Great dog movies

Here's a small selection of dog movies that are popular with our readers.

Great Dane Movie - Marmaduke

Good news for all Great Danes fans and other dog lovers. The popular Great Dane Marmaduke, which became famous after the Brad Anderson’s comic strip, is now the main character in a new live-action movie. In this upcoming Great Dane movie all dogs present incredible tricks, and Marmaduke even learns to surf.

The Great Dane movie “Marmaduke” tells a simple and yet nice coming-of-age story in a dog’s world. A suburban Winslows family moves from Kansas to a new Orange County neighborhood with their enormous but lovable Great Dane, who has a tendency to wreak mayhem in his own unmindful way. For Marmaduke the move means a whole new way of life.

“We’ve approached the movie like a John Hughes movie with dogs,” film director Tom Dey told USA today. “The dog park is like high school for dogs. To make this kind of movie, you really have to understand that it is the dog’s world and we just live in it.” The script “sees Marmaduke navigate volatile Mutts vs. Pedigrees turf war, woo the purebred of his dreams and overcome a fall from grace.”

The mischievous dog Marmaduke has been around since as far back as 1954 but has never appeared in a Great Dane movie before. “Marmaduke is a teenager, and he’s trying to find his way in the world,” continues Dey. “It’s a boy-meets-girl story, a coming-of-age and cautionary tale. My job as the director is to try to place the audience inside this world”.

For fans of John Hughes movies, all the chances are to love “Marmaduke” as well.

“Marmaduke” hit theaters on June 4^th 2010. You can now take your kids to this anticipated Great Dane movie.

Directed by: Tom Dey

Starring: Owen Wilson (Marmaduke’s voice), Emma Stone, Ron Perlman, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Judy Greer, Anjelah Johnson, Lee Pace

Get Marmaduke from Amazon (#ad)!

Hachiko: A True Story of Faith, Devotion and Undying Love

From Academy Award-nominated director Lasse Hallström (2000, The Cider House Rules) comes Hachi: a Dog's Tale, a film based on one of the most treasured and heartwarming true stories ever told. Golden Globe winner Richard Gere (2002, Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, Chicago) stars as Professor Parker Wilson, a distinguished scholar who discovers a lost Akita puppy on his way home from work.

Despite initial objections from Wilson’s wife, Cate (Academy Award nominee Joan Allen – 2000, Best Actress, The Contender), Hachiko endears himself into the Wilson family and grows to be Parker's loyal companion. As their bond grows deeper, a beautiful relationship unfolds embodying the true spirit of family and loyalty, while inspiring the hearts of an entire town.

This heartwarming true story is an American adaptation of a Japanese tale about a loyal dog named Hachiko. This very special friend would accompany his master to the train station every day and return each afternoon to greet him after work. Sadly his master departs one day, passes away and never returns to the station.

Hachiko faithfully returns to the same spot at the station the very next day, and every day for the next nine years to wait for his beloved master. During his daily visits, Hachiko touches the lives of many who work near and commute through the town square. He teaches the local people love, compassion and above all unyielding loyalty. Today, a bronze statue of Hachiko sits in his waiting spot outside the Shibuya station in Japan as a permanent reminder of his devotion and love. (Photo Credit: kerim/Flickr)

You can get Hachi: A Dog's Tale now from Amazon (#ad).

Directed by: Lasse Hallström

Starring: Richard Gere, Joan Allen, Sarah Roemer

Hotel for Dogs: No Stray Gets Turned Away

Everyone deserves a loving family, but foster kids Andi (Emma Roberts) and Bruce (Jake T. Austin) have been placed with a flaky couple who care more for their aspiring rock careers than their foster children. Even though Andi and Bruce's mischievous tendencies repeatedly get them into trouble, the siblings are essentially good kids who care deeply for one another and their secretly adopted dog Friday.

After a close call with the local pound, the kids end up searching for Friday in an abandoned old hotel where they find several stray dogs seeking shelter. The kids' compassion for the homeless dogs compels them to begin caring for the strays and they soon join forces with three other local kids to take in strays from across the city. Bruce is a clever inventor whose innovative gadgets ensure top-notch care and constant entertainment for all the dogs (as well as a multitude of laughs from the audience). Unfortunately, Bruce's and Andi's devotion to the dogs eventually causes them to pass up what may be their last chance for a better foster home. When the police storm the hotel and take all the dogs to the pound, the kids make a daring attempt to rescue the dogs that will likely land them in separate group homes.

Can social worker Bernie (Don Cheadle) somehow convince the authorities, and perhaps a loving family, that the children were just doing what was right? Hotel for Dogs is a funny family film based on Lois Duncan’s book of the same name and is appropriate for most ages 5 and older in spite of its PG rating for mild thematic elements, language, and some crude humor. (Tami Horiuchi)

You can get Hotel for Dogs now from Amazon (#ad).

Directed by: Thor Freudenthal

Starring: Emma Roberts, Jake T. Austin, Lisa Kudrow, Don Cheadle, Johnny Simmons

Marley & Me: Heel the Love

When a dog wriggles his adorable rear end into a human's life, the human will never be the same. And both Marley, the dog, and Marley & Me, the movie, manage to endear themselves deeply despite a few wee flaws.

Readers of the John Grogan's bestseller already know the raffish charm of the incorrigible yellow lab puppy, Marley, adopted by Grogan and his wife because she's "never seen anything more adorable in my life." But Grogan's simple tale of love, in all its forms, shines on the big screen, thanks to deft comic turns by Jennifer Aniston--in top form here--and Owen Wilson. Their chemistry is utterly natural and believable as Marley's owners, as is their interaction with the very naughty but ultimately irresistible Marley.

As Marley grows up, the film follows his escapades--flunking out, spectacularly, from puppy training at the hands of a wickedly funny Kathleen Turner. And as Marley grows up, John and Jenny build their life together and weather some tough emotional blows. Like My Dog Skip, which it resembles in its affection for its subject, Marley & Me is a tear-jerker, but in the sweetest, most lovely way--because it, and its four-legged star have wriggled into our hearts. Good boy. (A.T. Hurley)

You can get Marley & Me now from Amazon (#ad).

Directed by: David Frankel

Starring: Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Eric Dane, Kathleen Turner

White Dog, the Movie

Samuel Fuller's throat-grabbing exposé on American racism was misunderstood and withheld from release when it was made in the early eighties; today, the notorious film is lauded for its daring metaphor and gripping pulp filmmaking. Kristy McNichol stars as a young actress who adopts a lost German Shepherd, only to discover through a series of horrifying incidents that the dog has been trained to attack black people, and Paul Winfield plays the animal trainer who tries to cure him. A snarling, uncompromising vision, White Dog is a tragic portrait of the evil done by that most corruptible of animals: the human being.

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES: New, restored high-definition digital transfer of the uncut version, approved by producer Jon Davison New video interviews with producer Davison, co-writer Curtis Hanson, and Sam Fuller s widow, Christa Lang-Fuller An interview with dog trainer Karl Lewis-Miller Rare photos from the film s production

PLUS: A booklet featuring new essays by critics J. Hoberman and Armond White, plus a rare 1982 interview in which Fuller interviews the canine star of the film.

Actors: Paul Winfield, Kristy McNichol, Burl Ives

Directed by: Samuel Fuller

You can get White Dog now from Amazon (#ad).