CATS is closing!!

tbh all the music that wasn't "Memories" or "Mr. Mestopheles" sounded at least semi-improvised to me, not helped by the mushmouthed delivery of the movie stars

I was going to add it was the one song not inspired by TS Eliot, and had lyrics by Richard Stilgoe.

Anyway, it seems both of those are not so.

I do know the song is called "Memory" though.

important literary fact: ts eliot is an anagram of toilets, stilgoe is an anagram of toilegs

Remember what Delmore Schwartz said about Eliot.

I do think this becomes the next decade's showgirls and everyone involved gets really tired of having to field "i hate to ask, but i have to ask... Cats... what were you thinking?" questions.

They share (potential) midnight-movie longevity but just to be clear Showgirls rules and this fuckin sucks real bad and should only be enjoyed ironically

i've admittedly only seen showgirls once about two decades ago but i recall it being horrible

showgirls is at the very least a very well-made film technically, which, i haven't seen cats yet, but i bet i can't make that claim for it

oh yeah no this looks terrible on every level; it's not as frustratingly shot as Les Mis but for example the way the miniaturized ensemble takes up so little space in the frame makes the whole thing look a lot cheaper and shittier than it should. that's before you even get into how misconceived the character designs are

Has Verhoeven ever won an Academy Award? Didn't think so. Case closed, iirc.

(I see now that he was only ever nominated once, in '73. Criminal.)

also it's very clear that Hayward, the other theater ringers and the background players are all fantastic dancers, but since everyone is CGI'd out, it adds a level of distrust to the movement, so you can't even really enjoy *that*

Should have been about people that turn into cats when the moon is full.

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/01/04/the-slog-comes-in-on-little-cat-feet

As the plotless spectacle drags on, disbelief at its oddness gives way to boredom and, at least at the screenings I attended, real-time conversation. In this respect, Cats is fitting for the Internet era as its emptiness accommodates the compulsive need to play with our phones at all times. Boisterous audiences are tweeting, instagramming, and otherwise sharing snippets of the film and, more importantly, the atmosphere of good-humored incredulity. Seen from this remove, certain moments rise to the surface, worthy of excerpting for the Internet... This mode of enjoyment is not quite camp, which typically results from the folly of overreaching, because the ambition of the movie (cats) is actually quite modest. But there is something stunning about the scale of the catastrophe on screen, given the slightness of its source material.

remind me of the recent ilx "why shouldn't i talk to my friends and check my phone during a film?" kerfuffle

definitely a lot of chatting at my screening

I'm glad he mentions the shot involving Hayward's outstretched foot - I almost lost it right there

this film is both perfect for and self-evidently about ilx

If x equals cats.

important literary fact: ts eliot is an anagram of toilets, stilgoe is an anagram of toilegs

Toilegs bad, four legs worse.

oh my strapped boobs and haunches i have seen CATS (2019) now

it was good not bad

i agree with some of simon h’s reading upthread — certainly it was relentless (which is good), and he’s right abt the various performances except for me swap idris a and judi d:

idris phones in cartoon panto villain, maybe pointed there by the song’s music. this was my favourite poem-character in the book as a kid, so i’m perhaps a bit territorial abt its spoliation — but i feel he could easily have taken it somewhere else more suavely slinkily interesting? except cleaerly decided he didn’t want to be remembered for being in the film at all and doesn’t know how to deliver a sly if undemanding bit of business in a show you wish you hadn’t signed up for which nevertheless keeps yr hand in and shows willing and is mildly diverting for you and those watching. unlike canny old thesps dench and mckellen, he’s a diva not a trouper.

JD isn’t miscast IMO — she’s playing what she is, a remarkable beloved ageing west end theatre dame, and at worst she’s fine, with at least one genius cattish move in the nearly-impossible-to-deliver not-very-good closing song, where, as she’s sprechgesanging some line abt food that cats love (grouse and salmon pie or whatever), she just licks her lips in the linebreak, quick-as-a-greedy-flash

(she does flub the reveal on the meaning of the word jellicle by mumbling it, which to be honest is the correct choice given the fuck-awful line)

so anyway, yes, relentless: the film decides its bit and commits to it (also good), CGI musical theatre with a nice simple plot — abandoned ingenue encounters a religious sect, is introduced to them one by one (this takes most of the running time), before solving the yearly issue of their big WICKER MAN-type ceremony, and is therefore accepted into their flock.

it is a very horny sect and this is a VERY horny film — last line notwithstanding the actual meaning of jellicle is full-spectrum polymorphous perverse and literally every character seems to be carnally hungry for every other character in every shot. it’s also all EXTREMELY sinister (courtesy the religion) the entire time and also anxious (probably courtesy the sex), and surprisingly squalid (courtesy this being west-end stage-world and the soho of 40-80 odd years ago). there’s MUCH more snot in close-up than i was expecting and i was startled — given that i vaguely remember what it is from school science lessons — when the Heaviside Layer was mentioned even once (it’s not in the book), let alone that it becomes a central plot point lol

the two commodities sponsoring this film are grouse and snot

wait i just remembered i need to "map a political valence" on it to prove liz breunig wrong

tho per me that wd make it bad not good

i went to see cats twice so i could check out what changes they'd made to the updated version and the amount of snot in version two is massively dialled down. the other big change is that the cockroaches lose their weird cardboard cut-out faces for more normal looking showgirl faces (normal being a relative term)

second time through i tried to count the number of times jellicle is said or sung. i got 138 times

https://electricliterature.com/this-is-the-backstory-you-need-to-understand-cats-2019/

otm

seconded

In the cradle

If civilization survives, I imagine this film will be "reappraised" in 15 years

rooting for apocalypse

Criterion Collection: Cats

Featuring 17 different cuts made over 15 years using improved CGI.

Featuring 65 page book by Ben Lyons, which are just crayon drawings of cats.

Featuring a foreword by Judi Dench titled "Why I Did Cats"

Also featuring 2 hour video showing Idris Elba getting into character on-set

if criterion hire me to write the reassessment essay this entire package will be worthwhile and everyone will learn something

I know that I will, for one, assuming I read it.

Saw this over the weekend. It's like the feeling you get from these two classic horror snippits drawn out for a whole movie:
https://nofilmschool.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_wide/public/shining-freaks.png

https://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kw71uxPcVH1qa3nkyo1_500.jpg

these snippets are (a) the best bits in the respective films as all kno and (b) only snippets when they shd be full-length movies themselves

this is why CATS (2019) will be reassessed favourably as we all come to know our own deep desires better

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

me preaching this self-evident truth as ilx creeps down at to shut me up

I can't wait for the "Babe 2" styled insane sequel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaWtWAvUb-4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAd0QlUaIBY

That son of sam video is one of the most purely awful bits of cinema I've seen in quite a while

I dunno, I'm a fan of the lab's confused wagging

Holy shit that's actually from the Spike Lee movie and not a The Room-style direct to video competitor?!

I’m watching this with my daughters and I can feel my grip on reality failing. Also if another human utters the word “jellicle” near me the retribution will be swift and violent.

tfw you realise this film's aesthetic is van meegeren's late vermeers (= scary AND taking the piss):

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Smiling_girl_%28Fake_Vermeer%29.jpg/800px-Smiling_girl_%28Fake_Vermeer%29.jpg

good catch!

https://electricliterature.com/this-is-the-backstory-you-need-to-understand-cats-2019/

― american bradass (BradNelson), Saturday, January 18, 2020 11:31 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Hmm I tweeted something verrrrry similar (down to the wording about the JLCL virus) not long after I saw the movie.

Weird coincidence. I’ll be charitable and assume the writer just has a similarly sc-fi poisoned brain

Tweet’s since deleted anyway :-/

🎵Memory, all alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again🎵

forever reading this thread title to the melody of xtc’s ‘books are burning’

more films CATS (2019) resembles but is better than:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EPvNYLsX0AAWZL8?format=png

Inevitable:

I’m pretty stoned and watching Cats. I’ve never seen the broadway show. It is truly trippy. Am I supposed to know what a Jellicle is? They’ve said it 200,000 times but I don’t know what’s happening haha.

— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) March 18, 2020

Genuinely thought the revive would be about this:

A VFX producer friend of a friend was hired in November to finish some of the 400 effects shots in @catsmovie. His entire job was to remove CGI buttholes that had been inserted a few months before. Which means that, somewhere out there, there exists a butthole cut of Cats

— Jack Waz (@jackwaz) March 18, 2020

hashtag #ReleaseTheButtholeCut

Ever since CATS come out things have been way off

— Sam Sparro (@samsparro) March 13, 2020