There are a lot of ways to rate movies – grades, stars, percentage recommended, tumescence level, number of exposed nipples – but for some people, there’s only one consideration that matters: is there a dog in the film, and does that cuddly snuggle machine live to see the final credits? That’s the question answered by the aptly-named website DoesTheDogDie, which has a three-tiered rating system.
It’s incredible that people will happily sit through all manner of rape, torture, murder, genocide, dismemberment, decapitation, defenestration, necrophilia, and coprophagia being done with humans (and that’s just the lunches with Bruckheimer! zing!), but if a furry puppy gets a thumb tack in his paw we get a panic attack. Incredible, and possibly terrible, but I’m 100 percent guilty. Dogs are just cuter than people. I greet every dog I pass on the street and ignore their owners. Put fur on something idiotic and it immediately becomes adorable, that’s just science.
Amazingly, DoesTheDogDie has already ranked 697 movies, by their count. Some of the worst offenders include ‘Cool Hand Luke,’ ‘A Clockwork Orange,’ ‘Children of Men,’ ‘The Godfather,’ ‘Jurassic Park,’ ‘Naked Gun,’ ‘No Country For Old Men,’ and ‘Patton.’ Pff, who wants to see those pieces of shit anyway? I sure don’t.
Thought I must say, some of their rankings seem a little dubious. Here’s the entry for ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’:
Ulysses the cat goes missing but safely returns home to his owners at the end. Another cat, who is mistaken for the missing Ulysses, is abandoned on the side of the road. Later a small animal is hit by a car and is seen limping away. It is only seen in silhouette so it is unclear whether it is the look-alike cat or even a cat at all.
“It’s unclear whether it’s even a cat at all” seems like a thin pretext for dinging it an entire rating level. Maybe add another category for injuries to ambiguous animals? The icon could be like a question mark with animal ears? I dunno, man, it’s your site, I don’t want to tell you how to do your jobs. I’m just spitballing here.
The banner image came from the ‘Marley & Me’ site, by the way. You DEFINITELY don’t want to read that entry.