Cats (2019)
December 20, 2019 6:18 AM - Subscribe

A tribe of cats called the Jellicles must decide yearly which one will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new Jellicle life.
posted by tofu_crouton (94 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
Compilation of Cats reviews
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:20 AM on December 20, 2019 [4 favorites]


thank you for that compilation.... now i feel even more compelled to watch this but like, as a heckling event
posted by cendawanita at 6:44 AM on December 20, 2019 [1 favorite]


The Funniest, Meanest Lines From The Very Bad Reviews For The 'Cats' Movie
"There is a thin line between idiocy and genius, and Cats pukes a hairball on it and rubs its ass all over it."

"Millions of dollars and thousands of hours have been sunk into making the cats in Cats look like hypertrichotic mutants from the Uncanny Valley Of Dr. Moreau."

"Cats is a fever dream, a hallucination, an approximation of what would happen if your third eye actually opened and you could suddenly see into the astral plane."
posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:48 AM on December 20, 2019 [4 favorites]


So.... is this film a CATastrophe ?
posted by Pendragon at 6:50 AM on December 20, 2019 [2 favorites]


What if The Room was hornier and with singing? Which is to say, I really enjoyed it and would go again.
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:59 AM on December 20, 2019 [5 favorites]


They will show a character's reaction to a scene but linger on their face two seconds too long and it's like making uncomfortable eye contact with a stranger. But also those moments are hilarious.

Or there will be an actor in the background who was probably told "just do some cat freestyle when the camera is not on you" and is looking kinda lost.

Then the camera actually will cut to them and whatever unrelated thing they are doing.

And some actors take the approach of "I'm a human using a cat as a metaphor for storytelling and I will mostly behave like a human" and some actors are trying to be as much like a literal cat as possible. You can never figure out how literally you should take it. Just when someone tries to have an emotional moment, an actor in the background is licking their butt.

You know how when cats are in heat, they do twitchy stuff with their tail? There's an entire dance segment of that.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:01 AM on December 20, 2019 [24 favorites]


Please pretend I didn't still have one more day of work before the holidays, and that I had time to write a comment in the "count the meows" Super Troopers style.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:40 AM on December 20, 2019 [3 favorites]




Remember that the first review of the stage production was "Cats is a dog", then played packed houses for twenty years and is still onstage in Japan.

Get to a showing quick, this may spawn a franchise more lasting than a bastardized love child of Friday the 13th and Star Wars. The word in 2029 may be, "do you remember where you saw your first Cats?" Memories!
posted by sammyo at 8:30 AM on December 20, 2019 [2 favorites]


"Congratulations to dogs" may never be topped as a review one-liner.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:42 AM on December 20, 2019 [13 favorites]


David Farrier's review on Twitter
posted by supermedusa at 8:50 AM on December 20, 2019 [1 favorite]


Will Smith tried to warn us
posted by cazoo at 8:55 AM on December 20, 2019 [5 favorites]


which one will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new Jellicle life

Wait, wait, Cats is a Logan's Run reboot??
posted by Naberius at 9:31 AM on December 20, 2019 [15 favorites]


True story: I got home after seeing CATS and couldn’t look my own cat in the face for a good hour or two

— jen yamato (@jenyamato) December 19, 2019

To quote Nick Cage on SNL: high praise.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:57 AM on December 20, 2019 [7 favorites]


For those who don't know, the Heaviside Layer is a real thing - "a layer of ionised gas occurring between roughly 90 and 150 km (56 and 93 mi) above the ground."
It reflects radio waves, so it's what allows radio communication over longer than line of sight distances.
That adds a new level of horror to the movie's premise - all our radio communication are bounced off a layer of ionized cats!.
Can you hear their screaming?
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:16 AM on December 20, 2019 [24 favorites]


I am so excited to listen to the Flop House episode for Cats. Elliott Kalan is going to go completely apeshit.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:46 AM on December 20, 2019 [5 favorites]


OK but are any of you actually going to watch it
posted by ominous_paws at 10:48 AM on December 20, 2019 [5 favorites]


When someone throws a pebble in a pond you watch the ripples, not the pebble.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:54 AM on December 20, 2019 [42 favorites]


If someone chucks a bunch of cats in a pond, ain't nobody watching the ripples
posted by ominous_paws at 11:06 AM on December 20, 2019 [36 favorites]


OK but are any of you actually going to watch it

Yes, plan too. In amongst the creepy blond cgi'd country western star and tv talk show host's lame gags there are some of the best dancers in the world. A mix of claws, fingers, toe shoes all in the same shot (on the same actor) should be wacko funny. And I think they kept the synthesizer.
posted by sammyo at 11:36 AM on December 20, 2019 [1 favorite]


I loathe going to the movies but I am seriously, seriously considering doing so, just so I can watch this on the big screen.

I mean, obviously I will get high as balls first, but holy shit, reading the reviews of this film is now my new favorite past-time.
posted by kalimac at 11:50 AM on December 20, 2019 [16 favorites]


Yeah, this really makes me wish the low-rent cheap-as-sin matinee I used to go to was still in operation, because it feels like it almost needs the big screen spectacle to go from bad to glorious disaster.

I wonder if any of the theaters around me do a happy hour.....
posted by Kyol at 11:57 AM on December 20, 2019 [3 favorites]


The showing I went to was a special "rowdy" showing, which was absolutely the correct way to watch it. It would be impossible to watch if you had to constrain your gaffaws. Or your singing because boy does the end of Mr Mistopheles really get one worked up.

The dancing was absolutely fantastic. One of my legitimately favorite parts was a tap dance scene. Not only was the dancing good, but the other 'cats' were watching the shoes with a kind of nervous excitement that seemed very cat-like.
posted by tofu_crouton at 12:45 PM on December 20, 2019 [8 favorites]


The Smallest Daughter just pointed out that ionized cats would be cations. She's funnier than me but I'm more cunning. For now anyway.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 12:48 PM on December 20, 2019 [33 favorites]


Wait, it's "Heavyside Layer" not "Lair"? That's...much less poetic.
posted by DebetEsse at 2:08 PM on December 20, 2019 [4 favorites]


If someone chucks a bunch of cats in a pond, ain't nobody watching the ripples
posted by ominous_paws at 11:06 AM on December 20 [6 favorites +] [!]


Eponysterical
posted by hanov3r at 2:38 PM on December 20, 2019 [8 favorites]


Thus spake my roommate just now, as we were discussing potentially seeing the film:

"It's something I've been tempted to see, but I think the amount of money I'd have to spend on edibles first would make it not worthwhile."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:59 PM on December 20, 2019 [8 favorites]


"Worryingly erotic"
– Nigel Andrews, Financial Times


See, that was something that really squicked me out when I saw the stage show way back in the day...the uncomfortable eroticism of the thing. It’s not that it’s intentionally erotic (or...ye gods, i hope it wasn’t intentional) but, professional stage dancers in form-fitting cat suits doing cat things with, around, and all over each other...well...it definitely was a furry’s greatest wet dream.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:04 PM on December 20, 2019 [7 favorites]


"It's something I've been tempted to see, but I think the amount of money I'd have to spend on edibles first would make it not worthwhile."

Oh, I dunno. I went to the opening of Tron on purple microdot and came out alive. I say go for it.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:07 PM on December 20, 2019 [10 favorites]


The showing I went to was a special "rowdy" showing, which was absolutely the correct way to watch it. It would be impossible to watch if you had to constrain your gaffaws.

I presume you're referring to the Alamo Drafthouse, cuz they're doing it here in L.A. too, and now I have the only sanctioned opportunity I would take to see this in a theater.
posted by mykescipark at 4:14 PM on December 20, 2019 [2 favorites]


The worse the reviews get, the more I want to see it.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 5:50 PM on December 20, 2019 [17 favorites]


It sounds like this film may have certain flaws.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:00 PM on December 20, 2019 [9 favorites]


I wonder if there's any way on earth we could watch this at the end of the Great Marathon this year....
posted by JHarris at 10:02 PM on December 20, 2019 [3 favorites]


(well, no, not really)
posted by JHarris at 10:02 PM on December 20, 2019


I think the only way I could be more interested in this movie now is if it had been directed by Ken Russell.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 4:30 AM on December 21, 2019 [4 favorites]


Another review to add to the mix, this time it's the UK's Mark Kermode assisted by Simon Mayo (Radio 5 Live, via in-studio camera, on YouTube). I'll gift you just one line, but it's a slow build to the fission you would expect from Kermode.

"It's not even uncanny valley. It's like awkward corner or bewildering basement."
posted by ewan at 3:13 PM on December 21, 2019 [9 favorites]


Wow, I hope I can get to see the original and not the upgrade!
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 4:51 PM on December 21, 2019 [4 favorites]


Guys, I have seen this movie.

Behind us, about halfway through, a woman loudly said "WHAT" in semi-hysterical tones and the whole theater laughed.

I would not recommend seeing this film -- in addition to the uncanny CGI and the nonsensical plot, it's also pretty boring. But if you're going to see it, I highly recommend seeing it with an increasingly horrified and restless audience.
posted by toast the knowing at 5:47 PM on December 21, 2019 [21 favorites]


I saw it completely alone (in a fairly prominent, 200 seat Los Angeles theater at 7 pm on a Friday night-- YIKES) so I had my own personal "rowdy screening" and it was incredible. I lost my mind every time the mice and insects were on screen. I screamed when Ian McKellen was lapping up that bowl of milk. So many buttholes, yet no buttholes at all. Five stars.
posted by acidic at 5:53 PM on December 21, 2019 [27 favorites]


Metafilter: I screamed when Ian McKellen was lapping up that bowl of milk.
posted by JHarris at 7:50 PM on December 21, 2019 [4 favorites]


Somehow in the morass of reviews I've taken in, I've lost track of the one that made me laugh the most. It had a whole section about how the background actors were apparently told to do random catty things to fill space and keep movement, but the camera would then cut to those random actors doing their nonsensical cat-interpretation thing, thus highlighting the absurdity of their creative decisions. So if that rings a bell in anyone's recent reading, please let me know.
posted by mykescipark at 8:23 PM on December 21, 2019 [1 favorite]


A prediction:

This will be the next Rocky Horror.

Furry leotard-clad college-age amateurs prancing and dry-humping each other in front of a movie screen at a Saturday midnight matinee while audience members shout rude song lyrics and throw things at each other.

I say this neither as a condemnation nor as a wish.
posted by delfin at 9:04 PM on December 21, 2019 [10 favorites]


mykescipark, that reminded me of this comment.
posted by trig at 2:11 AM on December 22, 2019 [1 favorite]


Wow, I hope I can get to see the original and not the upgrade!

I had planned to see this later, but upon hearing this news I made a point of seeing it last night (Saturday) just to make sure I saw the original, Dame Judith's ring and all. Although I think it's unfair for the article to mention her "human hand and ring" as a mistake, because IIRC, all the "cats" had human hands, not just Dench. Oh, except they do extend their claws on occasion. If you've ever had a cat, or have been around them much, you know that real cats spread their toes to extend their claws (and if you haven't, here's a slow-mo video where that's easily see), but these Cats their claws just came out spontaneously, Wolverine-style. Except without the cool "snkt" sound.

I thought I was prepared for the creepy CGI from the trailers, but the mouse chorus in Jennyanydots's number was a whole new level of horror.

I did find Ian McKellen's "Gus, the Theatre Cat" genuinely moving, so I'll give the movie that (the song itself, not him lapping up milk). And no wonder McKellen has defended the CGI fur and whiskers in interviews; they seem to look better on him than on the others. Other than that, if you liked the music from the musical, you'll like that here too, except you may or may not like Hudson's take on "Memory," which is only like the climax of the whole thing.

Other than that, yes, gloriously bad. The fact that rather than sort of just mysteriously ascending, Grizzabella is taken up in a chandelier carried by a gas-filled balloon just emphasizes that no, there's no Heaviside Layer, no new life, she's just going to die. In a movie full of WTF moments, that was the biggest WTF to me.

I agree with delfin this will likely become a cult film, possibly a la Rocky Horror, but people may need to bootleg the original version, for maximum mockery potential, if that's never officially released on streaming/Blu-Ray.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 6:04 AM on December 22, 2019 [6 favorites]


mykescipark, that reminded me of this comment.

Oh jeez. The call was coming from inside the house. No wonder. Thank you!
posted by mykescipark at 7:13 AM on December 22, 2019 [1 favorite]



A prediction:

This will be the next Rocky Horror.


Didn't Rocky Horror have decent songs, though?
posted by spoobnooble II: electric bugaboo at 7:37 AM on December 22, 2019 [1 favorite]


Rocky Horror is an amazing film start to finish. It’s a cult classic because it is so good, despite its camp. You take that back.

Cats seems like a monstrosity, more like The Room.

Also I am going to see it today I cannot wait.
posted by chuntered inelegantly from a sedentary position at 8:21 AM on December 22, 2019 [7 favorites]


From DevilsAdvocate's Judi Dench link:

This is just one of several moments Hooper has undoubtedly attempted to clean up after admitting he completed the film hours before the film’s New York premiere last week.

Here's a picture of Judi Dench's un-CGI'd hand in the original version. Hollywood Reporter wrote Universal's decision to send an update of the film out to theaters was "unheard of for a finished film already in release."
posted by mediareport at 11:27 AM on December 22, 2019 [3 favorites]


I just saw this movie. My housemate and I went to a mostly empty showing and lost our freaking minds.

I am a lover of musical theater and have been a professional singer/actor in musical theater, and I hate Cats.

Somehow... somehow this movie is even worse than Cats. They made it worse.

Though I must say Dench, McKellen and a few others really fuckin' commit to it, and are somewhat moving. But what the absolute fuck was that though.
posted by tzikeh at 3:15 PM on December 22, 2019 [11 favorites]


under_petticoat_rule: Wow, I hope I can get to see the original and not the upgrade!

I hope an original version of the movie leaks. I wonder if they've already distributed for screener season (Urban Dictionary). Contrary to that definition of this "season" running January-February, a couple new DVD screeners have already leaked.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:35 PM on December 22, 2019 [2 favorites]


Well. I have been experienced.

somehow - and I have no idea how - this movie manages to both confound and exceed expectations.

It is truly in another plane of existence, deeply beyond such simple categories as “good” and “bad”. I don’t currently regret my experience, but I’m sure I will in the morning. I’m sorry to all my future selves.
posted by chuntered inelegantly from a sedentary position at 8:07 PM on December 22, 2019 [13 favorites]


Metafilter: So many buttholes, yet no buttholes at all.
posted by dephlogisticated at 8:24 PM on December 22, 2019 [8 favorites]


My life partner, who saw this with me because of the internet, just keeps saying over and over “but where did it all go wrong”
posted by weed donkey at 8:42 PM on December 22, 2019 [4 favorites]


The Smallest Daughter just pointed out that ionized cats would be cations
At school, I was taught that the way to remember the charge on a cation was to recall that it was "puss-ative".
Strange to recall that many years after I have forgotten what a cation, in fact, is
posted by rongorongo at 3:42 AM on December 23, 2019 [4 favorites]


the way to remember the charge on a cation was to recall that it was "puss-ative"

I can't tell you how excited I am to share this with my husband the high chemistry teacher tonight.
posted by beandip at 8:08 AM on December 23, 2019 [5 favorites]


Rocky Horror is an amazing film start to finish. It’s a cult classic because it is so good, despite its camp. You take that back.

I thought it was a cult classic because of the amazing culture of audience participation built up around midnight showings.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:06 AM on December 23, 2019


The culture of audience participation would not have built up around Rocky Horror if it wasn’t good.
posted by argybarg at 11:34 AM on December 23, 2019 [1 favorite]


There's nothing in The Rocky Horror Picture Show that was done badly, or even misjudged. It's ultimately rooted in a particular place and time (a gang of out-of-work actors having fun by putting on a show in the tiny upstairs theatre above the Royal Court in the early 1970s), but effortlessly transcends it. It's fun pretty much all the way through, and I don't think I'd want more than that from it.

Now, the sequel, Shock Treatment, is full of a kind of bathos (a lot of those sorts of shows have it) that I quite enjoy but I understand puts many people's teeth on edge. It oddly seems more like the kind of show RHS actually was, and it was mounted in a back-room pub theatre a few years ago, which must have been like coming home.

One thing both films have is Jim Sharman, the director, valiantly battling with the fact that he really didn't have that much money to play with, and both times that works to his advantage.

I can't remember a time when Cats was anything other than a machine for making money, and I think that puts it into the realm of a different set of expectations. It's also always had all the money. Get beneath the surface, though, and there's nothing there - it's a hollow spun-sugar shell. It's odd that while I have nothing but hatred for it, I find I can't take too much pleasure at the widespread humiliation it's brought to the makers of the film.
posted by Grangousier at 12:34 PM on December 23, 2019 [6 favorites]


I've never seen the play so the ending was weird and surprising:

"there's no Heaviside Layer, no new life, she's just going to die. In a movie full of WTF moments, that was the biggest WTF to me."

Every year they all scheme and fight to die by chandelier. That's weirder than any of the tail and CGI stuff.
posted by jojo and the benjamins at 11:58 PM on December 23, 2019 [6 favorites]


Every year they all scheme and fight to die by chandelier. That's weirder than any of the tail and CGI stuff.

I mean, the show is ridiculous, sure, but that's the one fundamental thing about it: the chosen cat gets reincarnated (nine lives, etc,). What makes you think there's no Heaviside Layer or new life awaiting Grizabella?

(NB I am not defending Cats. I'm just curious about this interpretation of the end)
posted by tzikeh at 9:59 AM on December 24, 2019 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: So many buttholes, yet no buttholes at all.

Schrodinger's Cat's Butthole
posted by codacorolla at 10:58 AM on December 24, 2019 [2 favorites]


My life partner, who saw this with me because of the internet, just keeps saying over and over “but where did it all go wrong”


You can make more money with a flop than with a hit!
posted by basalganglia at 1:32 AM on December 25, 2019 [4 favorites]


We saw this yesterday at an Alamo Drafthouse, and as our intoxicants of choice were kicking in during the preshow, came to the sudden, stunning realization that my spouse knew only the song Memories whereas I once had the entire musical memorized due to owning the soundtrack on cassette tape as a child.

I've just informed him that they actually cut a lot of material from the songs (Growltiger certainly, and probably a good choice to skip the Siamese cat racist caricatures I recall from the original) in order to attempt to create some degree of plot through line for the movie, but I'm not sure if he believes me.
posted by deludingmyself at 8:36 AM on December 27, 2019 [2 favorites]


Re: screeners

My partner gets screeners as a member of the regional film critics' guild. Screener "season" starts in November/early December, although the Oscars-specific screeners do go out in Feb (my partner does not get these!). Screeners start coming in November for anything that has been released throughout the year that studios are trying to get awards buzz on, and then as releases are rolling through the weeks in Nov/Dec, screeners typically come in a week or two before the theatrical release. This isn't 100% consistent and it is all at the discretion of the studio, and not every movie sends out screeners. For example, this year the A24 package came mid-November with Midsommar and The Last Black Man in San Francisco (released earlier in the year) among others, and then Uncut Gems (also distributed by A24) came later ahead of the theatrical release. Frozen 2 came a couple weeks after theatrical release. Movies that don't expect to get awards consideration don't typically send screeners.

My partner did not get a Cats screener, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there. He's pretty much at the bottom of the screener priority list as far as these things go. Universal have removed Cats from their "for your consideration" webpage.

I saw this movie on Christmas, which would have been post-FX patch. It was real weird, but I think a lot of that is due to the source material being pretty weird. Being the Christmas season, it occurred to me that it isn't that different in structure from the Nutcracker, with different themed numbers and an audience proxy in the form of an ingenue.
posted by jeoc at 12:23 PM on December 27, 2019


It looks like Universal is abandoning its Oscar campaign for the movie so that makes sense.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:26 PM on December 27, 2019


*...my husband the high chemistry teacher tonight."

I would audit the hell out of this class.
posted by Gorgik at 3:35 PM on December 28, 2019 [1 favorite]


None of the ascended cats have ever returned, right? Then the only reasonable conclusion is that they're dead.
posted by jojo and the benjamins at 8:13 PM on December 28, 2019


I saw this last night with my husband and another couple. They convinced us to go because they wanted to MST3K-it, and we found that really hard to do.

For me, I was alternately bored, entertained, and horrified, and there was no real way of knowing what emotion was coming next. One second I’m grooving along to a tap dance number, then I’m watching two humanoid cats stare into each other’s eyes for a disturbing amount of time, then there’s some shadowy figures running around, then James Corden hacks a hairball on someone, and then a roomful of cats are doing that tail twitching thing that my cat does right before he’s about to mark the furniture. I just couldn’t get a handle on any of it.

Too bad to be enjoyable, too good to truly mock. A solid C.

I did like the CGI work on the ears though. It made me want to go home and nuzzle my kitties’ heads.
posted by chainsofreedom at 12:14 PM on December 29, 2019 [1 favorite]


Cats: An Existential Crisis
posted by JHarris at 1:00 PM on December 29, 2019 [1 favorite]


For me, I was alternately bored, entertained, and horrified, and there was no real way of knowing what emotion was coming next.

So true. Even if I were to watch it again sober, it would still be a profoundly disorienting movie. Which is weird, considering how well I know all the songs, but the directorial choices were just... aggressively frenetic, except when they suddenly weren't.

Maybe the cinematography also went to cat school.
posted by deludingmyself at 9:22 PM on December 29, 2019


My best friend and I saw it, non-sober, and our mutual review was "Well, whatever that was, that's what it is."
Callouts:
* Victoria has very little vocal skills compared to everyone else.
* The dancing was good
* Ian McKellen committed 1000%
* Ugh fat jokes
* Scale? What's that?
posted by matildaben at 4:20 PM on January 2, 2020


So I took 2 edibles, spaced out a bit from each other. The first hit during the opening credits and for the first 2/3 of the movie my reaction was basically "all of this seems normal to me, perfectly logical and natural"

Then I dozed a little and woke up during the crescendo of Magical Mr. Mestophles. The jarring oddness of it hit me all at once and was deeply unsettling.

The next dose hit right around when Judi Dench suddenly and intensely addresses the viewer at the end. I sunk into my seat a little.
posted by sugar and confetti at 4:28 AM on January 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


I think I used up 8 lives tonight, y'all
posted by sugar and confetti at 4:29 AM on January 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


Ugh fat jokes

The super duper annoying thing about this is that James Cordon's fat jokes did not at all fit with the lyrics of his song. The song is all about how happy he is to eat! He is joyful and content with getting rounder and rounder! He sounds downright proud about it, even! And then, halfway through the song, the music stops so he can tell us he's sensitive about his weight?

I mean... We can hear the lyrics when they sing. They know that, right?
posted by meese at 8:24 AM on January 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


A Conversation With The Guy Who Took Mushrooms And Saw Cats.

Instead of taking an edible as I'd planned, I remembered some mushrooms someone had given me a while back and felt like if there was any chance I was going to enjoy Cats on any level, it would be melting into a psychedelic trip – just get weirded out and giggle and maybe make it fun. I was very, very wrong.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:51 PM on January 3, 2020 [8 favorites]


A Conversation With The Guy Who Took Mushrooms And Saw Cats

That's, like, psychological BASE jumping.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 7:06 PM on January 6, 2020 [3 favorites]






Damn, saw this a couple nights ago and can't stop thinking about how powerfully bad it is. It's the kind of bad that makes other things seem just as bad or worse. Right now I think broadway just sucks, maybe all musicals suck, think New York City just sucks, Rebel Wilson definitely sucks and motherfuck the guy who played the grey jellical cat who was around the whole movie. It's so bad it has me genuinely concerned, do cats just suck?!

I assumed that the movie would at least have good music and dance, it's a popular play that's been around for ages, right? So tell me, are all Broadway shows just so bad this passes muster?! OTherwise, how and why has such a crappy story/musical/performance been allowed to run for sooooo long!!!?? There's not a single catchy tune, memorable melody, I couldn't even pick out a single leifmotif. Closest to a decent song is the sappy one that just sounds like a generic 90s Italian restaurant commercial or something. And hell, even if all the songs as written just suck, at least have good musical instruments involved.... but now, it all sounds like some kid plonked it all out on the cheapest keyboard he could buy at walmart.

I mean... We can hear the lyrics when they sing. They know that, right?

No, you have some lucky superpower. The entire movie was nearly indecipherable, I can't think of a time subtitles were more necessary, yet we couldn't have them. In the off chance you do catch a few lines of lyrics... it's gibberish. Ill defined and obtuse gibberish you assume is relevant or important to the plot, maybe it'll be referenced later? Again, NOPE.

Anyway, I had a good time, we went in with the right attitude to have fun but the movie is so much worse than any reviews indicated. I don't even want to see Hamilton now, what if it's just as shit. For the time being, broadway and musical theatre fans are on the same level as Trump voters for me. They've no thoughts or opinions worth sharing or being heard and it's actively harmful to civilization as a whole when they choose to do so.

p.s. special shout out to the camera work, guess they were going for a "drunken" style of shooting to obscure their awful CGI.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:08 AM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]


This movie is only JUST coming out here in Japan this Friday and you had BETTER BELIEVE I will be there on opening night
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:54 PM on January 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


This will be the next Rocky Horror.

Anthony Oliveira (@meakoopa) arranged two live-performance/sing-along showings this past weekend in Toronto, complete with giant Judi Dench head. He's tweeted several pictures and also retweeted many other posts about it.

I've just linked to his Twitter feed because there's no convenient hashtag, so you'll have to go through some non- Cats content too, but it's worth it.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:03 AM on January 20, 2020 [1 favorite]


Link… the jellicle moon rises once again… be careful, Link…

Guys this was a great big thing and I’m pretty sure I enjoyed the experience of watching it a lot, but not for any correct or intended reason

The analog synth was I guess probably meant as a nod to the original stage show, but for me at least it had the bizarre effect of making all the other musical instruments sound fake, and also making Macavity read like the villain of a Dolemite movie

still trying to wrap my head around the fact that the movie has a new song that is just straight up “well actually I’m even sadder than Memories cat,” especially given its placement in the movie, which makes it especially odd given that Memories cat was still granted a ride on Willy Wonka’s great glass elevator after all

Less than an hour out, I already have difficulty recalling anything from the movie, because there is no sense of cause and effect, or narrative flow. It is instead just a series of colors and movements that wash over you like the tide coming in

Occasionally they would accidentally make the movie good by focusing the camera and editing on dancing for long enough for your brain to establish a sense of spatial relationships so that you could enjoy watching some people do a dance, instead of just two-second cuts filled with writhing

the entire cast was cursed by an ancient wizard to be forever just achingly horny but eternally unable to fuck

also why did they change the Mungojerry and Rumpleteaser song

anyway I laughed a lot but never less than when the movie was trying to be funny, and I genuinely don’t know if I would recommend it to anyone, ever, but I had a hell of a time
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:08 AM on January 24, 2020 [3 favorites]


A Cats Musical Diehard Fan Attempts To Autopsy Cats (2019)

The omission of "(2019)" there would change the meaning significantly.
posted by sugar and confetti at 4:41 PM on January 25, 2020 [5 favorites]


Days later, Mrs. Fedora continues to describe the experience, when she attempts to recall it, as being like the movie equivalent of scrolling through Instagram for an hour
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:52 PM on January 26, 2020 [3 favorites]


Cats Flopped and Then Things Got Interesting (Chris Lee, Vulture)

It seems to have found a second life as an experience.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:23 AM on January 29, 2020 [1 favorite]




Some further clarification states there were no intentional buttholes, just suggestive-looking folds.

Assuming that tweet isn't part of a cover-up conspiracy, anyway. (Well, in addition to the conspiracy to cover-up certain bits of anthropomorphic cats.)
posted by ckape at 1:37 PM on March 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'm amazed this thread is still open. It seems like months and months ago.
posted by JHarris at 10:40 PM on March 18, 2020


[Wait, silly me, it HAS been months, this is Fanfare. Never mind.]
posted by JHarris at 10:41 PM on March 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


Cats is eternal
posted by ckape at 7:35 AM on March 19, 2020 [2 favorites]


Now and forever.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:54 AM on March 19, 2020 [2 favorites]


I really, really liked it. I vaguely knew about the play so I didn't have particular expectations. Once one accepts the unusual "humanoid cat design", it's quite delightful. I love to see extremely inventive, non-sensical things on screen, particularly when the set designers/prop makers/CG artists have been given free reign. "Rebel Wilson in an orange CGI furry suit gobbling human-faced cockroaches in scout uniforms" was right in my alley. It's bizarre, whimsical, it does not have a 3-act script, it's different, it's not for everyone, and I understand people disliking it but the hate was out of control in this case. We need weird movies like this.
posted by elgilito at 8:44 AM on March 22, 2020 [1 favorite]


Lindsay Ellis' video on this posted today.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 10:19 AM on April 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


Judi Dench’s British Vogue Interview
Inevitably, conversation drifts to Cats... Dench visibly prickles at its mention. “The cloak I was made to wear!” she cries. “Like five foxes f**king on my back.” Filmed in green screen, and with her eyesight impaired, Dench has yet to see the film in full but was far from pleased at how her Old Deuteronomy turned out looking in the pictures she’s seen. She’d hoped she would look rather elegant. Instead: “A battered, mangy old cat,” she says, appalled. “A great big orange bruiser. What’s that about?”
posted by 1970s Antihero at 8:57 AM on May 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


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