Beverly Hills Chihuahua

• Get ready for a hilarious fun-filled adventure starring Chloe (voiced by Drew Barrymore), a diamond-clad ultra-pampered Beverly Hills Chihuahua who gets lost while on vacation in Mexico. Papi (voiced by George Lopez), an amusing Chihuahua who's crazy about Chloe, springs into action and heads south of the border to rescue her, while Chloe gets help from Delgado (voiced by Andy Garcia), her newfoun

Hotel For Dogs is a funny, heartwarming and inspiring animal adventure that shows how far love and imagination can take you. When 16-year old, Andi (Roberts), and her younger brother Bruce (Austin) find themselves in a foster home with a strict “no pets” policy, they must use their quick wit to find a new home for their dog, Friday. When they stumble into an abandoned hotel, they realize they can transform it into the perfect place for Friday- as well as all the strays in the city. What began as! a crusade to save one dog becomes a high stakes adventure as everyone around them starts to wonder- who let the dogs in?HOTEL FOR DOGS - DVD MovieHOTEL FOR DOGS - Blu-Ray MovieEveryone deserves a loving family, but foster kids Andi (Emma Roberts) and Bruce (Jake T. Austin) have been placed with a flaky couple who care more for their aspiring rock careers than their foster children. Even though Andi and Bruce's mischievous tendencies repeatedly get them into trouble, the siblings are essentially good kids who care deeply for one another and their secretly adopted dog Friday. After a close call with the local pound, the kids end up searching for Friday in an abandoned old hotel where they find several stray dogs seeking shelter. The kids' compassion for the homeless dogs compels them to begin caring for the strays and they soon join forces with three other local kids to take in strays from across the city. Bruce is a clever inventor whose innovative gadgets ensure top-notch ! care and constant entertainment for all the dogs (as well as a! multitu de of laughs from the audience). Unfortunately, Bruce's and Andi's devotion to the dogs eventually causes them to pass up what may be their last chance for a better foster home. When the police storm the hotel and take all the dogs to the pound, the kids make a daring attempt to rescue the dogs that will likely land them in separate group homes. Can social worker Bernie (Don Cheadle) somehow convince the authorities, and perhaps a loving family, that the children were just doing what was right? Hotel for Dogs is a funny family film based on Lois Duncan's book of the same name and is appropriate for most ages 5 and older in spite of its PG rating for mild thematic elements, language, and some crude humor. --Tami Horiuchi




Stills from Hotel For Dogs (Click for larger image)

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Hotel For Dogs is a funny, heartwarming and inspiring animal adventure that shows how far love and imagination can take you. When 16-year old, Andi (Roberts), and her younger brother Bruce (Austin) find themselves in a foster home with a strict “no pets” policy, they must use their quick wit to find a new home for their dog, Friday. When they stumble into an abandoned hotel, they realize they can transform it into the perfect place for Friday- as well as all the strays in the city. What began as a crusade to save one dog becomes a high stakes adventure as everyone around them ! starts to wonder- who let the dogs in? Rex, Hollywood's top K-9 star, gets lost and is reluctantly adopted by a young boy. His father, fire chief of a rundown station agrees to the adoption only if his defiant son takes care of the K-9. Little do they realize Rexx will not only bring them closer but also bring some much-needed faith back to the fire station.

Adolescence is an emotionally stormy time for kids, but it's especially so for Shane (Josh Hutcherson), a teenager being raised by single firefighter father Connor (Bruce Greenwood). Add the recent death of Shane's fire-captain uncle (Connor's brother) in the line of duty and the pending closure of their neighborhood "Dogpatch" fire station, and both Shane's propensity for skipping school and brooding in his room and his father's obsession with work seem easily explainable. When a mutt called Dewey, really a very spoiled superstar dog named Rexxx who's been presumed dead after a parachuting stunt gone wrong, turns up ! in a burning building and is rescued by the Dogpatch crew, Con! nor puts Shane in charge of caring for the dog and finding its owner. Shane and Dewey clash immediately and Shane is extremely resentful toward both the dog and his father. However, Dewey's special talents (like skateboarding and trampoline jumping), combined with his good fire-fighting instincts, soon win the admiration and affection of Shane and the entire Dogpatch crew. A series of mysterious fires causes Shane and Connor to begin to really communicate and reconnect, but those fires also threaten their very lives. At the same time, Dewey's former owner discovers Dewey's true identity and demands the return of his superstar companion. An engaging dog story that explores the difficulties of growing up and dealing with personal tragedy, Firehouse Dog is a fun family film that's rated PG due to some mildly crude humor (think potty jokes), language, and action peril. --Tami Horiuchi

Firehouse Dog Extras

Watch the firemen of Firehouse Dog take you behind the scenes in this exclusive clip.

Beyond Firehouse Dog

Kids & Family Animal Films

Firehouse Dog (Paperback)

Movies for Tweens

Stills from Firehous! e Dog

Features include:

•MPAA Rating: PG
•Format: DVD
•Runtime: 91 minutes

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Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.)

• Freakonomics
• Economist
• Everything

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool?

What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?

How much do parents really matter?

These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He studies the riddles of everyday lifeâ€"from cheating and crime to parenting and sportsâ€"and reaches conclusions that turn conventional wisdom on its head.

Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They set out to explore the inner workings of a crack gang, the truth about real estate agents, the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, and much more.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, they show that economics is, at root, th! e study of incentivesâ€"how people get what they want or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing.

Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. In Freakonomics (written with Stephen J. Dubner), Levitt argues that many apparent mysteries of everyday life don't need to be so mysterious: they could be illuminated and made even more fascinating by asking the right questions and drawing connections. For example, Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship. El! sewhere, by analyzing data gathered from inner-city Chicago dr! ug-deali ng gangs, Levitt outlines a corporate structure much like McDonald's, where the top bosses make great money while scores of underlings make something below minimum wage. And in a section that may alarm or relieve worried parents, Levitt argues that parenting methods don't really matter much and that a backyard swimming pool is much more dangerous than a gun. These enlightening chapters are separated by effusive passages from Dubner's 2003 profile of Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, which led to the book being written. In a book filled with bold logic, such back-patting veers Freakonomics, however briefly, away from what Levitt actually has to say. Although maybe there's a good economic reason for that too, and we're just not getting it yet. --John Moe

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