No Truth in Cats
and Dogs. ©
Jon Dunmore, 18 May 2007. Re-telling of the age-old
Cyrano tale with Janeane Garofalo as The Nose and Uma Thurman as The Bod. Janeane
is as alluring as she's ever been onscreen - which is about as alluring as Gerard
Depardieu in a leotard. (But - funnily enough - I really was attracted
to Janeane at the time of this movie's release, for - and this sounds corny -
her brain. She was never going to subsume wild fantasies of Jennifer Aniston or
those blond MILF newswomen who smile coyly as they tell of mass death, but Janeane
definitely orbited as a fantasy contender.)
Written
by first-timer Audrey Wells and directed by Michael Lehmann (Airheads 1994,
Hudson Hawk 1991- now there's a powerful pedigree), The Truth
About Cats and Dogs shares the same contradictions as Shallow
Hal (see that article for more in-depth delving - I really couldn't be
bothered affording this gloppy Romantic Comedy any more web space); pretending
a pretty girl is unattractive until she needs to be portrayed as attractive, at
which point suddenly the lighting will be numinous and the filter will be soft-focus.
At which point I rip the arms off a droid like a Wookiee. Ben
Chaplin is the British love interest who "autonomously" falls in lust
with Thurman, until he is brought round to realizing that he can "intellectually"
fall in love with Janeane. Yes, after 4 billion years, let's subvert evolution
in one afternoon. Jamie
Foxx provides two good laughs - or maybe one - and there are pets and other annoying
organisms taking up valuable breathing space onscreen. END
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