice in the film, the first time it is used as a means to bring together a couple, the second, to keep apart. There's even a 'dating chain' which is elaborated upon by one of the characters, a sort-of celestial ecosystem that mathematically determines who does or doesn't find love.Bruce McCullough is a very talented director who had a lot to say with this, his first film, and in my opinion, he hit every note perfectly. He understands the romantic comedy in ways that most directors don't, or ever will, conceding that audiences don't need to see the heroes engage in an endless kiss or stagger into a bedroom hell bent on a physical consummation. He understands that sometimes, really, all that is needed is that subtle adoring look across a park or a nervous smile exchanged in a crowded bar by two people who know they are meant for each other. Sometimes that all it takes.I love this film!

Another cranked out, touchy feely, feel good, late nineties flick that's doesn't feel genuine, and at times, feels downright manipulative. The cast is indeed attractive (Luke Wilson, Natasha Henstridge, Janeane Garofalo, Bruce McColluch, et al), and that is the only way this movie would have taken flight. That noticeable block of 90's shallowness aside, the story is simply and weakly scripted. Way too many situational contrivances clog the script, and do not suspend belief in the least. It also makes for rather predictable viewing, as well. You might need a scooper for this one.