A Boy and His Dog

Like many artifacts of the 60s & 70s, y'hadda be there...at least in order to feel a protective fondness for what is without question a very flawed movie. The miracle of this film was that it was made AT ALL. (Due in no small part to the tenor of the times it sprang from. The shackles on pop culture and genre fiction were loosening, allowing for more serious themes and treatment; of course, two years later STAR WARS would tighten the shackles again.) I'm a little amazed at the many posters bitching about cheap sets, poor fx, etc. Does everyone watch a movie EXPECTING a 50-million-dollar budget and CGI up the wazoo? If so, we're in deeper trouble than I thought. I look at A BOY AND HIS DOG with great affection as a sincere attempt to do something different, provocative and heartfelt, and although it's informed by a naive leftist worldview I don't share, there's a great deal of audacious creativity at work here that transcends many of the budgetary limitations. You'd think oddities like this would be treasured as artifacts of a more open and experimental period in movie history, rather than derided for falling short of INDEPENDENCE DAY's store-bought bombast and opticals. Go figure...