The movie “A Dog’s Purpose” is about much more than just the reincarnation of one dog into the lives of several different people. This movie is about the human condition, it’s about a bad marriage born out of husband who is miserable in his job and very sick of being a traveling salesman and ironically because he is so good at selling things on the road, he is doomed to never be promoted. Because of his misery, just like the recent movie “Fences”, he takes out his anger on his family and then turns to alcohol. You wonder while you watch the unraveling of this family because of the anger and misery over a job, just how often something like this happens to people in this country and around the world. Is it possible to ever be fulfilled and happy when you hate your job and you know deserve so much better? But the problem really is, it is not your family’s fault, so why take it out on them? This movie does a beautiful job in blending together complex human problems with the simple thoughts and the simple life of a dog and suggests that a dog’s purpose is all about being there, to give some happiness and joy to people and ultimately, this is the real message of this film.

There are several different stories within this movie and they all connected to the repeated reincarnation of the same dog and within each reincarnation, the dog is able to remember previous lives. The most important story is the first one about a young boy, who is an only child, and gets his first dog and ultimately his parent’s divorce because of alcoholism. Throughout this whole film, there is narration so we can hear the thoughts of the dog, although I would have selected a different sounding voice than the one they chose for this movie. Some parts of the dog’s narrations are funny but other ones can break your heart because of their simplicity and purity. This movie doesn’t try too hard to make you cry but at times it is impossible not to, most especially at the end when the last story is expertly tied together for a very emotional ending. I would not recommend this movie to any young children because of the multiple deaths and reincarnations of this dog, but I thought overall that A Dogs Purpose was a throwback to Disney movies about animals and was very well done.

The actor Dennis Quaid is in the last story within this film and he does a solid job as one of the owners of this reincarnated dog as well as Peggy Lipton who I have not seen in a movie in many years.

Unfortunately, there is some controversy over this movie because of some possible trainer abuse of a German Shepard for one scene where the dog had to jump into water and this probably accounts for the low ratings on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. I have heard that there was no real abuse of any animals in this film including the incident with the German Shepard and it was obvious to me that everybody involved in this film loves animals and especially dogs so I believe this controversy is unwarranted. A Dog’s Purpose is a very good movie about the love of dogs and I give it a very solid recommendation.

A Dog’s Purpose: A Novel for Humans

One has to admire Matthew McConaughey and the fact that for two movies he has made recently, he lost and gained a great deal of weight. The first was for “Dallas Buyers Club” where he won the academy award for best actor and now for the movie “Gold” he gained a great deal of weight. For the movie “Dallas Buyers Club” he had to lose a life-threatening amount of weight to play a character who is dying of AIDS, as Tom Hanks did for “Philadelphia” in 1993. But for this movie, it didn’t seem to be necessary to gain so much weight for this role, at least 40 pounds. When you remember as an actor, that “it’s only a movie”, then you should realize that no movie or movie award is ever going to be worth your health.

As for the film, I was expecting something stronger, especially from what I have been hearing about this movie before I saw it. Overall this film was just a good story that is loosely based on the Bre-x Gold Mining scandal in Indonesia in 1993 that involved a massive fraud. What this movie shows is how extremely difficult the Gold mining business is because the risks both financially and physically are so extreme. I had to admire McConaughey’s character, Kenny Wells and his constant living on the edge of financial ruin and then the extreme risks he took investing in an area within the hot jungles of Indonesia. The risks of finding Gold anywhere in the world are obvious, but then you also run the risk of any country deciding to Nationalize your Gold Mine and that would mean a 100% total loss of all the money spent to find the Gold up to that point.

Bryce Dallas Howard plays Kenny Well’s wife in this movie but she seems miscast because of McConaughey’s run down and overweight appearance in this story. The actor
Edgar Ramírez plays the friend of Kenny Wells who originally finds the Gold in Indonesia. The acting in Gold is solid throughout and there are some twists and turns at the end of this story that make the film more interesting overall, but not enough to give Gold any more than a marginal recommendation.

When a great Television icon like Mary Tyler Moore dies, we are all immediately reminded of the work they have left behind. Without any doubt, the Mary Tyler Moore show, most especially during the last 5 years of its seven-year run from 1970-1977, will be known as the greatest situation comedy of all time. The unique and once in a lifetime collaboration of great actors like Edward Asner, Ted Knight, Betty White, Gavin McCloud, Cloris Leachman and Valerie Harper will most likely never been seen again. Then add the great writers, like David Lloyd, James L. Brooks, Ed Weinberger and Stan Daniels who wrote such great and funny episodes and you have the ingredients of the best comedy show ever produced. I will never forget the day in March 1977 when this great show went off the air, it was a very depressing and I thought it ended way too soon. I am always reminded of the value of a great comedy show like the Mary Tyler Moore show when a tragedy like Mary’s passing today on January 25, 2017 happens. A great comedy show can lift your spirits temporarily for 30 minutes, and when your life is in a depressing and dark place like mine was in the 1970’s these 30 minutes can mean everything to you. To this day I can remember almost every funny line from all the episodes of this TV show. The great timing and rhythm that this unique comedy had set it apart from all others. The Mary Tyler Moore Show is a standard of comedic perfection that can never be surpassed.

Mary Tyler Moore tried again with other TV shows after this show ended, but she was never able to set herself apart from her Mary Richard’s character. Years later she did go on to win a Tony Award on Broadway for “Whose Life is it Anyway” and was nominated for an Academy Award for “Ordinary People”, that was released in 1980, won for best picture that year and is one of the best movies I have ever seen.

What is most extraordinary about “Ordinary People” is that every one of the actors that appeared in this movie was not only outstanding and at the very peak of their movie careers, but none of them ever got even close to getting a role that good again. This is most disappointing for Mary Tyler Moore, who was so good in this role as the mother of a suicidal son. She proved to everyone in Ordinary People that she was not only a great comedic actor but a great dramatic actor as well.

Mary’s passing today will be hard for everyone who loved the Mary Tyler Moore show to rationalize, but at least Mary is finally past her many years of suffering with Type 1 Diabetes. Mary also had a good deal of tragedy in her life, that included the accidental death of her only son by gunshot in 1980.

I will never forget Mary Tyler Moore, her great show and the 30 minutes of escape it gave me so many times during some very dark days in the 1970’s.