BY JONATHAN KANE<\/em><\/p>\n What do pets do all day when their owners take off for work, and what are they truly thinking and feeling? Such is the conceit behind the entertaining new kids\u2019 animated feature, \u201cThe Secret Life of Pets.\u201d<\/p>\n If it sounds a little familiar, think \u201cToy Story,\u201d but the creators of \u201cDespicable Me\u201d \u2013 Illumination Entertainment \u2013 have come up with a cute picture that will please animal lovers both young and old.<\/p>\n The story comes from Chris Meledandri, who also produced the film. Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney direct the movie from a screenplay by Cinco Paul, Ken Daurio and Brian Lynch.<\/p>\n That story begins in a New York City apartment building as everyone goes off to work and the pets start their day of play. At the center of the story is an adopted terrier, Max, voiced by Louis C.K., whose owner returns with a big sloppy mutt voiced by Eric Stonestreet that turns Max\u2019s world upside down.<\/p>\n On a walk in Washington Square Park, the two are mistakenly set free and must now rely on each other to get home. Along the way they discover an underground world of abandoned pets (called The Flushed Pets) led by a street-smart bunny voiced by a funny Kevin Hart. After a failed initiation, Hart\u2019s crew is after Max and friend.<\/p>\n Off to the rescue is another group of pets from the apartment house that want to save them and bring them home. Notable among them is Dana Carvey as a paralyzed old Basset hound and Albert Brooks as a hawk that has to control his impulses not to eat his compatriots.<\/p>\n With a beautifully imagined New York City and an array of quirky personalities, \u201cThe Secret Life of Pets\u201d is good entertainment, especially for the kiddies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pets Rule The Roost BY JONATHAN KANE What do pets do all day when their owners take off for work, and what are they truly thinking and feeling? Such is the conceit behind the entertaining new kids\u2019 animated feature, \u201cThe Secret Life of Pets.\u201d If it sounds a little familiar, think \u201cToy Story,\u201d but the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}