Okay, so Eight Below is really not a great movie, but OMG SURVIVAL DOGGIES! The human subplots were lame and boring, but the dogs made me cry. I'm such a giant sap sometimes.

Jess thanks for that info! My 9 year old wants to see that movie in the worst way. Now I'm thinking we need to wait until it's out on DVD since he and I both are big 'ol saps when it comes to stuff like that. We'll be all sniffly and he gets all embarrassed when he cries in the theater.

How many movies can Paul Walker be in within the space of a year?

I'm thinking clones. Might explain his "acting" abilities.

Oh, and to make the movie TT-era-Buffistas-relevant, there was one scene that totally made me want to shout "dogs in elk!"

Jessica, I want to see Eight Below, but I first need to know if any of the dogs perish. Would you mind spilling the beans in whitefont? It won't stop me from seeing the movie, but it will at least allow me to be mentally prepared--animal death is one thing that can really undo me in a film.

Anne, 2 die, 6 survive.

Argh, read the whitefont, now will have to wait to Netflix Eight Below.

What the frell is it about animal death? I can sit through mayhem, spouting blood, the crack of breaking bones, any manner of FX torture upon the human frame, but put Lassie or Lulu the dancing hippo in danger, and I'm a puddle of unresisting meltdown. "Poor Fluffy! Awwww, kitty...."

What IS it? Over-identification with anthropomorphized characters? The notion that critters are inarticulate therefore helpless? The urge to protect Simba and all his well-endowed with fang and claw harem? Somebody 'splain it. 'Cause all I know is, I can watch Kate Beckinsale chow down on a person and never bat an eye. But let one of those penguins fall in a crevasse, and I'm done.

Symbolically, domesticated animals are like children -- dependent, cute, requiring our help. (That's not actually true for a lot of domesticated animals, especially e.g. working dogs, but that's how it tends to feel.)

The rules of actioner fiction are such that you'll almost never see a child die. (Or anyway, not a child that's had a close-up.) It's just too much of a downer, too horrifying to too much of the audience. So if you want your action to have any serious emotional impact (but not too serious), you've got to have adult redshirts, and for that leetle bit of extra impact, a pet.

There were a bunch of dumb action movies in the 90s that let the family pet live, in ridiculous or bathetic ways, so much so it became a joke. In The Lost World, when T. Rex goes hog-wild on San Diego, there's a joke-shot of her eating up a family bulldog, specifically lampooning that trend.

Well, in this film, the dogs are better actors than the rest of the cast combined. Plus, they have BIG DOGGIE EYES and make those sad puppy noises.