Less than a year ago, Jamie Lee Curtis claimed that she was done with acting, and after watching only bits of Christmas With The Kranks, I’m pretty certain that acting feels the same way about her. Zero sum game then, all good.
But today she’s making a move. Not even a vaguely entertaining one like showing up to peck at the craft service during Rob Zombie’s Halloween reshoots. No, she’s making a dog movie. If judged on the ‘crazy old lady scale’, being the crazy dog lady is two steps up from the bottom (cat lady is second, bird lady has the lowest rank) but it’s pretty goddamn far from the top. Making a dog movie: not any better.
In South of the Border The Lady Haden-Guest will be one of two humans (Piper Perabo chirpily being the other) in a cast filled with dogs. There will be some good actors voicing the dogs — Andy Garcia, Salma Hayek, Edward James Olmos, Cheech Marin…yeah, you read that list of names and then double-checked that the film is called South of the Border. I saw your eyes flick back and forth.
Curtis is Aunt Viv, a Beverly Hills lady whose spoiled Chihuahua Drew Barrymore (she’s the voice actor, but I’m also hoping it’s the dog’s name) is lost in Mexico and has to get home. Disney, in a flashback to ninteen seventy freaking six is making the film. Scooby Doo genius Raja Gosnell directs. Welcome back, Jamie Lee. We missed you.