Conference bookie::movies

    They probably bred the puppies for the same
    reason they used a dozen or more baby pigs for
    Babe - the puppies/pigs thru the whole movie
    have to be the same size and since it usually
    takes 3 or more months to make a movie, those
    animals don't stop growing.  Dalmation puppies
    probably aren't as available as you might think.
    I am assuming that the puppies were born at
    different times to keep the supply of puppies
    at the right age for the whole movie.
    
    Mo
    

    
    	I would have expected Angelica Huston to be cast as Cruella.
    

    
    Angelica?  Good thought but when you see Glenn in this role you'll
    never imagine anyone else doing it.  She looks perfect!  
    
    I can't wait to see it - I'll probably enjoy it more than my
    5-year-old.

    Crazy as it sounds...I'm waiting for this movie to come to the theatres
    it looks like Glen Close will be a riot..and not to mention all those
    beautiful puppies....I'm looking forward to seeing this and hope
    its a good production..

    I am excited for the release of this movie too!  I saw the previews
    when we took the two little ones to the "Hunchback of Notre Dame".
    Glen looks perfect as Cruella.  I loved the animated version but
    this looks to be even better.  Very promising, judging from the short
    clip.
    
    PChaplinsky

    RE: P_Chaplinsky
    
    Lets hope its a great~ reproduction from the animated one....
    I'd like to buy this, if its good, when it gets released for sale, 
    later on...
    I think Glen Close is a terrific actress...and not to mention the 
    P U P P I E S ^^^!!!  oooo they are sooo cute...

>    P U P P I E S ^^^!!!  oooo they are sooo cute...

I love Dalmatian puppies, too ! I couldn't eat a whole one though...


Apologetic Simes %^)

(Sorry, couldn't resist it!)

    re: .8
    
    maybe I can get them  to go  niPPing at your heels haha
    
    I did see on Entertainment Tonite, some of the pratfalls
    the Puppies do and it  does  look  like a fun movie...
    just like, kick back and make like a KID again...I WISH!!!
    

    For my son's 5th birthday, eight of us, four adults and four children,
    finally went to see this movie.  We loved it!  My daughter who turns
    four this weekend has asked me to see it again; I promised to buy the
    movie when it's released on video.  I can't wait to see it with her.
    
    Each character was perfectly casted for their role.  There were two
    major villains a la "Home Alone" which is perfect as they're not too
    scary for the little ones.  
    
    This was a good movie to see on the big screen.  I'm glad it was still
    playing this past weekend.  It made for a successfull birthday party.
    
    If you have children don't miss this one!  
    
    PChaplinsky

    The wife and I went to see this one recently. We both loved it without
    reservations. Even the bits where they got it wrong (racoons and skinks
    are not native to the British Isles, and our Police cars haven't made
    that nee-nah-nee-nah noise for years) didn't detract from the film.
    
    .15>> If you have children don't miss this one!  
    
    Even if you don't have children, don't miss this one.
    
    Clive

    Just saw the video, and, well, ho hum.... Maybe this is just one for
    the kids, or those who haven't seen the original or read the book.
    
    Those puppies were awfully cute, of course, and it was interesting to
    see how well trained the various animals were. And yet, you didn't get
    a feeling for the animals as characters, which I think is the real
    strength of the original story and which was handled wonderfully in the
    animated movie. Nobody appreciated the fact that Pongo had "perhaps the
    greatest mind in Dogdom", or that the Colonel was a fumbling old
    character who nonetheless (with prodding of his nominal subordinates)
    got the job done. And though you saw a lot of dogs barking, and dimly
    apprehended that messages were being passed to and fro, it had nothing
    of the punch and tension of sending an alert to the Twilight Bark and
    waiting desparately for a reply.
    
    > There were two major villains a la "Home Alone"
    
    This was a problem in itself. There just wasn't much suspense. Most of
    the times, the inept villians seemed virtually no threat to the
    puppies.
    
    <better put this behind a spoiler...> 
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
     The pups were elsewhere while the villians were being subjected to
    repeated Home-alone style pratfalls. Then the police quietly picked
    them up when they had enough. (the Skinner guy was pretty scary, but
    in the end he did very little). And Pongo and Perdita did little aside
    from meet the pups in a barn and lead them partway home.
    
    Contrast this to the animated movie--it was full of suspense! The
    tension in the scene where Pongo and Roger await the puppies, and when
    Roger resuscitates one, was very well done. The way he stood up to
    Cruella was first rate. Then, the puppies are stolen. Pongo gets the
    idea to send word on the Twilight Bark -- can all the dogs in London
    find fifteen pups? WHen word comes back they are found, they trek
    Voverland through harsh weather and arrive at the DeVil place just in
    time to fight the Badduns and escape with the pups. The scene where
    they find shelter at the dairy barn almost brings tears to my eyes!
    Then Pongo gets the idea to disguise the whole crew as Labradors by
    rollign in the soot, and finally he and Perdy -- not the London police
    -- get all 99 puppies home intact.
    
    As for villians, Glen Close was a pretty good imitator, but who can
    beat the image of the crazed Cruella De Vil bearing down on the truck
    full of puppies from behind, teeth showing and a mad gleam in her
    eyes?
    
    If anything, this movie was more a homage to the old one than a decent
    flick in its own right. I kept getting the feeling I was watching a
    medieval passion play, where the story line is well known to all the
    audience and the characters merely pose and ritualistically declaim
    their expected lines. Too bad; I was expecting a real masterpiece, like
    Babe.
    			MHO,
    				Jim B.

    I feel obliged to temper my earlier criticism. Some parts of the movie
    -- mainly the first half -- improve with repeated viewing (and with a
    three-year-old in charge of the VCR, that's what you get!).
    
    Basically, the whole first half of the movie is great, once you resign
    yourself to the fact that the animals will not be characters in their
    own right. The intro of Cruella De Vil is superb -- Glen Close carries
    herself so well in this role! She is utterly believeable. In fact, she
    dominates the film so naturally that Emma as often as not refers to
    this movie as "Cruella". The fact that she was given short shrift in
    the latter half of the movie is the fault of the writing, not of her
    performance.
    
    Horace and Jasper are so close to their animated counterparts as to be
    eerie. My favorite Jasper scene is where he stands atop DeVil Manor and
    cheerily explains to Cruella that he doesn't know, at the moment, just
    exactly where the puppies might be.
    
    The early interaction between Roger and Anita is quite good too. I
    think Emma knows that if she puts in the video before bedtime, she's
    guaranteed that I won't turn it off until at least the wedding scene.
    It's funny  how, in movies, it's considered so romantic to get married
    after the briefest acquaintance; if anyone did that in real life, we'd
    say they were crazy foolish. (Yet I know one such couple, married after
    one date; they have nothing in common, but have been happy together for
    twenty years and three kids.)
    
    A good way to watch this movie is with a child with a short attention
    span. You can watch the first half over and over again, and divert the
    child before the disappointing second half.
    
    One trend that I dislike and that this movie is guilty of is that of
    the good guy becoming somewhat sadistic. This is the "Home Alone"
    syndrome. In the animated 101 Spotted Dogs, the bad guys took their
    share of pratfalls, but it was typically due to their own bumbling. The
    few times that the good guys actively went after them (Pongo and Perdy
    attacking the Badduns at DeVil Manor), they were only doing what was
    necessary. But in the live action flick, the good guys or their allies
    repeatedly set traps for their advesaries, and take joy in inflicting
    pain on them. I don't think this is a message I want to instill in my
    next generation. During the first few viewings, for instance, Emma (who
    is too young to have much concept of good guys vs. bad) would start
    crying when her favorite character, Cruella, would be plunged into a
    vat of molasses or kicked through a window into a pigsty. I had to
    reassure her that Cruella was okay, she just fell down and got dirty.
    Now, Emma doesn't protest during these scenes; I don't think that's
    really progress.
    				At length,
    					Jim