What up dog.

Good morning Consumers. This is please consume, the film newsletter that loves you more than Quentin Tarantino loves feet.

This is what we got for today 👇️

• We kick off pet week! And Tyler gives us a surprising pick.

• Barbie is still owning the box office.

• All the latest news and notes from this weekend.

Let’s get rolling…

Because of the upcoming release of Strays, the new cinematic opus from Lorde and Miller, starring Jamie Foxx, Will Ferrell, Will Forte, and Isla Fisher, it gave us the thought… What are the best cinematic pets?

Well, that’s what we are trying to figure out this week on Please Consume.

Dog (2022)

Written by Tyler Clark

To kick off Pets Week we thought we’d begin with a straight down-the-middle choice because believe us, this week is gonna get weird.

So let's start with the bread and butter of pet movies: dog movies.

And if we’re talking about dogs, we might as well talk about Dog.

The Modern Movie Star

Channing Tatum.

He’s one of our best working movie stars and one of the last of his generation of actors and he did it all without the help of Marvel or DC.

It speaks volumes that his movie star persona is built around Magic Mike and 21 Jump Street. That should genuinely tell you the power this man holds on screen.

He’s a part of this “modern man” movement amongst male movie stars like Brad Pitt, Robert Pattinson, and Ryan Gosling; guys who are conventionally attractive but also feel more emotionally vulnerable and want to work outside of just the oiled up macheesmo action stars of yesteryear like Sly Stallone or Arnie.

What makes him so unique is the fact that he does movies aimed towards a female audience but still retains a guys being dudes feel. In that vein, Tatum was ahead of the game with works like Step Up, Logan Lucky, and Magic Mike. He is a guy who can do The Vow and White House Down and no one will bat an eye.

Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself

So, with all that in mind it’s weird that as the modern movie star movement got its wheels turning, Tatum wasn’t a big part of it.

There is about a five year period where we weren’t seeing much of Tatum. He would do a few cameos for his buddies and had some voice performances from years prior but between Kingsman: The Golden Circle to Dog he’s pretty absent.

The reason is actually pretty simple. He had a failed Gambit project that he could never get off the ground but, more importantly, he was just a dad raising kids.

He took that time to spend with family, and god bless him for it.

So how does one reestablish themselves as a star with that big of a gap in between? Tatum made the strategic move to co-direct this movie with his producing partner Reid Carolin. It was a very calculated move where he asked himself: “what kind of movie star do I want to be moving forward?”

He picked his project accordingly, knowing that dog movies are cheap and profitable, and added some patriotism to play to fly over states for good measure and you’ve got yourself a hit.

Admittedly, it’s a cynical exercise on paper, but in practice Tatum made an incredibly charming film that has a lot to say about growth and healing and what it means to grow up… at any age.

Dog has a Dog

Seeing as how this is Pet Week we definitely don’t want to leave you without highlighting the character of Lulu, played by Lana, ZuZu, and Britta, all first time performers but excellent in their own way.

Bits aside though, the use of Lulu in the film is actually quite interesting. She isn’t just the inciting incident that kicks this film off, she is also a reflection of Tatum and where his character is externalized.

The anxiety that Lulu feels are the same anxieties Tatum feels. She is just as angry at the world as he is, the only difference is he has to keep it together and she doesn’t.

As Ethan Suplee’s character, Noah, puts it in today's clip “When he stopped struggling that’s when I realized maybe I could stop struggling too.”

Dog may feel corny as hell on the outside, but it is a whole hearted story that hits you right at the core.

Today’s Scene

This Weekend’s Top 5

2023’s Top 5