One World Cinema

One of the best films at Tribeca Film Festival this year!  

The film opens with Vic Edwards, played by Burt Reynolds (Smokey and the Bandit), as a virile actor in his prime being interviewed on a talk show about his latest screen tests and movie roles.   Cut to a gray bearded, elderly Vic Edwards who brings his 15 year old dog to the veterinarian and learns that his dogs kidneys are shutting down, and it is best to put him to sleep.  Vic asks to be alone with his dog in order to say goodbye and pay his last respects.  Depressed Vic drives away in his Mercedes and heads back to his Hollywood mansion reflecting back on his former movie star glory days when he was King of the Box Office. He stops off at a Ralphs grocery store along the way.  He ambulates with a cane, buys prune juice and frozen dinners, and ogles the younger girls, who don't ogle back.  

Without giving the entire storyline away, the film continues on when Vic is sitting at a coffeeshop with his friend, Sonny (Chevy Chase), and opens an invitation to attend a Film Festival in Nashville, Tennessee, where evidently the likes of Robert DeNiro and Clint Eastwood have been previous guests.  Reluctant Vic thinks this is ridiculous and refuses to go, when his friend reminds him it will be fun,  he will be treated like royalty, and how he wished someone would invite him to a festival. 

Vic gets coerced into going, however, when he arrives at the airport, he is not seated in first class, instead he is crammed into coach class, and is met by a snarky, tattooed girl on her cell phone, driving a beater car, as his fixer.  Needless to say, the weekend does not turn out the way he planned, however, it might just be what the MD ordered.

Director's Statement: "I wrote 'Dog Years' for one actor and one actor alone, Burt Reynolds. I didn't know him when I wrote the screenplay, yet somehow I felt compelled to create this character and this story just for him. The tale of an older man who once upon a time had been the world's biggest movie star, but now must face the fact that those halcyon days of fame and fortune are but a foggy memory. But 'Dog Years' isn't just a tale about faded fame, at its core it's a universal story about growing old."