Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dogs

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Vox Valentine: May 31, 2013; Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Turner & Hooch. Ed. Bedtime for Bonzo. There have been a lot of movies with the central premise of "a human buddies up with an animal and hijinks ensue", but does it have much staying power? Not really. For every successful film in that vein, there are a dozen cheap bad films that follow. It's something that crops up every few years in a good film, is mimicked a few times and then forgotten for a brief resurgence. Or these movies just fly under the radar. You don't see any major movie companies clamoring for the "straight man and wild animal" cinematic universe.

But what if you personally could change that, give the genre some recognition?

I want you to pick a film you enjoy or a film that you hate. Hell, pick a movie you totally forgot about or think is just resoundingly mediocre. The movie now has an animal sidekick as a protagonist whose actions actually contribute to the plot. Share with everyone how the movie changes and if you think it would be successful or not.

I personally think Crash really could have used a subplot where a gorilla that knows sign language is the one who explains to Sandra Bullock that racism is bad and we also get a few scenes of the gorilla hanging out at the zoo. A lot of people see that movie as cheesy Oscar Bait, but I think it would have some actual artistic merit if a film with a monkey won an Oscar.