Philling In

I remember when I first saw The Room. It was one of the most grueling experiences watching a movie I ever had. I felt dead afterwards, so thankfully my buddy Nick, who graciously watched it with me, put on Reservoir Dogs, and that became one of my favorite movies of all time. Over time, The Room became a guilty pleasure, for all of the reasons why it’s so entertainingly bad and more. In regards to Cats, well, at least Once Upon a Time in Hollywood exists, so maybe I’ll give that a rewatch sometime, because Quentin Tarantino knows how to save the day with a good movie, and I can now appreciate all of the reasons Cats is so entertainingly and hilariously bad.

Of course, the natural question goes with this movie, like anything else that’s bad, ever since James Rolfe, The Angry Video Game Nerd, first asked it: what were they thinking? The people who made this movie could’ve done anything with the material and instead we got what was released. If you want more background info on this, watch Lindsay Ellis’s video essay (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6iqAip-ZNo; or Hell, just read her Twitter feed), I highly recommend it. But yeah, let’s just say there are so many ways this movie could’ve been bad, and they pretty much checked all of those boxes.

First off, the director Tom Hooper. Now, he’s made some stellar work in the past, but not many movie musicals. In fact, you’d know him from the one movie musical he did, and that’s Les Miserables, which has plenty of problems, but for me, it’s biggest was it had too much singing. Yeah, kinda weird to say about a musical, but in Les Mis’s case, it’s more a matter of how the singing is paced, which is terrible, and it’s no different with Cats. I know I’m gonna get pushback on this, but trust me, the way that stage musicals do their numbers, and the way movie musicals do theirs, is vastly different, and Tom Hooper doesn’t seem to understand this. Stage musicals have curtain calls, intermissions, and other backstage shenanigans to pace out their song and dance numbers. Movies are in constant motion, hence the term motion picture, and so they need to be paced out with talking bits, camera shots, editing, and other stylistic choices to make them stand out.

Second, the source material. And no, I don’t mean the stage musical. I’m talking about the original poetry book by T.S. Eliot, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. That could’ve made for a great anthology feature a la Heavy Metal, Creepshow, or Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, be it animated or live-action. In fact, there was an animated movie in the works back in the 90s, but that got cancelled, and instead we got what was released. But whatcha gonna do when making this movie, base it on a poetry books or the more popular mega-blockbuster musical that’s been selling like hotcakes since the 80s?

Third, the cast of this movie. Now, how’re you gonna get a movie based on a stage musical made with backing from major studios? Fill it with character actors or something? No, you get as many A-listers as you can get, and this movie certainly has it, with Idris Elba, James Corden, Rebel Wilson, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Jennifer Hudson, and let’s not forget the creme de la creme, Taylor Swift (which they really seemed to bank on considering this had an original song co-written by her with Andrew Lloyd Webber). Oh, and this is also Francesca Hayward’s cinematic debut too, I guess, so this movie will be for her what David Lynch’s Dune was for Kyle MacLachlan. But yeah, despite all that, it didn’t go over very well.

Lastly, the visual effects. Now, one of the biggest things talked about for this movie are its visuals, in particular the titular cats themselves. They just look bad. The initial trailers for this looked way worse and the studios knew this, so they forced the animators to refine them (without overtime pay, I might add) and apparently also edit out the buttholes? Wtf? The cats in the stage musical look really cool and stylish. But the movie version looks like something out of H.P. Lovecraft’s wet dreams. Why do the cats have human faces instead of cat faces? Why do they have human hands instead of paws? Why does the movie constantly shift from looking staged to an up close and personal documentary style? Just WHY is this movie?

I’ll tell you why: because we needed it. We NEEDED this movie to exist so we can gather together and enjoy it for all of the reasons it is bad and then some. There needs to be a movie that shows this is NOT how ya do a movie version of a nonsensical stage musical based on a poetry book. But Hollywood and the film industry don’t want that, they want something nice and safe, marketable, potentially profitable, and hopefully win awards. Well, this movie did get attention, didn’t make a lot at the box office (in fact it’s even reported as a loss, big shock), and it certainly won awards (Razzies). So it might not have been the movie the industry wanted, but it’s what everyone NEEDED. And it also became the butt of jokes and will continue to be that for a LONG time.

Speaking of butts, release the damn butthole cut already!