- Dogtown (film)
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Dogtown 
DVD coverDirected by George Hickenlooper Produced by Michael Beugg Written by George Hickenlooper Starring Mary Stuart Masterson
Jon Favreau
Rory Cochrane
Harold Russell
Natasha Gregson WagnerMusic by Steve Stevens Cinematography Kramer Morgenthau Editing by Valerie Remy-Milora Distributed by Vanguard Films Release date(s) 1997 Running time 99 minutes Country United States Language English Dogtown is a 1997 drama film by George Hickenlooper about life in the small Missouri town of Cuba, Missouri starring Mary Stuart Masterson, Jon Favreau, Rory Cochrane, Harold Russell, and Natasha Gregson Wagner. The film is 93-minute long and was shot entirely in Torrance, California. None of the southern California mountains are visible in the film, making the fictional Cuba visually like flat, Midwest terrain.
Plot
Phillip (Trevor Saint John), left after high school to make his fortune. He returns to his Midwest hometown of Cuba. He has a reputation of having "made it" in the southern California movie industry. Karen Black plays Phillip's mom. Natasha Gregson Wagner plays Phillip's special needs sister, Sarah Ruth. The film opens as two locals with highway vests marked "Animal Control" pick up a dog carcass on the main road. Phillip arrives in the back of a taxi. The town's theater has been boarded up for ten years. The Foster's Freeze is still open for business. Everyone including a local police officer seems to remember Phillip.
Dorothy (Mary Stuart Masterson) was a high school cheerleader and the object of Phillip's romantic desire. She engaged in a suicide gesture at one point before the film's script begins. As the film starts, Dorothy is in an on-and-off romance with Curtis Lasky, (Rory Cochrane). Lasky, and another former high school bully, run a tow car service and fantasize about opening an appliance dealership. Dorothy and two other high school friends operate a hair salon. Blessed William (Harold Russell) runs a cigar store in the town of Cuba.
Everybody in this small town knows about everyone else's personal life. Small town stereotypes are propagated: there is incest, people recite scripture from memory, have drawls, chew tobacco, brawl often, and are alcoholic.
Characters
The film's main character, Phillip, may have been inspired partly on George Hickenlooper himself. Both are from Missouri, left for Hollywood, established themselves in the film industry and have worked with Jeff Bridges and Molly Ringwald (Hickenlooper worked with Bridges on the 1992 documentary Picture This! and with Ringwald in the 1993 short Some Folks Call it a Sling Blade).
External links
- Dogtown at the Internet Movie Database
Films directed by George Hickenlooper 1980s Art, Acting, and the Suicide Chair: Dennis Hopper (1988)1990s Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991) • Picture This: The Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer City, Texas (1991) • Ghost Brigade (aka The Killing Box) (1993) • Some Folks Call it a Sling Blade (1994) • The Low Life (1995) • Persons Unknown (1996) • Dogtown (1997) • The Big Brass Ring (1997) • Monte Hellman: American Auteur (1997) • The Big Brass Ring (1999)2000s The Man from Elysian Fields (2001) • Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2003) • Bizarre Love Triangle (2005) • Factory Girl (2006) • Speechless (2008) • Out in the City (2009) 'Hick' Town (2009) * Casino Jack (2010)Categories:- 1997 films
- American films
- English-language films
- 1990s drama films
- Films directed by George Hickenlooper
- 1990s drama film stubs
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