Kicking the Dog

I have to believe that all the reviews of this movie that have more than one star are written by those who were in the film or had friends that are in it.

It was like watching a porn movie without the sex scenes. A home movie of a fraternity party would have been more interesting. I found myself fast-forwarding just to see if I could find a nude scene or something to keep me interested in this crap of a film.

I hate to be harsh but this film is the worst film I have ever seen and would rather watch someone actually Kick a Dog than recommend anyone waste their time with this trash.

Silver Lining: the fast forward button on the remote!

First off, I would like to start by saying that this movie deeply upset me, but not in a way where i thought it was emotionally poignant. No, this movie deeply upset me because I cannot believe that someone "Randy Scooter Lammey" thought that this piece of garbage would ever make a living soul laugh. You know what? I did laugh. I laughed at the fact that we were suppose to relate to a bunch of college guys, who thought that having five inch penises was something to brag about! How is that cool????!!! Oh and I'm suppose to relate to the character of Matt, a 25 year old player who in real life is actually 42? Oh and you know how every great comedy has that one fat guy who people always remember? Yeah well, in Kicking the Dog we are presented with two fat depressing failures who by volunteering to be in this movie have destroyed any possible chance to ever converse or interact with a woman. Their logic in this movie and existence in real life is unacceptable and and as a nation we need to castrate these two kids for walking off that set thinking they were ever remotely cool. I can seriously right a novel about why this movie should be lynched, if it was ever possible, but I don't think this movie is worth another second of my time.

First off, this is an independent film, basically in the same vein as two of the most famous - Clerks and Slacker. We all know Kevin Smith made Clerks and went on to a successful career. But you may not realize that Slacker was the first effort by Richard Linklater who's second effort was the legendary movie that began as a cult classic and is now a staple of every teen and 20- something - the great Dazed and Confused. Why am I mentioning this? Because I think that Slacker is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It couldn't hold my attention for more than a few minutes and I only laughed two times. And yet Linklater went on to make an iconic movie about high school kids a couple years later. Lammey's Kicking The Dog, although rough around the edges (we'll get into that in a moment), is a hundred times better than Slacker - basically because it's really funny. I read a review that said something like "Linklater's sophomore effort was Dazed and Confused, which is a classic. Lammey's first effort is a superior movie than Linklater's Slacker, so I'm setting my Google alert so I don't miss his next film"

Basically that's how I feel. each went a different route with their low budget indie films. Slacker roamed around town, never staying on a character for more than a few minutes and never being very funny. Kicking The Dog stays in a single home and has a bunch of characters interact with each other in that house. But the key difference - The Dog is really funny. Both films went in these directions because of their budget. But someone saw that Linklater had potential and he went on to make D&C. As far as pure comedy goes, Slacker is not in the same league as KTD. KTD is funny and often hilarious. Show it to a group of 18 year olds and watch their reactions. Yes, the acting is up and down, as is the story. Staying in one house feels awkward at times. But if you just watch and listen to the comedy, it will keep you laughing.

Sorry it's not really a review. I just watched the movie after not seeing it for a few years and tried to see if Lammey made another and I stumbled upon the review comparing it to Slacker, which made me think. If you like teen sex comedies, watch it. You will laugh.

The teen sex genre has been tired since everyone decided to rip off American Pie in the late 90s/easrly 00s. So it's refreshing when a movie comes along that somewhat re-writes the style - and it's actually funnier than most teen comedies - and I dare to say that it will appeal to a wider audience range - meaning from 14 to 40. What it lacks in plot it more than makes up for in laughs.

What we have is a group of friends who have just graduated college and are hanging out at a friends house. I don't know where the parents are at for what seems like 2-3 weeks, but it doesn't really matter. Unlike previous movies in this genre, these guys aren't desperately trying to have sex to lose their virginity - they're just acting like 22 year olds. They want sex, want to get drunk, want to have fun and want to hang out with their friends. And their conversations about life is so perfect and non-stop that you feel like you've been there.

The main story is that the lead actress (elizabeth schimdt is very good and offers an emotional aspect that offsets the boob jokes) is going to graduate school across country while her boyfriend declines a job offer to stay with her, not realizing she's leaving. He feels betrayed and she's confused. She carries these scenes, which saves this underdeveloped plot line. There is also some minor plot lines with some young eye candy as well as some innocent geeks - one of which steals every scene - sometimes with his words and other times with simple expressions.

It only slows a couple times, and never for long. The conversations and jokes come at you as fast as any movie - and much faster than any teen comedy - which makes up for the lack of a great plot (but tell me, how many teen comedies have a great plot) and the fact that too much of the movie is in 1 location. That may be my biggest complaint, I understand it was low budget, but 2 more locations could have made this movie, as they say at the end, "LEGENDARY!" I guess the haters just don't get it. I don't know how. I think of the scenes and just laugh.

A group of friends spend their last summer the have before entering adulthood by....staying at home and having fairly lame parties, full of sexual stories of past escapades and hitting on girls. Oh those wild ones.

This movie is full of frank sex talk that i'd guess is supposed to be humorous, but the movie isn't on for long before it just becomes boring and tedious. It seems that the writer of this was attempting to channel Kevin Smith (old "Clerks" era Smith, the New Kevin Smith is too busy trying to channel Judd Apatow), but lacked the ability to successfully pull it off. What we get is an overlong, unfunny, exercise in tedium.

Eye Candy: Lorianne Dye get topless

My Grade: D-

DVD Extras: Just a theatrical trailer for this movie; and trailers for "Hide", "Stormforce", & "Brother's War"