CATS is closing!!

CGI Starlight Express must be built

Was trying to explain to a group of 20-something’s what starlight express was. Didn’t go well

I’d much rather see this than star wars

abuse your ears in your chosen way

FWIW, "Greatest Showman" on Rotten Tomatoes is currently 56% critics, 86% audience. "Cats" (for now) is 19% critics, 62% audience.

Cats has been a punchline in the musical theatre community for decades.

I'm kinda shocked the audience score is that high but I had one group of friends who went purely to gawk at the trainwreck so...maybe that accounts for it?

tag yrself i'm a jellicle critic

It just keeps getting worse for Universal / Amblin / Working Title’s Cats, with business now down to $7.6M in fourth place for the weekend, well below the $15M that tracking was seeing. More injury: CinemaScore audiences pronounced the movie dead with a C+ to go along with its awfully updated PostTrak exits of 2 stars. Word is that there’s advance ticket sales for Christmas Day, but Cats isn’t looking like The Greatest Showman, which despite its slow start of $8.8M over three days and $19M over six days mushroomed to $174.3M stateside off an A CinemaScore.

ppl who show up at Cats are predisposed to like it

:D

This isn’t a joke: CATS was rushed into theaters before being finished so a new version is being sent to theaters with updated effects. How do you know if you have the old version? Look for Judi Dench’s human hand, wedding ring and all. pic.twitter.com/VDUOevePU9

— Jenelle Riley (@jenelleriley) December 22, 2019

More on that: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/universal-notifies-theaters-cats-is-being-updated-improved-visual-effects-1264689

wow, they told Lucas "hold my beer", they did

“Look for judi dench’s human hand” I mean can you say that about star wars, didn’t think so

lol

It is a time of civil war. Look for Judi Dench's human hand.

Jerry Lewis always wore his big diamond ring when he played shlubs, whats the big deal

Because she's supposed to be a cat lady, not a cat lady with human hands.

have you never seen a Vincent Price movie

I swear to god I thought it was Bert Lahr at first glance

omg

We lost our minds when the train cat exploded into dust pic.twitter.com/dsXcvOmhVx

— Kevin T. Porter (@KevinTPorter) December 20, 2019

“Look for judi dench’s human hand” I mean can you say that about star wars, didn’t think so

― Baby yoda laid an egg (wins)

more of a doctor who thing, quite true

My mom and dad both unironically loved this and are bewildered as to its negative reception. I loved it, too, but my brain is broken.

I think this looks hilariously bad but I also doubt it’s any *less* tolerable than a mysteriously critically acclaimed piece of shit like Shrek 2 for example

Potentially better, even

I love that thread with the exploding cat, mostly because the next tweet is about them all dancing and singing along to Magical Mister Mestofoles, and he later clarified that none in the cinema knew the song before, it's just so mindnumpingly repetitive that they knew the words after the first chorus. As someone who has had that jingle-like crap chorus stuck in my head since a friend showed me the show recording in 9th grade, I feel validated.

starlight express is the only good musical

bcz the trains fuck

andrew lloyd webber is our marquis de sade

Hey, maybe the FX aren't complete (says every defender of shoddy CG in trailers ever).

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, July 20, 2019 1:08 AM (five months ago)

love that thanks to Cats (2019) this defense can now be applied to films in current release

the updated version should get up to each repaired shot and then pause with a rotating hourglass icon onscreen so you know the new FX are installing for your enhanced entertainment

first (well, first recent one, i mean) was good

― Banáná hÉireann (darraghmac), Saturday, December 21, 2019 3:26 AM (two days ago)

Twomanji is good and fun, JumanjIII is not written by Chris McKenna and is not good and not very fun

what the hecking shit is the source of that fake Watchmen panel that ppl keep memeing? I never have any idea what point they’re trying to make w/ it

― quelle sprocket damage (sic), Friday, July 19, 2019 10:41 AM (five months ago)

did we ever get this sorted btw

Jumanji Next Level may have had it's problems but it was way better than "not good and not very fun". Problems were with like, parts of the script, not chemistry. The main cast all seemed to be having a ball. My 9-year-old was totally stoked. The Rock as Danny Devito and Kevin Hart as Danny Glover (no spoilers as this is in the trailer) were pretty amazing. Liked Awkwafina as well.

the next tweet is about them all dancing and singing along to Magical Mister Mestofoles, and he later clarified that none in the cinema knew the song before, it's just so mindnumpingly repetitive that they knew the words after the first chorus. As someone who has had that jingle-like crap chorus stuck in my head since a friend showed me the show recording in 9th grade, I feel validated.

Same, except since it was performed by kids at an elementary school assembly 30-odd years ago. I'm not sure if I have heard the actual cast recording.

Just love how this is being updated. Will need a blow-by-blow account of its production in the BFI book.

CATS! CATS! CATS!!!

should be seeing this on NYE, if I spot Judi Dench's unfurred hand I may be forced to point and shout "hand!!"

They're replacing the real cats with fake cats

The timing of the FX update is odd to me. OK, movie comes out Friday, people shoo it out of theaters (practically). A few people point out incomplete FX, and the stories come out of work being done on the film right up to the last minute, even right up to the premiere (a week or so ago?); supposedly even erstwhile producer Spielberg didn't get to see it when it was "done." And now the fabled day-one patch is on its way.

So: either they literally needed just a couple of more days to complete the FX, or they knew the FX were incomplete and didn't care/had to live with it, or they knew the FX were incomplete but had fixes ready just in case, or they didn't know the FX were incomplete and hustled after its release for another couple of days to attend the most glaring issues (and perhaps ignoring others?). It seems unusual to me that in a time of massive FX movies this one, "Cats," is the one that ran out of time and was released prematurely ... but still conveniently just days before the FX would have been completed anyway. My guess is that they were in such a rush to finish they didn't even notice people cats amidst the cat people.

Or they know that no amount of effects work will make it watchable but having the update pushed out keeps it in the media and maybe a few more poor saps will go see it just in case

Has Armond White weighed in? Does he think it's genius?

He was kidnapped by being invited to a fake showing, then sealed inside a geodesic dome

Same, except since it was performed by kids at an elementary school assembly 30-odd years ago. I'm not sure if I have heard the actual cast recording.

― Un sang impur (Sund4r), Monday, December 23, 2019 2:26 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I remember it from seeing a TV commercial for either a VHS release or perhaps a tour stop in Baltimore 30 years ago. Haven't listened to it since, but I know the deal.

Jumanji Next Level may have had it's problems but it was way better than "not good and not very fun". Problems were with like, parts of the script, not chemistry.

seems possible that two of the three words immediately before "not good and not very fun" might have some connection to this?

(no spoilers as this is in the trailer)

it's a spoiler if you don't watch trailers, especially in an unrelated thread! (I hadn't looked up the credits either or I would have been braced for some of the weaknesses)

Chemistry is fine when people get to be on camera together. DeVito does wonders in his scenes with others, but he's in maybe ten minutes total. Glover being too old for this shit is fine, but he's in three or four minutes, and largely in single shots. The main cast do have chemistry, especially Black and Gillan, but it looks like the four of them spent maybe a week together in a couple of locations, and there are hardly any scenes of them in the same frame actually displaying that chemistry - even in the group scenes, it's lots of SHOT OF PERSON SAYING LINE and CUT TO PERSON REACTING.

Compounding this feel is the way the action sequences consistently go from Main Cast Interacting to Stuntpeople Hiding Their Faces, Shot Elsewhere By A Completely Separate Unit, and almost entirely animated apart from the stuntfolk. I know some audiences supposedly parse these fine, but my brain glazes over in stuff like this (like: I literally dozed off during the spinning bridges segment and missed Awkwafina's introduction), and it disconnects anyone from the value of the chemistry.

The twist that allows the in-game cast to play different characters is a great gag, exactly the sort of thing that a movie like this should come up with to differentiate itself and advance from its predecessor. And the performances are delightful, as you noted. But there just aren't jokes written in as well, so it's only the premise and the performance carrying those moments: imagine how much gold McKenna would have spun out of those setups.

The change in dynamic for the bookend characters is so flimsily dealt with that it gives the impression that the writers dgaf about them, and just wanted to switch things up for in-game. But without caring about the "real" version of them, it's harder to commit to their situation under the "main" actors.

Also, not enough Rhys Darby.

just saw this. first half was a kind of memorably unique oddity, a plotless succession of character-introduction songs performed by scale-be-damned CGI cat people which in its mix of unfunny jokes and seemingly unintentional sexuality suggested a movie made by aliens processing all recent CGI children's films through Deep Dream. second half settled into something that met the basic definition of a plot, and had a couple of affecting and melodically memorable songs, so even though the introduction songs never stopped, it became much more watchable but much less distinctive. it would have been better to stay in trainwreck mode all the way through but hollywood just won't let us have great cinema these days.

that was re: the film CATS not Jumanji: The Next Level in case there was any confusion

I'm sad this wasn't released in 3D, not only because it would add to the madness, but also because it would presumably have made the rendering errors considerably tougher to fix

Wear your 3D glasses anyway

and also take kratom

Oh my fucking God. Judi? No. OK? No.

I don’t wanna taaaalk about Juuuudi

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EMsjRKPUEAEhAKB?format=jpg

is... is that a length of intestine

catsible holocaust

are there spidercats behind her