I saw Sun Dogs tonight, a documentary about the Jamaican dog sled team (think Cool Runnings with fleas). It was okay, but somewhat disjointed, with this strange disconnect between its fluffy narrative of cuddly underdog-dogs and its weightier themes involving poverty and a lack of opportunity in Jamaica. After the screening, there was a Q&A in which director Andrea Stewart and team founder Danny Melville described how they poured their hearts into this project.
So when it’s over, the crowd is slowly making its way down the stairs, and I’m waiting to leave the theater rather impatiently. Before the screening, I spent 25 minutes scavenging the parking lot for available spaces (I can now draw the parking garage from memory), and it left me no time to answer nature’s call. Now, 90 minutes later, it’s getting urgent.
I’m estimating the number of steps to the restroom when I finally round the corner at the bottom of the stairs, and the film’s publicist, Deborah Schonfeld, grabs me.
“What did you think?” she asks.
Stewart and Melville are standing directly behind her, well within earshot, and Stewart even makes brief eye contact with me. Oh, boy. Now, I could give my honest, lukewarm reaction, including both pros and cons, in the vain hope that a thoughtful, detailed analysis might spare everyone’s feelings and, ultimately, excuse me for wetting my pants. Or …
“I … enjoyed it,” I say.
“Great!” Schonfeld says. “I look forward to reading your review!”
I feel dirty. But before I have too long to contemplate my chosen course of action, I hear a voice say, “Would you like a Diet Coke?”
Suddenly, a bottle of Diet Coke Plus is thrust in front of me.
“Uh … sure,” I say. Then, POW! There’s a blinding flash. Moments later, when my eyes focus, I see that a photographer standing in front of a large Diet Coke banner has just snapped a shot of me accepting the beverage.
So now I proudly—though inadvertently—support both Sun Dogs and Diet Coke. It’s not so bad, I suppose. I did enjoy parts of Sun Dogs. And if I were stranded in the desert without Mountain Dew, Sprite or even water, I’d probably enjoy Diet Coke. And it could’ve been worse. I could’ve been questioned by Britney Spears’ publicist, in front of her, leaving her concert, before being handed a partial-birth abortion fetus and having my picture taken with it (for the record, I endorse neither Britney Spears nor partial-birth abortions).
So, after putting it in perspective, I am as happy to endorse Sun Dogs and Diet Coke as I am to have finally reached the restroom. –Matthew Scott Hunter