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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Strays’ on VOD, an Unapologetically Raunchy, Stupidly Funny Talking-Dog Flick

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Strays’ on VOD, an Unapologetically Raunchy, Stupidly Funny Talking-Dog Flick

An alternate title for Strays (now streaming on VOD services like Amazon Prime Video) could be Look Who’s Saying F— Now. It’s the heartwarming story of a scruffy little dog who speaks with the voice of Will Ferrell, and dreams of returning home so he can gnaw on the gonads of the owner who abandoned him. You can just feel your heart about to burst, can’t you? Director Josh Greenbaum follows up his people-will-laugh-at-anything-during-a-global-pandemic comedy Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar with this crude, nasty, insanely R-rated, unabashedly scatological talking-animal adventure that eventually broke down my boundaries like a brawny stream of Rottweiler whiz to a snowbank. I’m better than this, you’re better than this, we’re ALL better than this, but it’s also OK if I, you and we laughed our asses off while watching it.

STRAYS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Reggie (Ferrell) is a Border Terrier, which is one of those absurdly photogenic little dogs who exist to nip at the heels of a kid, chasing a tennis ball for hours on sunny Saturday afternoons. So it’s all the more tragic that Reggie ended up with Doug (Will Forte), a sloppy, unemployed serial masturbator who doesn’t love his dog or himself or life or existence or anything, really. Doug’s ex-girlfriend loved Reggie, and when she finally wised up and dumped Doug, he kept the dog purely out of spite. Reggie doesn’t understand any of this; he interprets Doug’s abuse as love, and therefore has pledged his heart to this angry, self-hating loser. How devoted is Reggie? He thinks Doug’s multiple attempts to abandon him is a game, which Reggie wins every time he manages to follow his nose home from various far-off locales. Poor pup doesn’t realize he’s in a relationship that makes The Burning Bed look like a Hallmark rom-com.

Now, we could translate Reggie’s codependency as symptomatic of being a stereotypically loyal dog, and we wouldn’t be too far off-base. But we’ll soon learn that such naivete isn’t inherent to all canines, at least in this movie. Exasperated by Reggie’s fierce devotion, and angry that the pup accidentally broke his favorite bong, Doug drives a few hours to a city, drops him in a scuzzy vacant lot and speeds away. And now Reggie’s the dog equivalent of a fish out of water, a situation remedied by Bug (Jamie Foxx), a hardened Boston Terrier from the streets who teaches him the Way of the Stray, which is a phrase I made up, not the movie. It involves staking your claim to territory by urinating on things, knowing where you can get a hearty slice of dropped pizza, stuff like that. They befriend an Australian Shepherd named Maggie (Isla Fisher) and a Great Dane named Hunter (Randall Park), whose relationship to his Cone of Shame is kinda like Linus to his security blanket. The four dogs bond as a pack when they get drunk on garbage water and find some lovely inanimate objects to mount. 

It’s probably not worth noting the romantic tension between Maggie and Hunter, evident by what’s happening with Hunter’s little red rocket down there, which isn’t little at all (I mean, he’s a Great Dane after all). It’s also probably not worth noting that Bug is in love with a couch he used to routinely desecrate during his time as a family pet, the details of which are revealed later in a tear-soaked flashback. But here I am noting these things anyway, as examples of this movie’s brand of comedy, which is on level with a squat toilet. Bug, Hunter and Maggie all look a little cockeyed at Reggie when he tells them his backstory, and about how he thinks Doug reciprocates his unconditional love. So they break the truth to him: Poor Reggie’s in an abusive relationship. In the light of this harsh reality, Bug and Hunter and Maggie vow, come hell or high water, to help Reggie make the long and arduous journey home so he can bite Doug’s dick off. 

'Strays'
Photo: Everett Collection

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Babe: Pig in the City, Homeward Bound, Look Who’s Talking Now, the Marmaduke with Owen Wilson, Sausage Party and, perhaps for obvious reasons, Trash Humpers.

Performance Worth Watching Hearing: Reggie is a naif pooch who’s kinda the canine version of Buddy the Elf, and even though this is something Ferrell can do in his sleep, the shtick is, at least in this context, pretty funny. 

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Memorable Dialogue: Reggie envies the thing that Doug loves the most: “Sometimes I wish I was a penis!”

Sex and Skin: Does a Great Dane boner or a mutt mounting a garden gnome count?

Our Take: Strays is lowbrow and moronic, obsessed with poop and puke, crudely hacked together and seemingly written by and for prepubescent boys to sneak-watch when their parents aren’t paying attention. Its visual acuity is hampered by the limitations of working with a primary cast consisting of trained animals. It’s frequently stomach-churning, and the ickiest scenes tend to linger like the last drunk to stumble out of the party. For a while, I was unamused. Then I was surprised by the poignant manner in which Greenbaum handled the heartbreaking stories of how some of these dogs became strays, which skewed the film’s grossout factor from 95 percent to, well, about 94 percent.

And then, the needle drops on Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball’ during the movie’s big climactic sequence, and I roared and cackled and let it all out and wiped a few tears from my eyes and felt good about it. It happens: Sometimes you get blindsided by a slab of puerile, asinine comedy and you have no choice but to submit to it as your better judgment and notions of good taste expeditiously swirl straight down the crapper. 

Prior to that, Strays struck me as a borderline-tolerable spoof of family-movie and revenge-flick tropes propped up by a clunky assemblage of cute-dogs-doing-ugly-things cognitive-dissonance gags. It indulges many cliches of road comedies, you know, the inevitable scenes where the protagonists accidentally ingest hallucinogenic drugs, get thrown in jail, etc. (narrative traps, I have to note, recently employed by Book Club: The Next Chapter – or was it 80 for Brady? I can’t tell these things apart anymore). But once in a while an inspired ending swoops in to salvage things, pushing them from marginal to watchable – and in this case, kind of almost maybe probably endearing, because what kind of j-hole doesn’t root for the well-being of lost dogs? Nobody’s going to accuse the movie of being a thoughtful examination of physical and emotional abuse, or a tender story about outcasts finding strength and affirmation in their newfound friendships. But it might just inspire some healthy, cleansing laughter, which you might not expect from a movie that’s essentially about dogs sniffing each other’s hindquarters. 

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Our Call: I liked this stupid-ass movie and I’m not going to apologize for it. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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Movie Reviews

The Idea of You Movie Review: Anne Hathaway’s honest performance makes the film stand out in a not so formulaic rom-com

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The Idea of You Movie Review: Anne Hathaway’s honest performance makes the film stand out in a not so formulaic rom-com

Anne Hathaway’s The Idea of You showing on Amazon Prime Video is pure fluff which will make you feel happy. And with so much happening around us, we really need movies like this.
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No it is not a regular fan fiction. In fact, it is not a fan fiction at all. For me, it is why sadistic people around us hate happy women. When you hit rock bottom emotionally, you will find people loving you and caring for you. But when you are happy and at the high in your life, then people start having problems.

Anne Hathaway’s
The Idea of You
teaches you when you hit rock bottom, you have nowhere to go, but up. That’s exactly what happened to Solène (Anne Hathaway), a recently divorced woman just about to hit 40. She unknowingly lands up in a relationship with a British boy band sensation Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine).

Solène is in a dilemma because Campbell is way younger to her and on top of that he is the heart throb of many young girls. And he is hugely rich and famous too. It is just that Solène (Anne Hathaway) didn’t know who he was. Solène is a stylish woman who was initially unimpressed by his celebrity status. The Idea of You is a fresh take on the popular rom-com-drama formula

Anne Hathaway’s The Idea of You

The initial part of the film deals with how she has still not come to terms with her sudden divorce and how she was the last one to know that her husband was cheating with her. She got married young and had a baby was very early on life and while she was struggling with motherhood and setting up her art gallery, the husband was having an affair with a lawyer from his firm. The wound of her husband cheating on her is still raw and she is still dealing with it. Burdened with responsibilities of motherhood and loneliness, she really doesn’t know what she wants from life.

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Even when Solène (Anne Hathaway) meets Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine) she is totally confused. Campbell is in his twenties and madly in love with her. She feels that the relationship with a young man just doesn’t fit in her life and on top of that she has got a young girl. But she can’t stop herself from meeting him and being loved by him. Yet at the back of her mind there is always that feeling of guilt and things get worse when the intimate images of her and Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine) got leaked on the internet. She gets slut-shamed by Campbell’s fans.

The Idea of You is a feel good film and most importantly it is always refreshing to see good looking actors on screen. And with Anne Hathaway flashing her million-dollar dolphin smile every now and then, you definitely can’t take your eyes off her. The place where both Solène (Anne Hathaway) and Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine) are in an intense kissing scene and she, a single mother of a teenage daughter, stops herself from getting more intimate by saying, “I could be your mother.” And to this Hayes quickly says, “But you are not.” So, that’s the whole dilemma of Solène.

There is something very pure and beautiful in the way the love between the two are shown. Never for once, will you feel the relationship to be dirty. The simple love and attraction between the two is shown in such a beautiful way makes it a great weekend watch. The music, the styling, and the outfits are great. The story is simple and pure fluff, so just enjoy it!

Rating: 3 out of 5

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review: In ‘The Idea of You,’ a boy band is center stage but Anne Hathaway steals the show

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Movie Review: In ‘The Idea of You,’ a boy band is center stage but Anne Hathaway steals the show

In the warmly charming rom-com “The Idea of You,” Anne Hathaway plays a 40-year-old divorcee and Silver Lake art gallery owner who, after taking her teenage daughter to Coachella, becomes romantically involved with a 24-year-old heartthrob in the boy band August Moon. They first meet after she mistakes his trailer for the bathroom.

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There are a few hundred things about this premise that might be farfetched, including the odds of finding love anywhere near the porta johns of a music festival. But one of them is not that a young star like Hayes Campbell would fall for a single mom like Solène .

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Solène is stylish, unimpressed by Hayes’ celebrity and has bangs so perfect they look genetically modified. And, most importantly, she’s Anne Hathaway. In the power dynamics of “The Idea of You,” Hayes may be a fictional pop star but Hathaway is a very real movie star. And you don’t forget it for a moment in Michael Showalter’s lightly appealing showcase of the actor at her resplendent best.

“The Idea of You,” which debuts Thursday on Prime Video, is full of all the kinds of contradictions that can make a rom-com work. The highly glamorous, megawatt-smiling Hathaway is playing a down-to-earth nobody. The showbiz veteran in the movie is played by Galitzine, a less well-known but up-and-coming British actor whose performance in the movie is quite authentic. And even though the whole scenario is undeniably a glossy high-concept Hollywood fairy tale, Showalter gives it enough texture that “The Idea of You” comes off more natural and sincere than you’d expect.

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The only thing that really needs to make perfect sense in a movie like “The Idea of You” is the chemistry. The film, penned by Showalter and Jennifer Westfeldt from Robinne Lee’s bestseller, takes its time in the early scenes between Solène and Hayes — first at Coachella, then when he stops by her gallery — allowing their rapport to build convincingly, and giving each actor plenty of time to smolder.

Once the steamy hotel-room encounters come in “The Idea of You,” the movie has, if not swept you away, then at least ushered you along on a European trip of sex and room service. At the same time, it stays faithful to its central mission of celebrating middle-aged womanhood. The relationship will eventually cause a social media firestorm, but its main pressure point is whether Solène can stick with Hayes after her ex-husband cheated on her. This is a fairy tale she deserves.

While Showalter has long showed a great gift for juggling comedy and drama at once, “The Idea of You” leans more fully into wish-fulfillment romance. That can leave less to sustain the film, which has notably neutered some of the things that distinguished the book.

The May-December romance has been shrunk a little. In the book, the singer is 20. Given that Galitzine is 29 and the 41-year-old Hathaway is no one’s idea of old, this is more like a July-September relationship. In the book, the daughter is a huge admirer of the pop singer, adding to the awkwardness, but in the movie, August Moon is “so 7th grade” to her.

There are surely more interesting and funnier places “The Idea of You” could have gone. But Hathaway and Galitzine are a good enough match that, for a couple hours, it’s easy to forget.

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But the most convincing thing about “The Idea of You”? August Moon. The movie nails the look and sound of boy bands so well because it went straight to the source. The original songs in the film are by Savan Kotecha and Carl Falk, the producer-songwriters of, among other pop hits, “What Makes You Beautiful,” One Direction’s debut single.

That connection will probably only further the sense that “The Idea of You” is very nearly “The Idea of Harry Styles.” The filmmakers have distanced the movie from any real-life resemblances. But one thing is for sure: With August Moon following 4Town of “Turning Red” , we are living in the golden age of the fictional boy band.

“The Idea of You,” an Amazon MGM Studios release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for some language and sexual content. Running time: 115 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.

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Movie Reviews

Film Review: Civil War is Too Timid to Be Interesting

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Film Review: Civil War is Too Timid to Be Interesting

A24

2/5 stars

When I heard that Alex Garland was making a film about a new American civil war to be released in the middle of an extremely contentious election year, I was hyped. The idea seemed more daring and provocative than we have seen in quite some time. Sadly, Civil War lacks any real courage and Garland remains frustratingly “apolitical” with a story that should be inherently political. The result is a thrilling but shallow action movie with little to say with its fascinating premise beyond the tired old cliche that “war is hell.”

Set in a near future in which the United States has devolved into warring factions, we follow photojournalist Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) who is traveling with several other journalists to interview the nebulously tyrannical president (Nick Offerman) before the “Western Forces,” a combined alliance between Texas and California, attack Washington D.C.

The film remains steadfast in its refusal to explain any of the factors involved in this conflict. Who are the Western Forces and what do they want? What has the president done to bring about a full-on civil war? Garland doesn’t even bother to ask these questions, failing to give audiences a sense of urgency. There is also some striking imagery reminiscent of footage from Vietnam and Bosnia. Seeing these images played out on American soil feels like they should be ripe for analysis, but there is no message behind them. The film says nothing about modern warfare or even photojournalism and only leaves us with sheer spectacle. The timid approach to politics gives us a film that feels like it wants to be The Battle of Algiers but becomes White House Down.

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Written and directed by Alex Garland // Starring Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Jefferson White, Nelson Lee, Evan Lai, Vince Pisani, Justin James Boykin, Jess Matney, Greg Hill, Edmund Donovan, Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman, and Jesse Plemons // 109 minutes // A24 // Rated R

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