In my opinion you can’t beat dogs in movies. They’re always funny and they rarely overact. Tackling some dog action in the upcoming satire ‘Year of the Dog’ is Mike White; a great writer of acerbic one-liners as seen in ‘Chuck and Buck’, ‘The Good Girl’ and ‘School of Rock’. Here he directs his first film, a blackly comic tale of a suburban woman who loses it when she is spurned in love and her beloved dog dies. Once this beagle, named ‘Pencil’ passes she turns into a vengeful soldier funding animal rights groups and targeting her neighbour who she suspects poisoned the ex-pooch.

White has a real way with words and with dark comedy to boot. This film’s concept sounds like an ideal one for him to play around with some funny scenes and off the wall behaviour. To help him out he has a great cast including Molly Shannon (SNL) the awesome John C Reilly, Laura Dern and the ever reliable Peter Skaarsgard. This looks like a lot of fun and will likely be another addition to the quirky indie comedy genre that includes titles like Rushmore and Office Space. It’s unlikely to be a hit until it reaches DVD but it’s already had some decent reviews (although they do mention it is a little bit like a series of sketches).

Check out some Talking Dogs on youtube