Marley & Us

Hey everyone, hope you're enjoying the holidays this week. Sal and I spent Christmas with our families in the Tampa Bay area and had a nice time. And Sal totally surprised me with a giftcard to The Spa at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach. Woo hoo! Now the tough part ... deciding on a treatment ... should I get the Harmony massage? or maybe the Ocean Breeze massage? perhaps the kiwi-coconut salt scrub? hmmmm.....

Seen any good movies lately?

Sal and I finally got to see Marley & Me today, we've been waiting anxiously for months. We were extras in a few scenes that were being filmed in Miami last spring (see my April 22 blog post). The scenes were early on in the story, where you see John (Owen Wilson) dropping off his wife Jenny (Jennifer Aniston) in a brown, beat-up hatchback at Miami airport. Unfortunately, we didn't see ourselves, the camera shots weren't wide enough to capture us in them. Bummer! Oh well, it was still such a unique experience to be extras and to see the filming process. It was also great to see so many familiar sights, since it was filmed right here in our neck-of-the-woods, SoFla. Even Delray Beach gets a mention in the script!

A few neat factoids about the movie:

• Marley is actually played by 22 different dogs because the story spanned his entire life, and puppies grow so fast. For the adult Marley, trainers chose an acting dog from a pool of dogs, depending on the mood of the scene and on which obedience skills it required.


• The book's author, John Grogan, and his wife were extras in one scene -- the obedience class, where Marley gets kicked out for bad behavior. {chuckle}


• Sal and I have been asked if we were paid to be extras ... yes, we were ... $100 each.


• Go to this website to watch behind-the-scenes fun video clips, a preview, and interviews with the cast, including Jonah (one of the Marleys)! The site also has links to the articles that started it all...the author was a columnist for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in the 90s, and the tales (or should that be tails?) that he wrote about Marley became the basis for the book.

Overall, the movie is a (family-friendly) story about a couple's journey through life with their lovable, albeit maniacal, dog by their side. So grab some popcorn (and a few tissues) {sniffle} and check it out! It's a great tail-wagging story of doggie love.

Woof.