1) "Let the Right One In": Sole witness to a desanguination: This creature of the night (at right, a standard poodle?) appears out of the darkness of the barren woods, like a corporeal outgrowth of the snow and the white-barked birches themselves. The dog sits, watches, and will not leave, forcing a vampire's procurer to flee in panic and frustration. One of my favorite movie-moments of the year, and one that made me laugh (aghast) the hardest, though nobody else in the nearly full theater joined me. Was it because the movie is Swedish that the crowd didn't seem to know/think it was funny? We won't even talk about the stuff with the cats...
2) "A Christmas Tale": The old house wolf appears, in doorway/reflection, to troubled young son/grandson/nephew/cousin Paull (Emile Berling)... and no one else.
3) "In Bruges": Ray (Colin Farrell) tries with childlike eagerness to catch the attention of Jimmy (Jordan Prentice), a "midget" he thought he had befriended, but makes eye contact with this face instead.
4) "Wendy and Lucy": Lucy (director Kelly Reichart's dog) is a fine character actor, even when her name is in the title. She runs out of the frame in her first shot to retrieve a stick thrown by Wendy (Michelle Williams), and you know right away why their names are paired. She will be felt as keenly whether she is on the screen or absent from it.
5) "Gran Torino": Daisy the yellow lab watches Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) smoke in the tub. "Let a man enjoy himself... will ya, girl?"
SPECIAL MENTION - "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button": An elderly lady and her dog show up at an old folks' home where dogs aren't allowed. But she won't cause any trouble and she won't be around for much longer anyway...
I think Red from "Red" deserves a shout-out, God rest his soul.
What about Bolt? And Beverly Hills Chihuahua!
Oh man...when I saw "dogs" in the headline, I thought this would be about the worst movies of the year.
Instead, I get a blog about...dogs.
*sigh*
Seeing as it's the year of the rat, maybe there should be a rats of the year post...
Off the top of my head, there are rats in "Synecdoche, New York" and that rat-masked bystander in "In Bruges"... And thinking less literally... Sean Penn was born in the year of the rat and bats are technically rats with wings.
But, then again, I know people do not want to look at rats nor do people especially believe in the chinese zodiac.
Jim:
What about the German Shepherd from "I Am Legend"? Otherwise an utterly mediocre film, it was the dog who *spoilers* gives her life and upstages Will Smith and the ego he rode in on.
The dog makes it barely passable, and if you're like me you can't help but wince for the poor thing when they play the offscreen yelp card.
I hope she got paid more than scale, or least got to sleep in Will Smith's million dollar trailer for a night.
I also loved the gorgeous Briard in "Tell No One", which also played an important role in one particular plot point. Of course, the movie is so convoluted (wonderfully) that I don't think I remember specifically what it was -- providing an alibi, I believe...
Me and my dogs are the dogs of the year.