This movie rocks ... for all the wrong reasons

I should have bought stock in the Acme Foam Rock Factory. Because let’s face it, without foam rocks Wrath of the Titans would be much less wrathy.

Foam rocks falling around Olympus. Foam rocks raining down in an underworld maze. Foam rocks thrown by a beastly Chimera that falls from the sky leaving a crater of foam rocks. Between the harmless foam rocks (sales pitch: they’re actor approved!) and their bastard step-cousins, CGI rocks, the entire sequel to Clash of the Titans is a rockslide of tumbling fake granite. You could smoke crack with Dwayne Johnson inside George Washington’s left nostril at Mt. Rushmore and still not be surrounded by so much rock. (Please, though, don’t use drugs, or hang out with Dwayne.)

Who asked for a second Clash of the Titans anyway? I don’t remember mailing that letter to Warner Bros. Pictures, but someone did and now we all have to suffer, although thankfully not as much as we suffered in 2010 with the first film. Yes, Wrath of the Titans is a slight improvement on that dismal clunker, which is the most upbeat endorsement I can offer.

This one picks up 15 or so years after the first film. Perseus (Sam Worthington) has a son, but his wife has died (read between the lines: the actress didn’t want to return). The half-god Perseus is enjoying peace, but then Zeus (Liam Neeson) appears to share his sorrows. It seems that the Greek gods are turning on each other, and monsters are being released. Perseus needs to be mankind’s hero again.

And there’s your plot. Nothing else is really needed: the hero must kill things, end of story. If this trend keeps up eventually movie studios will just ditch plots altogether so they can assemble action films out of randomly generated scenes of people slaying things with swords and guns — no common thread, no story, no point. Consider another medium that people like: It has no plot, no story and not even characters, yet it features an endless array of explosions set to an upbeat soundtrack. Sound fun? They're called fireworks, and they should never be compared to movies.

Sadly, this is pretty much already happening. Look at films like Transformers, Battleship or The Avengers. They’re all variations of humans killing non-human invaders. Directors like Michael Bay convince themselves they’re filming stories by including characters that share ideas, hopes or dreams, but really they supply these scenes only keep the “plot” charade alive. While better movies wish to truly look into the hearts and souls of its characters, these movies only wish to purge them of their hearts and souls with bombs, bullets or broadswords.

So, off goes Perseus, sword in hand, to stab things. And when he loses his sword he’ll just club them to death. He meets the Chimera, a couple thick-headed cyclops that were apparently animated using 2003 CGI technology, a centaur with a facial deformation and then finally Cronos, a lava monster that actually looks quite spectacular. Watch how he flings curtains of lava at Greek armies; he’s so massive that the lava cools to rock (foam rock!) by the time it hits the ground. I like little details like that.

Question: Is it OK to cheer for the monsters? Because I was. The monsters had more fun than the rest of the cast, and they were being driven into battle by much more interesting characters, including Hades, played by a still-marvelous Ralph Fiennes, and Ares, played by Carlos star Édgar Ramírez. Never mind how a talented Venezuelan actor with a wonderful Spanish accent became the Greek god of war; I guess it’s a testament to Ramírez’s uncanny abilities.

On the heroes side, Perseus isn’t all bad. He doesn’t have that buzzcut anymore, which makes him instantly more likable. His character just carries no weight for me and he doesn’t have much to really do, which is understandable since film fails to make his motivations altogether clear. Does he fight for the dead wife, Zeus, new girlfriend, son? Wrath seems to bat down each option making Perseus look less like a hero and more like simple thug brought in to murder and then go home. At that point he is no different than one of the titans. This failure is especially obvious at the end of the film when he’s thrown into a romance for no other reason than because there’s a female still alive at the end.

Fans of movies like this will argue that I must judge Wrath of the Titans on its own terms. I wouldn’t judge an SUV by sports-car standards, so why judge an action adventure movie about Greek mythology using the standards of a drama, a mystery thriller or a bio-picture? I'll tell you why: because I believe that a good narrative can exist across all genres, and by suggesting it’s not that important in a movie like Wrath of the Titans is a cop-out to making a better movie.

So if you like movies like Wrath of the Titans, I have another movie suggestion for you: wait until the evening of July 4 and then look up into the sky.

Detached lives collide in scary schoolhouse

Detachment isn’t so much a movie as it is a morality play.

Our hero walks us through the allegory: Here he is exalted and righteous, and here he falls into despair after he meets seven deadly sins personified by people in his life. Here is Wrath, who curses and threatens violence. Here is Envy, the girl who wants the normalcy that some people attain so easily. And here is Pride, who can’t see the truth behind her inflated ego. Our hero meets his sins, and is edified. He seeks truth and has found it on the edge of his own redemption.

Based on the wording I’m using you’d think this would be a movie about religion, but it’s not. It’s about another institution that has been deified by its believers: education and its chapel, the schoolhouse.

The director is Tony Kaye, who gave us American History X, about another broken system (white supremacy) and its many wounded soldiers. The star is Adrien Brody, an actor whose eyes evoke such great sadness and regret. Together they have made a movie that will haunt me for a very long time. Detachment is not particularly easy to watch: the smaller performances are uneven and amateur, the big performances are overplayed, scenes and events are exaggerated to the point of satire and parody, and the camera work is … well, detached, with shaky handheld footage and bizarre framings and coverage. But the film has something important to say, and by the conclusion it’s screaming it in long painful yelps.

Brody stars as Henry Barthes, a substitute teacher sent to a high school for a month-long teaching assignment. This is a patient man. He comes highly recommended. Everything seems normal when he arrives. The campus looks nice — manicured lawns, no graffiti in the bathrooms, clean hallways — but the students seethe with anger and violence. One student, in front of her accomplice mother, threatens to rape and kill her English teacher. A bully verbally assaults an overweight student in front of their entire class. In one sequence, a girl is questioned by her teacher about her inappropriate outfit: “Can I see your nipples?” the teacher asks. The girl shakes her head. “Then why did you wear that dress?”

Hopelessness runs through these kids like a flash-flood, a torrent of ruined ambition and pointless talent. To begin to understand the movie, you must accept that these are exaggerations, that no school has this many misbehaving students, and that no school has this many teachers who have given up on them. Detachment exaggerates the edges, it injects hyperbole in radioactive batches like a scientist radiating a field mouse to see what happens. And what happens here? By amplifying the in-class carnage, Kaye evokes the sense that this is a wasteland, a place that will not be so easily fixed with more funding, better teachers or more standardized testing. No, this schoolhouse needs a top-down, inside-out renovation. Hearts and minds will have to find their way out of the mess before anyone else finds their way in.

I’ve barely mentioned the Henry character but he figures prominently into the loosely told movie, which often uses several methods to tell the story, including narration, Brody talking directly to the camera, chalkboard animations, flashbacks saturated with color — the film takes pleasure in showing whatever it wants. Henry often visits his father, who’s in the late stages of Alzheimer’s. On the way home one lat night he meets a prostitute, who he befriends and takes home. He calls her a little girl because … just look at her. He goes to school to teach students reading and poetry, then comes home to teach a hooker personal hygiene and manners. Maybe in his mind he’s working both ends to meet at the middle.

The film is less about plot, and more about moments. Like when the English teacher (Christina Hendricks) walks in on Henry as he innocently consoles the bullied girl. She misunderstands the kind gesture and nothing will convince her of what she thinks she saw. Some moments are small: the district official who suggests teachers juke their records, a teacher (Tim Blake Nelson) who zones out by clinging to a chain-linked fence, and James Caan who makes Shakespeare out of one student’s verbal tirade (“Unfuck your shit up tight, you mother fucker”). In one sequence, a girl talks to her advisor, the lovely Lucy Liu, who tells the student that her life will be defined by its many failures and by the random men she sleeps with. “Your life will be a carnival of pain,” the advisor tells her. Now that’s advice you don’t hear every day.

Ultimately, Detachment is about teachers and how they’re responsible for what happens in their schools. The film asks: If teachers take the credit at highly performing schools, then shouldn’t teachers take the blame at underperforming schools? Certainly, teachers do get a lot of credit, as they should — seriously, the good ones all deserve medals — but this film doesn’t just blindly submit to the cliché that teachers are all magical wishmakers. Teachers are just regular people, and they’re subject to the same flaws as the students.

That might fly in the face of all the established education movies out there — its nearest companion piece might be Half Nelson with Ryan Gosling as the teacher with a heroin habit — yet that’s also why Detachment feels so raw and so genuine. Now consider the alternatives: Recall Morgan Freeman as the tough principal in Lean On Me. Or Edward James Olmos as the calculus teacher in gangland in Stand and Deliver. Or Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds. Or Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society. Or Hilary Swank in Freedom Writers. I could do this all day.

These were great movies, but they assumed that teachers could save a school. But what if the students didn’t want to be saved, and the teachers didn’t want to save them if they did? 

Remake of the Titans clashes with CGI blah

From campfire tales and other storytelling traditions to painted pots, ancient scrolls and colorful frescoes, the story of Perseus, slayer of Gorgons and rescuer of fine ladies, has survived for 2,000 years with relatively few plotholes.

Now here’s Clash of the Titans, a movie that couldn’t make a three-minute journey from the copy machine in the writer’s room to the producer’s office without losing a few pages of script in the wind. That or the movie was actually written this way, which is its own Greek tragedy.

For instance, I’ve yet to figure out why Perseus is thrown in an Argos prison, and then why, later, he’s released. One moment he’s at a party interrupted by Hades (I hate it when that happens) and the next he’s in prison. Two minutes later he’s paroled. No explanation, no reasoning, no thought, and don’t even get me started on the riding scorpions. Yes, I’m splitting hairs here, but did you know the hair on a titan is like three feet thick? It’s like sawing through a teenage redwood.

Now, in all honesty, I did not see Clash of the Titans until yesterday, a full two years after it hit theaters. I had heard it was savaged by critics (especially its muddy and murky 3D) and I also heard it was a woeful action clunker. Certainly my mind might have been made up already before popping in Clash of the Titans at home last night.

But then the film started, and there’s no mistaking biased hatred with unbiased hatred. This is a profoundly stupid movie, one that I will try my hardest to never see again.

It stars the 2010 version of Channing Tatum (Sam Worthington) as Perseus, the bastard half-god child of Zeus. Now this is not lovable grandfatherly Zeus; I kept thinking of Rip Torn, with a white curly beard, voicing the thunderous god in Disney’s Hercules. No, this Zeus is mean and sullen. He stomps around Olympus in full battle dress — glittery armor, shiny chestplate, matching booties — like he’s about to raid Mordor. Also, Zeus and the rest of the gods all have ratty beards; not like flowing nice beards, but gross Lynyrd Skynyrd roadie beards. Anyway, no one prays to Zeus anymore, so his narcissist ego is swollen and bruised, which says a lot about a guy who actually shares an address with Narcissus himself.

To get more prayers — and Facebook friends — Zeus (Liam Neeson) decides to let his brother Hades, god of the underworld, strike fear into the hearts of men. Hades is played by a Ralph Fiennes, who uses his best library voice for the whole movie, as if he hadn’t quite shaken off that whispery Voldemort slither between Harry Potter movies. Hades, of course, has more devious plans and intends on unleashing the Kraken — actual line: “Unleash. The. Kraken!!!” — to not only make people fall to their knees and thank the gods, but to also overthrow Zeus, who has apparently forgotten to renew his health insurance or something.

But where is Perseus, you ask? Well, he started in a boat that was capsized by Hades, which means he’s pissed. When the writers wrote this scene they probably high-fived each other afterward: “See, Hades killed Perseus’ adopted father and that explains why Perseus can be an action hero for the next 90 minutes. We made it in Hollywood!”

The real dialogue, the stuff from the movie, is perfunctory and crude, which provides a nice lead-in to mindless action. The fight choreographer uses lots of hopping: Perseus hops off rock, Perseus hops from Greek column, Perseus dodges sword attack then rolls into backward hop to strike blow. We’ve seen Worthington do stunts before, but they all look so clumsy here. Making it worse is the spinny camera, which orbits around every CGI monster so we can see every dime that was spent on fake digital effects — I picture the film yelling at me mid-orbit: “Look what we worked so hard on! Look at it! See it here! And then from this angle here! Don’t you forget how hard we worked!”

As for the big showboat pieces — the scorpions, Medusa and the Kraken — I guess they are about as noteworthy as any other CGI battle sequence. The scorpion scene is actually pretty good until the cast rides the giant scorpions through the desert. One character actually suggest they’re making good time on the scorpions, but we can clearly see they’re moving about as fast as that NASA machine, the one that moves rockets and shuttles from the hanger to the launchpad. I mean, come on, the cast would be better off riding a walrus or a giraffe, or maybe one of those sloths that Kristen Bell sobs at.

The action is dumb, and the dialogue dumber, but what makes me so frustrated is the cynicism and meanness in the plot. Jason and the Argonauts was a lot of fun, and so was the original Clash of the Titans to a certain extent, but this new version just seems shallow and grumpy. Where’s the wonder and adventure? Where’s the awe? And why does Perseus have to be a meathead and Zeus a cranky old fart?

The Greeks loved these characters, which is why the stories have survived for 2,000 years. But here, in Hollywood writers’ hands, the saga wouldn’t last even one summer. Two if you count the sequel.

Off topic: I typed this review originally on my iPad, which autocorrected the late great Pete Postlethwaite into “Peter posted white” and Sam Worthington into “Sam worrying ton.”  Postlethwaite  didn’t end up in the final review (maybe in the special edition I'll include deleted paragraphs); he plays Perseus’ adopted father.

Gruesome comment? I'll take credit

Several weeks ago Roger Ebert posted a small entry about video game boobs. This was not one of his "video games can never be art" posts; it was much more playful. And ridiculous. Anyway, gamers got their Spider-Man underoos all in a twist, so I felt like I had to comment. Visit the site link above to see if you can find my comment, or just spoil the game and click on this picture. 

Pick-Up Flix is a-changin'; updates soon

In case you're wondering, yes there are some changes brewing over here at Pick-up Flix. For starters, Pick-Up Flix doesn't really exist anymore other than at the top of this very page. I've decided to incorporate the Volume name more into my online presence. Those familiar with Volume know it is the name of my entertainment section in the West Valley View. I'm merging the print version of Volume with the online version of Pick-Up Flix. I've dubbed it Terminal Volume. The name hints at my original slogan going back many years: "For all things loud." The site will play up that idea — music, entertainment, culture and, most importantly, movies.


More changes to come. Stay tuned.

Hunger Games offers meager morsels in film

I’ll take Hunger Games over Twilight any day of the week. They’re different films, you say? Hardly.

Both were originally books that were aimed at impressionable young people but embraced by the masses. Both have a hesitant young woman being lusted after by two different sets of boys (Team Edward and Team Jacob versus Team Peeta and Team Gail). And both films take place in the woods, where the characters gaze longingly into the leave-shrouded horizon and comprehend all that they are, or aren’t.

The one difference here is that stuff actually happens in The Hunger Games. Stuff like murder. And love. And then more murder. This might be the most violent PG-13 movie ever marketed directly to young people. Adults and their R-rated films will shrug it off, but then … oh damn, is that a spear impaled in the chest of a 12-year-old?!? Yikes.

Yes, folks, The Hunger Games is about children killing other children. Oh the depths of the human condition to which we’ve plunged. This just proves how wacky the Motion Picture Association of America’s ratings system has become: kids killing kids with archery sets and blunt instruments is totally acceptable for families, but one peeking nipple and you have to get a sitter. It doesn’t make any sense.

I question a lot of the intentions and morals (and yes, the rating) of a movie like The Hunger Games, but let me say clearly right here: I truly enjoyed this film. It is a well-made adventure and, though it may wander from its satirical edge, it is a provocative idea wrapped inside a genuinely thrilling story.

The film is based on Suzanne Collins’ mega-sensation The Hunger Games, the first book of a trilogy. For those who obsess over the minor trivia and whether they “did the book justice,” the film is a loyal adaptation of the book. But if you’ve read my reviews over the years, then you know I could care less; the books and the movies are separate entities entirely and should be judged on their own merits.

The story is part post-apocalyptic fiction and part dystopian reality show. In the distant future, North America was brought to a civil war that was eventually won by the Capitol, an advanced hedonistic society that enslaved the defeated soldiers and their families in 12 slum-like districts, or states. Every year, as a reminder of the war and as punishment for its waging, the Capitol selects a boy and girl between the ages of 12 and 18 from each district to fight to the death in a large outdoor arena. Twenty-four teens walk in, only one walks out. Every moment of the Hunger Games is televised so all can see the sacrifice that the Capitol demands. Most people, especially the neon-doused fashion rejects from the Capitol, watch it seemingly unaware that real lives are being extinguished.

This year is the 74th annual Hunger Games and Katniss Everdeen’s sister is chosen, by lottery, to compete for their district. Katniss (Winter’s Bone star Jennifer Lawrence), a natural game hunter and loving big sister, volunteers in her place, the first time that’s happened in their poor coal-mining district. Katniss and her male counterpart from District 12, the baker’s son Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), are whisked off to the Capitol, where they are hustled from one pre-game event to another.

It’s a grueling process: Katniss is primped and manicured by her stylist, a macho and makeup’d Lenny Kravitz; she’s interviewed on TV by Stanley Tucci wearing a blue beehive in his hair; she’s given weapons and survival training; she plots tactics with a past District 12 champion, a drunk played by Woody Harrelson whose face is shrouded on either side by curtains of hair; and then finally the tributes are taken before the president, a bearded and Downy-soft Donald Sutherland who presides over the whole affair with a sinister eye.

It was around this point I noticed the worst element of the picture: the shaky camera work. The whole movie clatters and shakes, as if the camera were a spectator in the crowd frantically roller skating over popcorn seeds. I hate this effect in this movie, and in most movies. Hollywood has given us the Steadicam and countless other innovations to allow the creation of smooth pictures. Why take those innovations out of a film? To be gritty? Can’t the film be gritty without rattling our eyeballs from their sockets?

The film spends a vast amount of time building up to the actual Hunger Games, and by the time the murdering starts the build-up must have worked because it all feels so justifiably thrilling. Katniss stands in this glass tube that will eventually raise her to the arena, and the film is alive with electricity. This is a feat — the act of giving substantial weight to events happening on the screen — that director Gary Ross (Seabiscuit, Pleasantville) will repeat several times in the course of events. Most importantly, though, he seems to have a great understanding of Katniss, who he frames heroically as her methodical survival instincts kick in.

Much of the credit must also go to Lawrence, who manages to make Katniss equal amounts stubborn and likeable. I would have liked to hear more of her internal monologue — her thoughts, her fears, her hesitation with trusting people — contextualized within the film more, but that’s only a small complaint. Surely, facing a 96-percent chance of death would have made her ponder her fate more than this.

Once in the arena, Katniss darts off into the woods while the other tributes massacre each other to claim a stockpile of weapons and food. At times she tethers herself high into a tree, where she can hear other tributes make and break alliances down below. Now and again the television aspect of the games is revealed through hidden cameras in trees, talking commentators and the head gamemaker, who controls the trap-laden arena from a Truman Show-like control room.

And since I mention Truman Show, now there’s a film that understood what it was about. It never stuttered, never faltered, never even blinked when it came to telling its satire-wrapped story. I don’t think Hunger Games has that clarity yet. It deals with too many ideas: murder as entertainment, reality TV, the great gap between rich and poor, the corruption of power, dystopian fascism and the terminal loss of innocence. Yet in the end, with so many options to choose from, The Hunger Games is nothing more than an adventure tale. It doesn’t say anything grand, or make any spectacular declarations. It just exists as a vehicle for Katniss, the series’ heroine. That’s a shame, because it has the potential to be so much more.

Last week I looked at the films and books that might have inspired The Hunger Games. I spent a lot of time on films like Running Man and Battle Royale. The one I should have looked more into was William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Watching Hunger Games I could not shake the image from Golding’s book, of Piggy being crushed by the rock. That single act in the book shattered so much that we take for granted. Here’s a film with 23 potential Piggy moments, yet only one of them seems to rise to the occasion. The Hunger Games, while it may be a good film, needs to find its center. Maybe the next film will do that.

In the meantime, though, this first one is a great start. 

Disney, Air Bud and blunt force trauma

If someone were to write a book called Why Disney Hates Your Children I could guarantee you a chapter — or 11 — would focus on Air Bud and its vile spawn.

We give Disney a lot of credit for some great things: the wonderful theme parks, pioneering animation techniques and its iconic branding of Mickey Mouse and the Disney name. Then there's its direct-to-DVD division, which churns out movies like Little Mermaid 2, The Lion King 1½, and much of the Air Bud series. The original 1997 Air Bud was released in theaters, and although it was bad, it wasn't outright garbage. That would come later after Disney decided to turn the sports-playing dog into a franchise that would come to exemplify how the company had changed from the House of Mouse to the money-gobbling destroyer of your children's brain cells.

Just take a look at any of these films: talking animals, poor production values, vapid scripts, cloned storylines and obnoxious demographic-driven characters. That last item, the market-driven character choices, is what irks me most of all. Each dog is written to appeal to some unfortunate kid. Rosebud has the pink bow in her hair (think Ms. Pac-Man), so she's there for girls. Bud-dha, a dog that does yoga and quotes Chinese proverbs, is there for, I don't know, for kids whose parents do organic farming or smoke pot. (Bud-dha seems especially out of place in the Christmas movie.) There's Budderball, who farts acrid gas plumes, eats constantly and wears a football jersey and the dark eye smudges everywhere. This dog is here for the obese diabetic crowd, which is a skyrocketing demographic. Mudbud is the dog that tracks in mud and shakes it loose in the all-white living room. Even the most strident animal lover would ponder K9 abandonment living with this asshole of a dog. Then there's B-Dawg, a dog created to get some kind of urban influence in the films — every time he opens his mouth the members of Public Enemy collectively shiver somewhere.

The films have varying cast members in each, but some actors turn up in a number of the films: Air Bud's original owner, Josh Framm, is played by Kevin Zegers, who appears in the first four films; Josh's mom is played by Cynthia Stevenson, who appears in five of the middle films; and Richard Karn, poor Richard Karn, shows up as the step-dad in three movies. With similar casts, the films also play out in the same ways. The Air Bud movies all open with picturesque shots of the town, and quickly introduce the new sport and the new villain (they all drive around in creepy chester vans and trucks) before settling in on training montages followed by winning montages. At that point the villains steal one or several dogs, at which point the kids have to get involved so they can make it back just in time to win the big game. The Buddies movies are paced slightly differently: they open with each Buddy doing their signature move with their owner (the fat one eats, the zen one yogas, the girl one plays dress-up, the urban one apes hip-hop, the dirty one rolls in the mud) and then they are usually stolen or stow aboard a car, boat, plane, ice cream truck, space shuttle etc.

The films were all made by Disney (this isn't a franchise they acquired halfway through the run) and most were directed and produced by Robert Vince, except for the first one, which was made by Charles Martin Smith, the lovable tax bookworm who gets his skull cavity vacated in an elevator in The Untouchables. I watched an interview with Vince and just take a look at his IMDb profile photos — he seems like a nice enough guy. How he came to be Hollywood's go-to guy when it comes to stupid animal movies would be an interesting story for a much better movie. By the way, Vince doesn't just have the Air Bud movies; he's also produced and directed a line up straight-to-DVD chimp-sports movies. Consider these gemstones: MVP: Most Valuable Primate, MVP: Most Vertical Primate and MXP: Most Xtreme Primate.

For some sadistic reason, I watched all the Air Bud films recently, including Treasure Buddies that came out last month. Some of my notes are below. I want you to see what you're feeding your children's brains. Call it an exercise in shame. And maybe if people stop buying these movies, Disney will return to its legacy of great animation and worthwhile family films.

— Michael Clawson

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Air Bud (1997)

Plot: Fatherless boy Josh Framm moves to a new town, where he has no friends other than golden retriever Buddy, who ran away from a mean clown. Josh and Buddy join the team under a weird sports clause — "It doesn't specifically say dogs can't play" — and win the state championship title.

Famous Faces: Prolific character actors Bill Cobbs (The Bodyguard, The Hudsuxker Proxy) and the late Michael Jeter (The Green Mile) make extended appearances. Cobbs as a former Knicks player turned janitor, and Jeter as Snively, the clown villain.

Horrible Dog Pun: Can he dribble? "No, but he can drool a lot."

Low Point: They let the dog play competitive basketball because it's not in the rule books. Also not in the rule books, but allowed to play: kitchen sinks, ghosts, vegetables and weather. Yes, this theme is repeated in all the other films, but the first time seems noteworthy.

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Air Bud: Golden Receiver (1998)

Plot: Josh and Air Bud start middle school and a new sport — football. There's also some business about an illegal zoo and Russian animal poachers. By the end of the film, Buddy is in a mini football outfit and winning the state title. The film never explains how a dog, even one with a large mouth, might catch a football.

Famous Faces: Disney staple Tim Conway, Nora Dunn, football player Warren Moon and the great Brooklyn actor Robert Costanzo (Total Recall), who has 252 projects to his credit.

Horrible Dog Pun: "I'll tell you boys, that ain't no golden retriever. That there is a golden receiver."

Low Point: Boy on the first day of school: "You know the best thing about the eighth grade? The girls turn into women."

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Air Bud 3: World Pup (2001)

Plot: Josh gets sweet on a soccer player while Buddy makes moves on her dog. Soon enough there's puppies and a slimy dog broker tries to steal them so he can sell the famous pups to a wealthy client. The film ends with Buddy in a soccer game during the — you guessed it — state finals.

Famous Faces: Character actor Martin Ferrero, who most people will remember as the lawyer eaten by the tyrannosaur in Jurassic Park, turns up as a villain. Miguel Sandoval (TV's Medium) plays a coach.

Horrible Dog Pun: "They'll make puppy chow out of this pooch."

Low Point: The dog whistle that not only magically calls every dog in a three-county radius, but also encourages them to break into house parties and destroy things.

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Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch (2002)

Plot: Josh goes away to college, but he leaves Buddy with his kid sister, who joins the baseball team. While she struggles with the new sport, a genetic engineer starts kidnapping Buddy's pups to map their sports genes. This one ends during a big baseball game with the sister and Buddy stealing the show. This movie is noteworthy for its numerous musical montages and the introduction of a raccoon, which foreshadows where the franchise is headed.

Famous Faces: This marks the first appearances of Patrick Cranshaw (Blue from Old School), as a sheriff, and Richard Karn (Al Borland from TV's Home Improvement), as the step-dad.

Horrible Dog Pun: "This game has gone to the dogs."

Low Point: The umpire practicing his shadow puppets mid-call for no explicable reason.

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Air Bud: Spikes Back (2003)

Plot: When Buddy and Josh's kid sister aren't playing beach volleyball, Buddy is chaperoning an ice-cream-gobbling kid with hypertension in his future. The kid teaches Buddy an obstacle course that also happens to be identical to a route through a laser alarm system at a museum where an expensive diamond is being held. Do you see where this is going? Also, a talking parrot plays a major role.

Famous Faces: Edie McClurg (the secretary from Ferris Bueller's Day Off) shows up to make broccoli smoothies and asparagus pies. Athlete Gabrielle Reece appears as herself.

Horrible Dog Pun: "But he's not an Irish setter."

Low Point: Air Bud spiking a volleyball with an obviously fake doggy paw. And not to split hairs here, but there's no way a dog could jump high enough to spike a volleyball. 

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Air Buddies (2006)

Plot: This film alters the canon of the series by changing the number of the pups and their names. They also talk! And once again villains try to dognap the pups — who all live with their own youth owners — to sell to a wealthy client.

Famous Faces: All kinds of stars turn up for voice casting: Abigail Breslin, Michael Clarke Duncan, Debra Jo Rupp, Molly Shannon, Wallace Shawn, Tom Everett Scott and Don Knotts, who died before this stinker was even released.

Horrible Dog Pun: "I can't swim. I can't even doggy paddle."

Low Point: This B-Dawg quote: "This game is going to be off-the-chain insane."

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Snow Buddies (2008)

Plot: The five talking Buddies stow away on an ice cream delivery truck and end up being air-dropped into Alaska for a dog-sled race. This film holds a sad place in the series because five puppies died from a contagious illness during its production.

Famous Faces: James Belushi, Whoopi Goldberg and Kris Kristofferson all do creature voices.

Horrible Dog Pun: "I'm going to send out an APB — an all-pups bulletin."

Low Points: A cartoonishly offensive igloo. This B-Dawg quote: "Why you laughing at my home-dawgs?" Also, lots of doggy farting. Oh, and need I mention it further: five dogs died while making this movie.

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Space Buddies (2009)

Plot: The Buddies stow away on an unmanned space flight that meets up with a Soviet-era cosmonaut before heading to the moon. At one point the dogs take control of the space ship and fly it back to Earth. I did like the line about how the Soviet cosmonaut makes his own drinks, "but they don't taste very good and we use it for rocket fuel." That there is space hooch!

Famous Faces: Funnyman Diedrich Bader (Napoleon Dynamite, The Drew Carey Show) plays a Soviet cosmonaut trapped in space, oddball comedienne Amy Sedaris (Strangers With Candy) does a ferret voice and

Horrible Dog Pun: The word Dogmonaut and the tagline, "One small step for dog, one giant leap for dogkind."

Low Point: Dog farts in a space suit to inflate it so it can be used as a thruster during a space walk.

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Santa Buddies (2009)

Plot: Santa Claus and canine counterpart Santa Paws enlist the Buddies to restore holiday cheer and save Christmas. The film teaches that Christmas is more than toys and gifts by showing nothing but toys and gifts in nearly every scene. I consider the Buddies movies to be spin-off of Air Bud. This means that anything that comes from this would be a spin-off of a spin-off, which is exactly what happened when Disney and Robert Vince made The Search for Santa Paws in 2010. In case you were wondering, it went straight to DVD.

Famous Faces: Tom Bosley (Happy Days) and Richard Kind (A Serious Man) turn up for dog voices. Christopher Lloyd, Doc Brown from Back to the Future, plays the evil dogcatcher. Norm from Cheers (George Wendt) also appears in what might be the worst version of Santa Claus ever committed to film.

Horrible Dog Pun: To reindeer: "That's reindogs to you."

Low Points: The offensive Jamaican dog that lives in a tin shack and has dreadlocks. Also, this B-Dawg quote during a dance move: "I call this the four-paw pop, the boogaloo jaw drop, to the tail rotation for the B-dawg nation."

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Spooky Buddies (2011)

Plot: An evil warlock casts a spell on the Buddies and their owners and they only have until Halloween night to fix everything before a kind-looking hound escapes from hell to control the world. Considering how often parents accuse the Harry Potter franchise of practicing witchcraft and pagan idolatry, this film should be pre-packaged for angry parents and Disney picketing. Sadly, it didn't happen.

Famous Faces: Comedian Harland Williams (Half Baked) plays the quasi-Satanist warlock villain.

Horrible Dog Pun: "You dogs be crazy, dawg."

Low Point: Harland Williams riding a magician's staff like a surfboard. It's just so, so bad. 

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Treasure Buddies (2012)

Plot: The Buddies head to Egypt to solve the mystery of Cleocatra. They run into thieving monkeys, spitting camels and a hairless cat that shakes like a leaf in half the shots it's in.

Famous Faces: Edward Herrmann, the head vampire from The Lost Boys, appears as a smarmy archaeologist, and Richard Riehle (Office Space) plays his foil the good archaeologist. My favorite Riehle role was as Nicky Santoro's financial planner from Martin Scorsese' Casino. Ah, what the hell, here's Nicky's whole monologue to Riehle, just because: "I think in all fairness, I should explain to you exactly what it is that I do. For instance, tomorrow morning I'll get up nice and early, take a walk down over to the bank and walk in and if you don't have my money for me I'll crack your fuckin' head wide-open in front of everybody in the bank. And just about the time that I'm comin' out of jail, hopefully you'll be coming out of your coma. And guess what? I'll split your fuckin' head open again. 'Cause I'm fuckin' stupid. I don't give a fuck about jail. That's my business. That's what I do." 

Horrible Dog Pun: "That wind has sick paw-eye coordination."

Low Points: The many racist Arab stereotypes. These quotes: "We must be in Egypt because it's raining falafel sauce," and "Someone stop that kebobber robber."