WIENER DOG

Quirky, weird, offbeat, fringe. The structure of the plot is basically stolen from that old Belgian film BAXTER ("beware a dog who thinks!"), about the life and times of an English Bull Terrier in the hands of his various owners, some of them indifferent, some of them downright cruel. This being an American film, we don't have to worry about a dog who thinks, as the dog is as dumb as a fencepost, but, at the same time, it is the nicest, most innocent, and only decent character in the entire story. This time we get a procession of different people, each in a different state of misery, who somehow wind up owning the poor dog. WARNING: this film---and it isn't the first in the past year to do this---depicts real grisly violence to the dog. All in the name of nihilistic fun, of course. (Consider who the director is.)

SCORE: 54.