By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 1, 2013)

Furever is a mildly engaging look at the peculiarly American obsession with memorializing pets once they have passed on. I say “mildly engaging” because this ground has been pretty well covered (no pun intended), most notably in Errol Morris’ classic 1978 documentary Gates of Heaven. Still, director Amy Finkel takes a fairly comprehensive approach, interviewing bereaved pet owners, psychologists and of course the people in the industry who make some pretty good coin off of other people’s grief (yeah, I know…I’m a cynical bastard). The film runs out of steam when you realize that it’s making the same point over and over, but inevitably piques morbid interest when it focuses on the extreme examples (like folks who have their dead “loved ones” stuffed).

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 25, 2013)

Here’s a concept: In the Utopian future, cities will be designed at the behest of urban dwellers, as opposed to urban “planners”. In case you hadn’t noticed, most cities cramp our style with tightly-packed high-rises and dense noisy traffic, which doesn’t leave much space for the traditional “town square”. In his documentary The Human Scale, Danish director Andreas M. Dalsgaard examines the work of architect Jan Gehl, who posits that the fatal flaw of modern urban design lies in its ignorance of cultural anthropology. This results in cities blighted by social isolation and alienation. After conducting his own study over several decades, Gehl concluded that humans are happiest in a low-rise cityscape, enhanced with open public spaces (it’s rumored that we’re social creatures). Copenhagen is shown as one example of a city that has become more sustainable and people-centric. A fascinating, refreshingly optimistic look at creating a new paradigm.