Cold Dog Soup

Randy Quaid (National Lampoon's Cousin Eddie from 1986's XMas Vacation) steals this absurd, obscure (unless you get IFC) and priceless indie as the out-of-your-nightmare cab driver, Jack Cloud. Frank, the innocent, hooks up with the one-gloved wonder,Christine, for what seems on the surface to be an innocent date. Keep your eyes and ears open as the date falls apart faster than a 2 week floater in the Ohio River! Christine's dog, Jasper, chokes on an anchovy-stuffed olive and plays the death scene to the hilt. Then the fun begins! Madame Chang (Nancy Kwan) eloquently clues us in to the meaning of the movie title; but as all the performances defy description, just watch it and enjoy the ride!

Quaid's "Time Flies" monologue is forever quotable - The scripting is beautiful, location shots just too much fun - well, you can watch this again and again and never catch all the detail. Kudos to Alan Metter, Thomas Pope and the originator - Stephen Dobyns for a fab book from which to begin.

I was so incredibly lucky years ago when I was home one weekday morning and saw this on the USA channel. The low rating is definitely a hit job. (Hundreds of people type in low scores for an obscure, little-seen film that other people consider superb, delightful, refreshing?) As the hero's quest goes on, there may have been some longeurs, but the wild and wacky original humor of this movie makes this a small classic.

Everyone with taste and insight loves Frank Whaley and he is at his Frank Whaley-ist here: vulnerable and funny, tender and oppressed, buffeted by forces he cannot control.

The characterization of the girlfriend is bizarre, to say the least--for reasons you'll have to watch the film to see. And the film also reminds us that the late Sheree North was a delightful comedienne, not just a onetime starlet.

This is perhaps the best, most worthwhile comedy that almost nobody has ever seen. If MTV can show a crappy movie like "Rolling Kansas" over and over and over, why can't they show this?

It's interesting that some people here speculated that the ratings on this movie were the subject of a "hit job," because the history of the movie is tragic. Here's how it was explained in BILLBOARD in 2001:

A judge threw out George Harrison's bid to keep his former business manager and partner Denis O' Brien from declaring bankruptcy. Harrison had just had lung cancer surgery and his lawyer told a judge in St. Louis he was too ill to testify. The judge didn't buy it. Of course, Harrison later died from lung cancer, but at the time, the judge said that his failure to appear was "obviously willful."

Harrison had already won an 11 million dollar judgment against O'Brien. Of course, declaring bankruptcy is a common thing - to avoid paying such judgments.

Losses on the film "Cold Dog Soup" prompted Harrison to sue O'Brien.

Very much reminiscent of After Hours, but not quite with the background bleakness (which is more apparent if you re-watch After Hours more closely and are less distracted by the zany hijinks).

Similar idea, though; a young male's quest for that which young males quest for leads him to a mystical journey through the City At Night, where Unusual Characters and Weird Scenes teach him something about the reality that lurks behind and under his daily surface routine. Good acting and quality cast put this into the quintessential indy film mold, unable to be pigeonholed into A-movie, B-movie, etc. status but instead going off in it's own direction. As they say, if you like this kind of thing, this is the kind of thing you will like.

This movie I watch whenever it is on a movie channel. It is funny, thought provoking and quirky beyond words. Well acted with Randy Quaid in his best form ever. Traversing a lot of territory in only one night, starting with a simple comedic premise and finding resolution by the complete transformation of a yuppie. Street gangs, furriers, Asian restaurants, sexy propositions all teem up for a comedy that is worth the time. A sleeper on most lists. Netflix doesn't have it but Amazon.com does. It's repeated often on the movie channels. It's one of my favorite movies of all time and I can't believe the lack of comments on this well-crafted homage to Jasper. Check it out!