Marley and Me and me

I don't understand the movie distributors here. Milk opened today but Marley and Me still isn't here yet. I seriously doubt if the average Singaporean knows who Harvey Milk is. Maybe a gay rights activist would, but that's still doubtful, there's no local context.

But who doesn't love a dog movie? Actually, to be honest, I'm almost scared of watching Marley and Me, as I confessed to a colleague yesterday. She fully understood. You know, just in case we make a mess of ourselves with Old Yeller-like endings.

I should add that this colleague wept when the sabre-toothed tiger died in Ice Age and I wept when the Jack Rusell in Babe 2 momentarily died and found himself leaping at butterflies in Heaven.

Marley and Me the book had already reduced me to tears, and that was even before the first chapter, the preface had already left me a basket case.

I went back to my archives to see what I wrote about it two years ago, and I can't believe that I actually blogged then that I bought the hardback because I didn't think a dog book would be popular enough here to make it to a paperback. (And that picture of the shelf of Prachett from that hardback post, well, that shelf is double-parked now.) And now, it's a movie. And not only did we have the paperback, we also had it in a promotional form where it came with a free leash -- a thin, nylon one that Marley would had for breakfast.

I also can't believe that I wrote I was ready to read Marley and Me because I had a prospective puppy coming. Maybe I should bring the not-quite-a-puppy anymore along with me to watch the movie version. Just so I have something to snuggle into, in case, god forbid, I should cry in public at a movie that's supposed to be generally feel good.

For what it's worth, the movie My Dog Skip never made it to the cinemas here. I bought the DVD but having got it, put it away in a drawer for almost six months before I could bring myself to watch it. Because I knew how the book ended.

I guess there's no way Marley and Me will bypass the local cinemas, not when there's Jennifer Anniston and Owen Wilson in it.