THE QUEST FOR THE MOST ’90s FILM OF ALL TIME
The Truth about Cats and Dogs

STARS/PERFORMANCES-
- Actors Who Are Unquestionably Tied to the Decade- Janeane Garofalo [+10]
If you’ve ever listened to in-depth interviews of stand-up comedians, you know that they all romanticize the ’90s, a period when TV’s big money and exposure were being handed out at the LAX airport. The comedians all use that exact phrasing too: “sitcoms being handed out at the airport.”

One of those fortunate airport-lounging comedians was Janeane Garofalo, who, in ‘96, was riding high as the disaffected voice of Generation X’s alternative comedy scene, though no one called it that yet. One day a studio executive heard her name and tapped her for a cookie-cutter romantic comedy without ever bothering to see what she looked like or what her stand-up style was. When he did see one of her specials, he probably said, “She doesn’t really tell jokes.” (Which, even if you’re her biggest fan, [Because you hate good stand-up comedy?] you would probably admit.) Then he demanded for someone to “gussy her up for that Cyrano reimagining we’ve got stewin’,” since that’s how studio executives talk. The Truth about Cats and Dogs is the Blues Traveler-featuring abortion* that came out of that pregnant thought [+2].

I should point out here that I like Garofalo’s early work. It’s mandatory for a person like me to worship The Ben Stiller Show and The Larry Sanders Show. What I don’t like is that, from Truth about Cats and Dogs on, Garofalo has gladly taken money from Hollywood to act in movies that she is too condescending to even see. She hates the superficial trappings of celebrity but not enough to stop pursuing them. You can’t accept money to be in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle ironically.


With all that being said, Garofalo’s batting average is still better than Uma Thurman’s if you don’t count Tarantino movies.

- Other Notable Actors/Characters- [+5] Uma Thurman, Ben Chaplin, Stanley DeSantis, JAMIE FOXX
Garofalo plays Abby, a veterinarian who hosts a radio show that solves callers’ problems with their pets [+3]. This concept seems far-fetched if you’ve never listened to Car Talk. On the air—in a booth surrounded by racks on racks on racks of unlabeled tapes [+2], like in every movie radio station—she’s bubbly and resourceful; but when she gets home, she eats ice cream in her pajamas while listening to Sting [+2].

Her neighbor, Uma Thurman, is a model who literally stops traffic [+2]. At first, she and Abby don’t get along because she’s a girly-girl who does quizzes in magazines [+1] and Abby wears black stockings and Doc Martens with skirts [+2]. A stammering Brit [+1] calls into the radio show because he put a dog on roller skates* to shoot zany photographs, and now he has to deal with the reality of a dog on roller skates. Abby helps him, and he asks her out. For whatever reason, she’s anxious and describes herself as Uma.

Thus begins an exhausting charade in which Garofalo shows up to her own dates as Uma’s third wheel. Uma has to “um…well…you see…” all of the guy’s animal questions and comes off as dumb, while Garofalo appeals to his sarcastic side. After an under-the-boardwalk date [+3], it seems as if Abby has the limey locked up. They even have phone sex [+3], since that’s a real thing that people did in the ’90s.  If only she could get over the fact that she’s so hideous and unlovable. If only she could admit this pointless secret that she is who she actually is. At any point, if she really wanted this guy to herself, she could just tell him, “So, uh, funny story…” It’s maddening. The entire conceit of the movie is that ‘96 Janeane Garofalo is unquestionably less attractive than Uma Thurman, but I actually think she’s prettier. I don’t like willowy types.

The stammering Brit does. He’s falling in love with Uma’s bod, which Innocuous Black Best Friend [+3] Jamie Foxx describes as “all that and a bag of chips” [+2]. Stammering Brit drives her around in his Jeep [+2] and takes photographs of her, which is what you do with a dumb pretty girl I guess. This isn’t the most feminist story around, but it gets hairy when Uma talks nonchalantly about how she doesn’t eat and smokes to stay skinny. Hilarious, right?


“If it’s cool with you, I’m going to win an Oscar in eight years. Just after starring in Booty Call, which will be criminally underrated. Oh, sorry to disturb you. I didn’t know you were concentrating on that dog wearing skates.”

 This dude indulges these third wheel dates, presumably in hopes of a three-way, and the girls bicker a bit with each other over which one he likes more. While they are technically in competition with each other, the film presents the stakes poorly. Instead of getting upset and making the relationships feel truly alive and volatile, they just scheme and plan drunk montages soundtracked by the Brand New Heavies [+5] in the designs that he’ll organically choose one of them. Rock-paper-scissors it, ladies. Save us all dogs dragging people on roller skates.

TECHNOLOGY/CULTURAL RELICS
- Could the Plot Reasonably Occur with Current Technology?
No way [+10]. This guy would have googled the radio host before ever even asking her out. I’ve googled approximately any female voice I’ve ever heard on the radio, and few of them look as attractive as they sound. I’m not saying that he would have been put off by Garofalo’s looks, but he would have been creeped out and confused when she started describing herself as a tall blonde. Also, “The Truth about Cats and Dogs” would be a podcast by now, for better or worse.

References/Artifacts
The best part of this movie is that the Stammering Brit is an old school photographer. He’s uninteresting, so he is handed this conflict of really liking his black-and-white compositions of sun shining through window sills, but being forced to shoot dogs on skates to “pay the bills” [+2]. When Garofalo likes one of his windowsill pictures, he physically sends it to her in the mail [+5]. Surprisingly, she doesn’t then suggest that he take pictures of black-and-white sunlight shining on dogs on skates, which is what I would have done.

Answering machines, payphones, and landlines play huge roles in the ridiculous farce, and we even get an “Abby, please pick up” montage [+5].

- Hacking/Computers
None, and I can’t tell if Facebook would have made this love triangle more or less interesting.

- Other Technological Notes/References
There’s a VCR, and Uma says something about the Arizona Biosphere [+2].


“If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it!”- Blues Traveler

FASHION
I’m just going to list these, but it would help if you imagined Jamie Foxx singing the list:
Leather jackets, huge headbands, hoop earring on dude, Mary Janes, bowling shirts, vests, backwards snapbacks, Nike warmup suit, pleats, oversized suede jacket, zip-up shirt, tucked-in t-shirts [+12].

’90s FILM CONVENTIONS
Person Trying to Change a Radio Station So Desperately That the Knob Breaks Off [+1]
Cappuccino Being a Thing [+1]

Cute Dog [+3]
Fast Motion for Comedic Effect [+3]
“Do you know if you listen closely you can hear the moment when the sun passes over the hills?” [+3]

Scene in Which One Character Pretends an Absent Party Is in the Bathroom and Runs Back and Forth Delivering Messages as an Imaginary Messenger [+5]

OTHER
I watched a first-generation DVD of this, and I amused myself with the hyper-literal chapter titles. The final two chapters are “What Now?” and “Moment of Truth.”

Like most romantic comedies, the word “love” gets tossed around pretty wantonly here. Both women talk about the Stammering Brit as their soulmate, when he’s really just kind of cool for a guy who takes pictures of dogs on skates. Obviously, no one in this movie really knows anyone else enough to love them. While one film claimed that love was “never having to say you’re sorry,” I know that love is at least knowing the other person’s real name.

FINAL TALLY
Ladies and gentlemen, The Truth about Cats and Dogs has been awarded a 100 spot, which places it near the top of our standings.

*- Something tells me that Blues Traveler has been essential to a lot of real-life abortions. Like, instead of making the girl count backwards from ten for the anesthesia to take effect, the nurse just starts the first verse of “Hook.”
*- Sadly, they’re roller skates—quads, as they’re called in the skating community. I almost lied and told you they were Rollerblades. Then I thought: “Why lie? If there’s anything this ridiculous, made-up quest is about, it’s integrity.”