Title: Amores perros
Year: 2000 (Mexico), 2001 (US)
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Writer: Guillermo Arriaga
Starring: Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal, Goya Toledo, Álvaro Guerrero
Music: Gustavo Santaolalla
Distinctions: Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film; currently #163 on IMDb's Top 250
Length: 154 minutes
Synopsis: three different stories concerning love and dogs
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), March 2009
Subjective Rating: 4/10 (Eh).
Objective Rating: 4/10 (gets points for dialog, cinematography, special effects/design and acting) c. 2.2/4 (Okay).
More of a three part miniseries than a movie. Unlike most movies that do this multiple-stories-because-we-can't-be-bothered-to-make-one-story-good-enough-to-make-a-movie b.s., the stories actually are dependent on each other in crucial ways. But there is no unifying climax; they just each do their own thing, and that's it. Only one character in the whole movie is even remotely interesting. And it doesn't help that the supposed-to-be-very-serious turning point for that character is funny. The music is a mess. For the first hour there's no music. Then out of nowhere, it's loaded with bad Mexican pop music. For the last hour or two, it has what sounds like the score from Mighty Max.
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