Apparently they've changed the definition of "Comedy"

Last night Padawan and I decided to watch a movie to wind down after a long weekend of Pandy/Master Plo Koone sitting. (What he had to wind down for when I watched both of them ninety nine percent of the time by myself, I have no idea.) We decided to search through the Zune rentals on the X-Box to see if there was anything interesting that we hadn't seen.

Since I was in one of those moods, I decided I wanted to watch a comedy.

And I found one (after stopping at Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One and commenting that if ever there was a movie that didn't belong in the Comedy section, it was THAT movie...in hindsight this really should have clued me in)called "Marley and Me" and it seemed like good choice. I wanted the trailer for it and it seemed down right hilarious. It seemed to be about a man who didn't want to have children with his wife yet so he buys her a dog to reset her biological clock.

This is where I lodge my formal complaint against whoever decides what movies fall into what genre at Zune: Marley and Me was not a funny movie. Oh, yeah, there were plenty of funny moments in there. But when you stop and get right down to it, it's an emotional drama.

Or just a straight up tragedy.

In what kind of comedy, for instance, does a seventeen year old girl get robbed and stabbed in her own driveway?

I figured out about halfway through that there was only one way this movie could possibly end: with the sad, heart wrenching death of Marley. It was clearly the direction we were headed, and by that point I was already in love. I could not just turn away and shut off the movie. I had to see it through to the end.

So we sat there and watched it.

Watched as it all slowly built up with love and friendship right to the sure to be tragic ending.

And it was.

Oh, I was crying. I was bawling my eyes out, snuggling into Padawan with Choo Choo wedged between us because I didn't want to let her go. 

What the hell kind of sick bastard sticks a movie like that in the Comedy section and then doesn't warn you that the fucking dog dies in the end????  Seriously. What the fuck is wrong with the people at Zune? Harry Potter sure as hell doesn't belong in Comedy, and neither does Marley and Me. I say again, what the hell kind of sick bastard was responsible for this?

A really sick, twisted individual, that's who. 

This was just as bad as the time I told Padawan I wanted to watch a happy movie and he suggested we watch Hachi because it was about a dog who loves his master. And then the master died and the dog waited for him at the train station every day, like always, for ten more years before he finally dies! But even that movie had a happier ending, because when Hachi died he joined his master in Heaven and they went running together by the creek.

What happened to happy ending pet movies like Homeward Bound and Lassie and Beethoven? 

They've been replaced by things like Marley and Me and Hachi and Where the Red Fern Grows, which I know was a book, and I read it way before I even knew it was a movie but that doesn't make it any less sad because both dogs die in that one, so it's like twice the heartbreak for the little boy who worked so hard to get those dogs that he loved and cared for all by himself.

Sometimes, I just want a watch a god damn happy movie with animals in it. Is that too much to ask for these days?