Art inspires people. It evokes emotions in the beholder and rouses feelings that cannot be adequately expressed in words. Art has brought people to their knees, caused grown men to cry and spurred revolutions. One such work of art has even caused me to do all three at once. I am referring to, of course, the Walt Disney classic, Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (Walt Disney Pictures).

It is my “Starry Night,” my “Ode to Joy,” my Atticus Finch neatly wrapped into one thrilling package.

To be succinct, Homeward Bound is the “Pieta” of all children’s movies.

One might ask: how can a movie starring an American Bulldog, a Golden Retriever and a Himalayan cat named Sassy be so moving? Anyone asking this question has obviously never seen the movie or is in desperate need of going out right now to rent and immediately watch it again.

Homeward Bound has all the ingredients of a classic: memorable scenes and lines mixed in with great cinematography and a variety of wit and tear-jerking moments, garnished deliciously with a moral lesson on top.

Homeward Bound is drenched in literary goodness like an illustrious epic, with the characters discovering themselves and the American Dream.

The movie displays multiculturalism at it’s finest: three different breeds, who originally don’t get along, come together, defeat a grizzly bear and a mountain lion and find love and happiness together with their family in the end.

This was the first movie I can remember seeing in theaters, and I can still remember being deeply moved by the experience at my young age. Homeward Bound caused me to both cry and laugh.

It also gave me a motto with which I live my life to this day: “Cats rule and dogs drool.”

The movie taught me at the early age of 4 to appreciate humor and helped me to recognize what makes a movie so funny.

Situational irony, word play and talking animals are all staples of the comedic repertoire of many great movies, and Homeward Bound is a no-holds-barred saga firing away at all cylinders with each one. You can’t stop the humor in this movie; you can only hope to contain it.

The obstacles overcome by the characters and the wonderful lessons learned are enough to make anybody break down, to cause grown men to cry and, yes, even to spur on revolutions (albeit ones confined to the playground).

It was after this movie that I demanded to my parents that I get a family pet. I wanted a Golden Retriever, like Shadow.

Instead, I got a fat cat named Joetta.

Guess you can’t win them all.

If I was ever disappointed by the compromise my parents made, I never showed it.

Having a pet cat just gave me ample opportunity to pretend she could carry on conversations with me. She was, naturally, always offering up sharp and witty retorts, just like Sassy in Homeward Bound.

It was art imitating life imitating art in one beautiful cycle.