A League of Mullets Movie Review

Yo, we're back from our trip to the Pacific Northwest where we caused much havoc, made fun of a pretentious blogger in Seattle, and totally got laid a boat load of times, we swear. After we got home Dr. Monkey made us watch Year of the Dog and here is our review: This charming little dramedy, oh how we hate that word but it really fits this film no matter what anyone says, is about a loner of a gal, played by Molly Shannon, who loves her little dog Pencil. One night her little doggie dies and she embarks on a sort of quest to fill the void in her life left by the death of her pooch. She meets a sexually ambiguous ASPCA guy, played by Peter Skarsgaard, teaches her niece about animal cruelty, gets into some hot water at work for "donating" money in her bosses name to animal related charities, and becomes a crazy dog lady for a moment before snapping out of it. This film was written and directed by Mike White who has written some other films and starred in Chuck and Buck and was also in School of Rock.

It's a fine character study of a character you don't often see a movie built around, the mousy office gal who is everyone's friend but who no one really knows.

Molly Shannon is perfect in this movie. She is believable from the first frame to the last. She exudes loneliness, hope, longing, and love for animals all at the proper times in the film. It's a pleasure to watch her in this film after seeing her in all those horrid Saturday Night Live sketches where all she did was kick up her legs and scream out a catch phrase over and over. She is subtle in this film unlike those old days of on SNL where she had to beat you over the head with her "wacky" characterizations.

She's sweet, funny, sad, and ultimately at peace in this little gem of a movie.

Also outstanding in the film are John C. Reilly, who plays an unsympathetic character for a change, Laura Dern, as the over protective sister in law of Molly Shannon's character, the little girl who's name you can look up on IMDB who played Shannon's niece, the aforementioned Peter Skarsgaard,
and the lovely Regina King, as Molly's work buddy.

We guys in the League of Mullets must admit to liking Ms. King very much.

Very,

very,

very,
very much.

We're fully prepared to forgive Regina for doing that Sandra Bullock beauty queen movie, hell who are we kidding? We'd forgive her anything including manslaughter and embezzlement if she'd give us a kiss and let us hug her tight for a few hours. If you've never seen the Ray Charles bio pic then you're missing out on another of Regina's great performances.



Our verdict is rent this film but if you love dogs or animals in general then you may want to buy it and watch it over and over. The extras are good, there's a gag reel, deleted scenes, and the requisite "making of" featurette. The only thing that would have made this flick any better would be if there had been a character in it who was sporting a mullet. We liked this movie more than we thought we would and we think you will too.



So say us! So say us all!!!!