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Each week, Drew creates a watchlist with film recommendations provided by you.

A spoiler-free description of the movie.

Three childhood best friends use an imaginary friend, Ricky Stanicky, to get out of trouble as adults.

→ John Cena. A lot of people know how funny John Cena can be. But not everyone does. And “not everyone” isn’t enough for me.

→ Classic comedies with the guys that never grow up. They’re still immature. They make very dumb, shortsighted choices. They experience emotional catharsis only when they might lose something they want.

→ Thin premise, lowbrow humor. It’s easy to write this off as a comedy made thirty years too late with a premise that ought to have remained a shower thought. But I don’t know. If you’re just looking to laugh a little bit and stop thinking, what’s the big fucking deal?

Peter Farrelly's Ricky Stanicky doesn’t really accomplish anything profound, but that’s not what it’s for. It’s a shame in this author’s opinion that almost no critics would put their name behind this film. Movies like this have a home with audiences everywhere because sometimes life is hard damn it (← for dramatic effect) and you just need to laugh at some plain, stupid nonsense.

Despite a wildly thin premise and comically straightforward character drawings, Ricky Stanicky is quite funny. Why? Here’s my painstakingly researched argument: John Cena big. John Cena strong. John Cena silly. Call me an unintelligent brute, a dumb child, because I laugh when the big man cries or farts. Tell me I’m stuck in the past, forever chasing the high I experienced watching Ben Stiller zip his balls into his fly in There’s Something About Mary. I’m comfortable here and you can’t hurt me with your words no matter how cruel.

I’ll end here with a quote from an actual, real-life review¹ from a fellow Ricky Stanicky fan: “William H. Macy and [John] Cena really have some chemistry, I hope to see more colibrations (sic) in the future.” Well said, friend. I, too, hope to see more colibrations in the future.

¹ Rotten Tomatoes

A fact or two about the production that makes you say “oh, neat.”

Thoughts completely unrelated to this week’s film.

THE SPARK.

It was sometime around 2015 when I was staring down one of the dumbest pairs of eyes I’d ever seen and I proclaimed loudly without looking away from the big dumb eyes that “this must be the dumbest dog I’ve ever seen.” Before you think, I’ll write it: what sort of cosmic asshole would say this out loud? The answer (obvious, now): me.

My girlfriend (miraculous that she is now my wife) audibly gasped. Her very best friend, who had just rescued the dog, shot me the kind of death glare usually reserved for Nazis or grownups who cut the crusts off their sandwiches or maybe Kristi Noem¹. So much to say that this death glare from the best friend was of a very severe variety.

“Seriously,” still staring into the hollow eyes of the black-and-white haired dog. “You know that spark that most living things have in their eyes that sort of indicates that they have a soul? The light in these eyes is so dim that maybe it’s not even there at all. Come look! It's actually kind of radical.”

I awoke from this incalculably self-indulgent trance where I thought I could say whatever I was thinking just right then when I thought it and saw the dog owner (my girlfriend’s best friend). I met her unsubtle and warranted death glare; and at that moment my mind had one of those ohhhhhhhhhh moments because I realized I’d obviously just violated a very reasonable social norm and I was being stared at like I was an actually unstable person.

THE SOCIAL NORM (FOR YOUR BENEFIT).   You don’t call someone else’s dog dumb. You just don’t (duh). Even if you love dogs (which I do, love dogs) and were so sincerely awestruck by such a visible and blatant look of stupidity, compelled by the outlier enough to say it aloud, which made sense to you because outliers like this really are incredible and infrequent. What I’m trying to say is that, no matter what, this feeling is not enough to make it okay to say “your dog’s eyes lack the spark that most other living things seem to have” to another human being.

ON SECOND THOUGHT.   Imagine walking by a really very tall person and not turning to a friend and saying something like “They’re so tall!” Maybe this is a worthless thing to say, observing aloud that someone is indeed tall, and it’s probably true that the tall person can feel that you’re ogling at them and that it doesn’t feel nice, but either way if you’re really honest with yourself you’d admit the cold, hard truth; we all think the thought (“ooo so tall!”) when we pass them by (the tall person) at the supermarket or in a park. Though for most of us, the following is also true: you don’t walk up to the tall person and tell them they’re so tall because that is a socially strange and annoying thing to do. Lastly true I presume for every single one, I hope, is that you don’t contact that tall person’s mother and father to explain to them that their kid is tall. In some sense, this is effectively what I did when I exclaimed that this dog looked more-or-less dumb; though, here, I’m clearly saying something more insulting than merely highlighting someone’s above-average height.

Why did I do it? What is the point of looking up-and-down another living thing (one helpless to defend itself intellectually) and declaring its utter and hopeless stupidity to its parent (i.e. owner)? Is the point to boldly say what others wouldn’t dare the way a parkour athlete is willing to launch themselves between tall buildings and rusted railings and stairways? Need I remind you that there are countless parkour-gone-wrong videos where athletes split a railing with their private parts? To say “your dog is dumb” is no doubt behavior you’d expect from a kind of conversational masochist, someone who blurts over-the-line things out purely to enjoy the harsh reaction it elicits. Punish me: I’ve said something rude (wink).

Or, maybe to make this observation about the innocent dog’s eyes — eyes in which I recognized the same elemental dullness you get when you mix every color together (gray) or in the limp posture of a dead fish or how ketchup breaks apart on a plate after you run it under the sink — is a feat of tremendous honesty. What if I said such a thing because I fervently believe that saying what’s on one’s mind is a core pillar of our society and to censor myself is to admit defeat to the tech oligarchy and more or less hand Sam Altman a 3D scan of my eyeballs.

Your author doesn’t have time to do the whole song and dance about explicit and implicit censorship and refer to the different ways comedians have dealt with more sensitive audiences and for this I’ll need a book deal (i.e. more pages, more time). But really, put your predispositions aside and consider the question even if it is a little weird and uncomfortable. Why shouldn’t I have said what I said? It was merely an observation, one with the potential to launch us into a discussion about dog intelligence and breeding and all kinds of interesting fodder to noodle on.

Further, dogs don’t understand English at the sort of fundamental level needed to grasp that what I said was inappropriate or insulting. In other words, I’m not hurting the dog’s feelings. I could even say it with a cheerful intonation that makes the dog think I’m saying something kind — 

“Aren’t you the dumbest sack of shit I’ve ever laid eyes on? Aren’t ya? Yes you are! Yes you are!” 

— and also the dog owner didn’t birth the dog herself and so commenting on his intelligence isn’t some thinly veiled shot at that of the owner. So, if I’m not calling the owner stupid and the dog is none the wiser, what’s the harm in saying it out loud? Maybe I’m a romantic but I really wrestle with this, because saying “you’re tall” or “that’s a dumb dog” both (1) break the ice and (2) perhaps could be the start of good discussions if only we were all just a little more open minded.

A THEORY.   I supposed that dogs are a relatively (emphasis on relatively) dumb species², especially when compared to other intelligent lifeforms. And for the breeder of this dog to genetically arrange one like this that tops the stupidity charts for a species said to max out their intellect when they reach the capacity of a two or two-and-a-half year-old human toddler, is truly an accomplishment; maybe one that belongs in the breeding hall of fame or at the least deserves to be studied, because the breeding methodology that resulted in this dog’s pure sparkless-eye gene could also be applied to planting and hybridization and maybe even lead to public health and medical and curative breakthroughs. So really, is it so wrong to mention that this dog is a marvel of modern science and breeding because it so sorely lacks the all-important spark in its eyes that the rest of the species seems to have?

I have a theory and it’s related to the commonly-understood premise that dogs always look like their owners, which apparently is such a desirable thing to read about that CNN published an article about it in 2025 March wherein the headline teases “If your dog looks like you, there may be a psychological reason.” The article cites a study published in 2004 in which strangers had to look at separate pictures of 45 dogs and their owners and for some reason were best able to match the purebred dogs with their people but less-so the others. Set aside that your author just cannot comprehend the purpose of why this was conducted in the first place and that I don’t have the patience even to read the abstract to discover the utility of the work — though I would like to volunteer myself as a participant if the study is ever run again (it sounds like good fun to pop a gummy and play a dog-to-person matching game like this) — because the study isn’t the point, but rather that people are so used to and aware of this premise, that dogs and their owners often share traits, that maybe an insult to their dog’s intelligence somehow feels as if it does reflect on their own intellect. 

“WHAT DO DOGS KNOW?” WITH DR. STANLEY COREN.   The obvious truth is that I’m overcomplicating it, and, as my lovely wife who still puts up with me pointed out, dog owners (including me) see their dogs as an extension of their family. In other words, it’s not exactly news that people see their dogs the same way they see their kids, and so why should I be surprised that I received the same harsh response I may have gotten if I’d said the same thing about a human toddler to his mother.

But it turns out, this all goes much deeper than how we think about our dogs. It’s also about the way dogs actually learn and grow, because as it happens people may be able to take more credit for their dogs’ intelligence than I presumed. 

Dr. Stanley Coren, whose actually-published website³ shares the adorable-but-slightly-concerning aesthetic you’d expect from a capital-D-capital-F Dog Fanatic’s MySpace page, is a supposed expert in the field — apparently known to the public for his series of best-selling books on dogs, including The Intelligence of Dogs. For the record, the DF’s site has a copyright symbol dated 1999, which is the exact year I’d have guessed his site was designed. Also for the record: this is not an insult, and I am excited by the website so much so that I shared the link immediately with no context to several close friends before reading almost any of its contents. The DF is also a very well-respected scientist and Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia.

Credibility is established enough here to seriously consider his assertion that about 49% of a dog’s intelligence is based on environmental circumstances and approximately 51% stems from their genes. In other words, this is the classic nature versus nurture discussion, and since we often raise dogs in our homes from the time they are puppies, our actions and behaviors and environment probably do have a substantial influence on their behavior as much as their breed’s predispositions. So, if some asshole named Blake walks up to your dog and says “hey this one looks dumb”, maybe the appropriate and correct and reasonable reaction is to respond as if the dog was actually your child because you’re responsible for some meaningful portion of the dog’s actual behavior and maybe even some of its intelligence or lack thereof. Maybe you should be taken aback and angry and defend your dog’s honor.

Now’s as good a time as any to proclaim the arguments made by your author about dog intellect  to be incorrect, misinformed, or jaded at best. Because, so what if a dog's peak intellect is relatively similar to that of a human toddler? You can hurt a toddler’s feelings. You can make them sad or scared or angry. You can earn and equally so un-earn their trust. An excerpt from Dr. Coren’s work — 

“Ask the average person how to tell whether a dog is happy, and they will advise you to look at its tail — if the dog is happy, the tail is wagging. Unfortunately, this is only partly true. Rapid tail wagging, where the side-to-side swings are not very large, is actually a sign of excitement rather than pleasure. It is when the tail wags broadly at a moderately fast rate that the dog is trying to say either "I’m pleased" or "I like you."

Some tail wags have totally different meanings. A slight wag with the tail held at its normal height, for example, usually appears when greeting someone. It can be interpreted as "Hello there," but can mean "I see you looking at me. You like me, don’t you?"

A slow wag with the tail held lower than its usual height is a sign of insecurity. It often shows up when a dog is working on a problem -- trying to understand what is going on. During dog training, I interpret this signal as "I’m trying to understand you. I want to know what you mean, but I can’t quite figure it out." Once the dog finally solves the problem, the speed and size of the tail wags will usually increase until it becomes the broad wag that we interpret as happiness.

— shows how much of a matter of perspective it is just how intelligent a dog really is. The degrees of emotional experience that dogs can experience are often innocently-but-colossally underestimated. They don’t just feel happy or sad. They can feel excited, reserved, self-assured, insecure, confused, and a whole host of other things. And the fact is, dogs relate to people in a way that many other species cannot; all the more impressive considering they are genetically and evolutionarily very far removed from us and our actual ancestors and fellow surviving Hominidae. So, dogs are a little smarter than your author gave them credit for, and maybe they’d easily see past my cruel and unintelligible “aren’t you a little sack of shit” act.

IS THE POINT THAT IT CAN HURT FEELINGS?    The questionable ethics worth mentioning here: who does it hurt if you say mean things about something so long as it’s too stupid to understand? This is a null-and-void premise, though, because most of us have the moral compass to understand that it’s naughty to say something mean to another living thing no matter how well it grasps the insult.

More elementally dangerous is the idea that we completely understand the experience of another species or living thing. Science is an iterative process used to make such declarations and by definition studying is never finished or forever conclusive, because inherent in the idea of experimentation is that something or someone who previously was thought to be right can actually be wrong. Science is about disproving things as wrong as much as it is about proving things right. In other words, no matter if the dog can understand the insult, it’s dangerous to assume that you 100% understand how another living thing feels. We often fail to understand the reactions and emotions and feelings of the other human beings around us, let alone the perceptions of another species.

There’s also a much more dark and complex question at play. If dogs are so emotionally intelligent, do they ever feel wronged or experience generational trauma? I’m not so sure they’d bother themselves with the trivial nature of an insult about their appearance, in this case. 

The definition of a moral gray area might very well be humanity’s eagerness to cosplay as dog mommies and daddies while abetting industrial-scale, retail breeding and distribution of the entire species, and also the systematic separation of puppies from their parents and neutralizing of their sex organs (unless of course they have a cent of economic value because the puppy has favorable qualities). It’s more than a little rare in the world to see one species so dominantly control the fate of another, unless in the case of the human being. So, what exactly qualifies us to “parent” them? The idea in-and-of-itself is patronizing (to dogs) at best.

This is all so very emblematic of humanity’s long storied and unrivaled ability to obfuscate nasty business by softening the language, not unlike the way Adolf Hitler called rounding up and killing Jews “The Final Solution” or McDonald’s calls ground-and-fried unidentified chicken parts “The McNugget” (remember the cultural awakening when Super Size Me came out?) or how the tech industry calls large-scale plagiarism and IP theft “generative AI”.

It’s a bummer, but PETA-like organizations call neutering and spaying by a more decipherable term: desexing. This is uncomfortable for me, too, but you must admit that it takes us all being insanely talented, Simone Biles-level mental gymnasts to accept that we’ve bent an entire species’ sexual output (and actual genitals) to our will and more-or-less halted the logical genetic selection of their strongest traits because flat-faced bulldogs that can barely breath are just the right kind of ugly-cute. We’ve told ourselves all kinds of arguments about why this is totally okay: (1) dogs can’t take care of themselves without us or (2) have you ever been to a country with stray dogs everywhere(?), it is sad(!) or (3) the industry exists and the dog was already born so not buying it would essentially be relegating it to death or a lifetime of breeding, which has to be worse than my kids yanking on its ears every morning.

THE HIGH GROUND.   Like many things, there’s really not a definitive right and wrong here. I obviously shouldn’t have said what I said about the dog, especially near his mom (i.e. [again] his owner), and also human beings obviously shouldn’t mess with nature so much. But I did say it, and nature has already been tampered with. The damage has already been done.

Is it fair that the question was ever even about whether I can say what I said? Shouldn’t I be asking questions about all of the other stuff? I’m not aiming to throw blood on your sweater but I’m genuinely not sure how I can justify to myself this abhorrent treatment of an entire species, unless I admit that I’m unable to ignore my own self-interests. In other words, if I’m honest with myself, then I’m only able to rationalize the practices around the dogs-as-pets industry because I like having a dog. Olive — the jet-black, curly Goldendoodle that is supposed to be hypoallergenic (but obviously isn’t) — is a part of my family. Truly imagine the end product of the way we treat dogs as a species weren’t an endearing-and-cuddly family member but rather something more abstract and unknowable. Would you really be able to justify even 10% of what we’ve done to dogs? Suffice to say, this is about as morally confounding as it gets, and I’m not sure this is the sort of philosophical argument you signed up to hear about in the first place.

I suppose I’m submitting that there is no moral high-ground here. If the dog can register relatively complex emotional stimuli, perhaps it can feel hurt by an underbaked insult, but also patronized or downright miserable about how human beings have imposed our will on their entire species. Your author can’t possibly reconcile with his own actions or humanity’s as a whole.

The day I called this dog dumb has long passed and either way turned out to be inconsequential. I love my wife and she loves me. I love her best friends and they love me and this was nothing more than a blip by all accounts. The dog never seemed to care or notice that I said the things I said because, not only is he a dog but, need I remind you, he is certifiably dimwitted.

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