| | | No Stray Gets Turned Away.
Features: DVD, Widescreen, English
Hotel for Dogs is a funny, heartwarming and inspiring animal adventure that shows how far love and imagination can take you. When 16-year old Andi (Emma Roberts) and her younger brother, Bruce (Jake T. Austin), find themselves in a foster home with a strict "no pets" policy, they must use their quick wit to find a new home for their dog, Friday. When they stumble into an abandoned hotel, they realize they can transform it into the perfect place for Friday -- as well as all the strays in the city. What began as a crusade to save one dog becomes a high stakes adventure as everyone around them starts to wonder -- who let the dogs in?
"A bright, funny family movie that gets everything right, from story to production design to cast (both human and canine)." Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader
"A lively, funny, imaginative film that should appeal to kids and their pet-loving parents." Connie Ogle, Miami Herald
"Kids will be as enthralled by this film as you were by the live-action Disney movies of the '70s." Kyle Smith, New York Post
"Bark out loud funny." Mark S. Allen, CBS
"...its combination of mild comedy, slapstick, pathos, many photogenic canines and a positive message will make it irresistible to families." Walter Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle
Editor's Note
Thor Freudenthal makes his feature-film directorial debut with this adaptation of Lois Duncan?s children?s book HOTEL FOR DOGS. Sixteen-year old Andi (Emma Roberts) and her younger brother, Bruce (Jake T. Austin), are orphans living with their foster parents (Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon), two washed-up musicians. Desperate to keep what?s left of their family together, Andi and Bruce have secretly been caring for their family dog, Friday, on the sly for the last few years. When they follow their beloved pet into an abandoned hotel and find stray dogs living there, Andi and Bruce decide to round up all the strays in the city and expand their family. With the help of Dave (Johnny Simmons) and Heather (Kyla Pratt), two teens who work at the local pet store, they transform the abandoned hotel into a canine wonderland, using young Bruce?s skills as an inventor to make an automated feeding system, doggie restrooms, and some fun amusements, such as a car-ride simulation and a fetching machine. But if Animal Control has their way, all the residents of the hotel will be taken to the pound, and it?s up to Andi and Bruce to save their new family.This heartwarming tale reinforces the importance of family and the idea that families can come in many shapes and sizes. Although the idea itself is pretty improbable, it?s still loads of fun to see the gadgets and gizmos that Bruce creates to keep the dogs fed, in shape, and content. Roberts and Austin are believable as brother and sister, and Kudrow and Dillon are amusing as washed-up '80s rockers. Don Cheadle also appears as the compassionate social worker assigned to Andi and Bruce?s case.
| Features | Audio Commentary By Thor Freudenthal, Ewan "Jack" Leslie, Emma Roberts, & Jake T. Austin | | Audio: English, French, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Deleted Scenes | | Dubbed: French, Spanish | | Featurette: A Home For Everyone - The Making Of Hotel For Dogs, That's The Coolest Thing I've Ever Seen!, K-9 Casting, Bark On Cue!, & The Pedigree Adoption Drive | | Interactive Menus | | Photo Galleries | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | Hotel for Dogs - DVD Review By: Keith Breese - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 4/17/2009 5:36 PM | |
Recently, film critic Roger Ebert has been bemoaning the fact that even bad movies look good. If he were putting together a list of such flicks, Hotel for Dogs would surely make the top five. It looks great. And it's bad. Really bad. Hotel for Dogs clearly wants to rank alongside films such as Anna to the Infinite Power, The Goonies, E.T., and Radio Flyer, films that balanced lighthearted playfulness with a darker, grittier reality. Like the recent Spiderwick Chronicles, Hotel for Dogs plays all the same Spielberg/Donner riffs (a cast of doe-eyed youngsters wise beyond their years dressed in corduroy and plaid, moments of adult menace cut with "oh, thank goodness" relief) and even apes the look of these early '80s flicks....read the full review |
| Hotel for Dogs - DVD Review By: Jarad I. Wilk - Cinema Blend DVD Reviews Published on: 5/12/2009 2:56 PM | | Looking at Hotel for Dogs as an adult is impossible. If there is one adult that says, "I want to see Hotel for Dogs because it looks cute," they either want to become, or already are, a veterinarian, have a family, or is in possession of some of the strongest hallucinogenics known to man. Yes, there is a certain sweetness to the story behind the movie and, of course, the obvious "cute" factor the dogs bring to the film, but the true heart of the film gets lost under all the fur, dog crap, and Kibbles and Bits. ...read the full review |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Paramount |
| Release Date: 8/25/2009 |
| Running Time: 100 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2009 | | Catalog ID: 349484 | | UPC: 00097363494843 | | Number of Discs: 0 |
Audio & Video
| | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen |
| Cast & Crew
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| | Professional Reviews | USA Today
"[HOTEL FOR DOGS] features a cast of so many endearing dogs that there's a purebred or adorable mutt of everyone's tastes." 01/16/2009Los Angeles Times
"Think of HOTEL FOR DOGS as a sort of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE with canines....What it is packed with is lots of sneaking around, very cool gadgets, excellent stunts and some clever kids..." 01/16/2009 Variety
"HOTEL FOR DOGS is a fantasy and looks like one....Ultimately warm and furry..." 01/16/2009 Box Office
"Based on Lois Duncan's wonderful children's book, the film mixes laughs, heart and action while also throwing in a nice message about the importance of a family unit." 01/14/2009 Washington Post
"This comedy, starring perfectly pleasant up-and-comer Emma Roberts is about kids, not parents....The movie could do something really positive for the cause of homeless pets..." 01/16/2009 Hollywood Reporter
"The dogs in HOTEL FOR DOGS perform breathtaking stunts, touching love scenes, heart-breaking soliloquies with their eyes and clever, clever tricks." 01/11/2009 DVD Talk 5 of 10
Struggling to remain together while bouncing around foster homes, siblings Andi (Emma Roberts) and Bruce (Jake T. Austin) are forced to commit petty crimes to make sure their clandestine pet dog Friday is properly taken care of..."Hotel for Dogs" is strictly mild sauce for family audiences looking to ooh and ahh over highly trained canine actors, sent directly through a cinematic obstacle course of pranks and bodily functions. Though billed a comedy, there's nothing explicitly funny about the picture, which resembles a mid-70s Disney throwaway production, intended only to babysit, not thrill...For the less demanding, I could see "Hotel for Dogs" filling a small void in the now red-hot cute dog genre, as this picture is overflowing with all canines great and small. Director Thor Freudenthal deserves a medal for simply surviving the shoot, as he orchestrates the emotions of a plethora of professional pooches, who often swarm the frame. Thankfully, the seams rarely show, though the director doesn't find enough visual oddity to backdrop the hotel residents once the kids get the place up and running...Of course, finding fault with a film that encourages proper dog caretaking seems cruel, but the screenplay for "Hotel for Dogs" is such a flavorless, unfunny piece of writing that doesn't aspire to be anything but obvious, which begins to fatigue the picture after the first five minutes. Sluggish stabs at tween romance, wicked dog catchers, and neglectful foster parents end up a bore, leaving the animals with the burden to keep the film passably engrossing, if you can get past the picture's unnerving urine and poop fixation, the dogs carry the film appropriately, perhaps even outacting their human costars. Especially Cheadle, who should really have a long conversation with his agent about his future in worthwhile film roles. - Brian Orndorf
Chicago Sun-Times 7 of 10
"Hotel for Dogs" is a sweet, innocent family movie about stray dogs that seem as well-trained as Olympic champions. Friday, the Jack Russell terrier who's the leader of the pack, does more acting than most of the humans, and doesn't even get billing. I know, because I searched for one, hoping to mention him by name and call him a good doggie...What can Friday do? Let himself up and down from a fire escape landing, using a pulley-and-counterweight system. Find his masters anywhere in the city. Steal hot dogs and possibly a whole gyros wheel. Get out of his collar and back in again. Out-race dogs five times his size in a sprint down city streets. And join dozens of other dogs in mastering these abilities: Feeding himself. Using a doggie fire hydrant. Sitting on a toilet. Running on a treadmill. Activating a bone-throwing mechanism. I'm only scratching the surface...Friday belongs to Andi (Emma Roberts) and Bruce (Jake T. Austin), a brother and sister in foster care. He is kept a secret from their foster parents, two obnoxious would-be rock musicians (Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon). The kids saved him from the streets, and he has been their secret pal through three years and five foster homes. One day, he leads them into an abandoned downtown hotel occupied by two dogs he makes friends with, and soon the kids find themselves running an unofficial animal shelter...Don Cheadle plays the dedicated social worker in charge of the kids, who bails them out when they get in trouble with cops and meanie attendants at the animal pound. He even has a big speech on the dog hotel steps, during which I did my best not to think of "Hotel Rwanda." What I thought instead was, Marley has a lot he could learn from these dogs. - Roger Ebert
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