Tuesday, December 27, 2016

The movie about Oddball the Maremma is available on TV

Click here for links:  Oddball the Maremma in Australia

Remember Oddball? The 2015 Australian movie made about this lovable and heroic LGD is available, in the U.S. anyway, on Amazon and on "On Demand" channels on some local cable TV systems. No sign of it on Netflix yet. I never saw it in local movie theaters either. But now you can see it on TV for only a few dollars. The movie is called both Oddball and Oddball and the Penguins. Here's a link to one of Oddball's promo visit to a TV show: Oddball on TV show for movie promo.

Besides the beautiful scenery and the sweet story, it's interesting for LGD owners to see Oddball growing into his heritage of protective behavior. The movie characters complain about his undisciplined, goofy behavior, but as he runs through the village, creating adorable mayhem, we see that he is running--just as an LGD should--to find a creature, in this case a penguin he saw earlier in a crate, because he wants to watch over it.

The only thing I didn't like was the scene where Oddy attacked the bad guy/gal (yes,that's a hint), because the movie depicted him attacking like a German Shepherd doing bite work. There was plenty of room on the island where the attack took place that an LGD could have done its protective barking instead.

Oddy's owner, who created Oddball's mission in the first place, is an associate producer of the movie and I think that adds to the story. This movie is along the lines of Babe and Whale Rider, which is to say a good family movie featuring animals. And Oddball has the added benefit of being a real story about a real conservation effort that succeeded due to this LGD. I'd recommend this to any LGD owner and family (as well as everyone else). 

The links (above) go to articles about the real life process of the project: writing grant applications, getting involved with zoological societies in Australia, tourism effects on the economy, etc.; in other words, all the stuff that's not glamorous enough to be put in a movie but needed to be done.

Also, Oddy is referred to as a male in the movie but in real life is a female.