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March 28, 2024, 11:18:32 AM

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oh fuck oh no look at this cats film

Started by VelourSpirit, July 18, 2019, 11:27:43 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Bad Ambassador

Quote from: peanutbutter on January 08, 2020, 11:29:28 AM
I can go to this for free I think, one friend has said I must go but it sounds like it might be best as a group thing and I'd be going alone.

Should I go?
Should I take mushrooms beforehand?

There's an article doing the rounds about someone who took mushrooms before seeing and would up having to be guided out halfway through because everything was becoming a cat.

olliebean

Well, I saw it, and I think this film is a perfect example of how CGI (or at any rate bad CGI) is ruining cinema. It would have been a much better film if they'd just given the actors good costumes and make-up and filmed them in real sets, even if nothing else had been changed. As it was, I was constantly distracted by the weird effect that kept occurring of the face of the actor seeming to be pasted onto the body, and the body seeming to be pasted onto the set (and often quite obviously having been replaced by a mo-capped CGI puppet). Not to mention my attention being drawn away from the actors' faces every time their CGI ears moved, or constantly being distracted by the unnatural motions of their CGI tails during the dances.

There were other things wrong with it as well, such as making Macavity some sort of sorcerer instead of just a criminal mastermind, and the camerawork and editing often being reluctant to show the dancing to best effect - but the CGI was definitely the main problem. For years now I've lamented the fact that stunts in action movies - particularly in the superhero genre - rely too much on CGI actors, thus detaching them from the feeling of existing in physical reality that they used to have (even if making use of wires and other devices, and clever editing to portray physically impossible feats). Now it seems that disease has spread to dancing. I hope to god it's a one-off mistake.

On the qualified plus side, most of the performances were good (really only Rebel Wilson, and to a lesser extent James Corden, didn't measure up), which made it more of a shame that they were interfered with by the CGI. The new song was quite nice, but mainly because it reminded me of other things that Lloyd Webber has probably cribbed it from. Oh, and Jennifer Hudson wasn't as snotty as I'd been led to believe (and I'm pretty sure that snot was applied in make-up, btw).

popcorn

Quote from: olliebean on January 08, 2020, 09:42:39 PM
Well, I saw it, and I think this film is a perfect example of how CGI (or at any rate bad CGI) is ruining cinema. It would have been a much better film if they'd just given the actors good costumes and make-up and filmed them in real sets, even if nothing else had been changed.

It seems like such a wasted opportunity, doesn't it? The theatrical costumes and makeup are so famous (I remember Konnie Huq putting the garb on for Blue Peter and I felt weird) it would have been perfect fodder for a big old-fashioned Hollywood wardrobe department to go to town.


Quote from: olliebean on March 19, 2020, 08:19:46 AM
IMPORTANT INFORMATION: https://twitter.com/benmekler/status/1240345895524167681



Hahaaha much-needed belly laugh at that last line. Imagine a review meeting where the one constant agenda burbling under the surface is spotting things on fake cats that might look like a fanny. Brilliant.

gilbertharding

Presumably, and disappointingly, that is the American meaning of 'fanny'.

mjwilson

Not necessarily,  they do mention lady genitals earlier in the message.

olliebean

The important sentence is "as typical with heavy cg movies." Somewhere in Silicon Valley is a vault full of Pixar's inadvertent butthole scenes.

gilbertharding

Not just buttholes, either, presumably (if we accept that they have adopted transatlantic definitions of 'fanny').

SteveDave

We lasted 40 minutes of this and then abandoned it. Fucking awful. I can't believe we lasted until AFTER James Corden arrived gaying it up for the gays.

Poobum

#220
Brilliant vid from Lindsey Ellis, worth watching even if you know nothing of the Cats, like me. Full of treasure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6iqAip-ZNo

Also never knew Steve Pemberton was in Cats.


olliebean

I think the filmed version of the original stage production is due to be put up on YouTube for free at some point in the coming weeks. I reckon it's a lot better than Hooper's version.

Ferris

Quote from: Poobum on April 03, 2020, 07:58:04 PM
Brilliant vid from Lindsey Ellis, worth watching even if you know nothing of the Cats, like me. Full of treasure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6iqAip-ZNo

Always found her a bit too LE EPIC INTERNET MEMER for me.

Dewt

I skipped through the video and some of it was good but did she really need the "quoting bad reviews from the Internet" bit to go on for five minutes or whatever? We've all read most of them anyway.


garbed_attic

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on April 03, 2020, 08:23:28 PM
Always found her a bit too LE EPIC INTERNET MEMER for me.

In the first two minutes there are visual quotations from both Segundo de Chomón's A Panicky Picnic and Jiří Barta's Krysař though so she clearly has a brilliant eye for which older avant-garde content is perfect meme fodder.

alan nagsworth

Quote from: olliebean on March 19, 2020, 08:19:46 AM
IMPORTANT INFORMATION: https://twitter.com/benmekler/status/1240345895524167681



A bit cunty of them to blame the guy from Gorillaz for not covering up a load of cat minge

Blumf

Quote from: Poobum on April 03, 2020, 07:58:04 PM
Brilliant vid from Lindsey Ellis, worth watching even if you know nothing of the Cats, like me. Full of treasure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6iqAip-ZNo

Quiet like this Maggie Mae Fish examination of poetic source of Cats, T.S. Eliot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tYcPuVYDHw

Ant Farm Keyboard

Somebody has put together a trailer for a version that would restore the buttholes. Frankly, it's the only way to get entertained by this movie.

https://youtu.be/Mx0NLGcL6pI

Replies From View

Quote from: olliebean on April 03, 2020, 08:15:00 PM
I think the filmed version of the original stage production is due to be put up on YouTube for free at some point in the coming weeks. I reckon it's a lot better than Hooper's version.

Maybe Hooper's version was actually viral marketing for a film of the stage version which remains, to be generous, a weak musical with dreadful songs.

Dr Syntax Head


olliebean

Quote from: Replies From View on April 08, 2020, 12:05:54 PM
Maybe Hooper's version was actually viral marketing for a film of the stage version which remains, to be generous, a weak musical with dreadful songs.

It's not so much a musical as a dance show with songs, to be fair.

Replies From View

Quote from: olliebean on April 08, 2020, 05:52:29 PM
It's not so much a musical as a dance show with songs, to be fair.

Historically shit songs, to be fair.

olliebean

Oh I don't know, I quite like Macavity and the one about Grizabella that isn't Memory.

Dewt

Quote from: Ant Farm Keyboard on April 07, 2020, 09:51:00 PM
Somebody has put together a trailer for a version that would restore the buttholes. Frankly, it's the only way to get entertained by this movie.

https://youtu.be/Mx0NLGcL6pI
They didn't have the comedy instinct to make a single one of the buttholes do a well-timed toot with a visible gust.

dissolute ocelot

#235
I just watched this, not expecting much except a bit of silliness and bright colours, and wow it is bad in basically every department. Aside from the weird-looking fur, most of it looks like a filmed stage version. I'm tolerant of weird-looking characters and cartoon animals unzipping their fur, I just wish there was more of that. The Rebel Wilson sequence is the only one with any kind of visual invention (despite dodgy CG), and most of the time it's content to film people from the waist up standing very still and singing. And cats don't even have waists.

I don't know if it's due to the technical limitations, but there's a lack of close-ups and most characters look like they've been botoxed, with most of their faces immobile - some (e.g. Dench) are able to emote with their mouths but generally there's less visible emotion than if you were watching dancers from row ZZ. The main form of humour is fat jokes but James Corden is one of the better performers as he gives his cat a personality - it's deliberately annoying but it's a personality. Francesca Hayward (the audience surrogate cat) looks mildly surprised for 90 minutes.

For variation, some of it is shot steadycam style and the framing is terrible - when dancing is one of the major features of a film surely you should be able to see people dance, and their feet. When you see the dancing it's good, but it's photographed and edited very badly. Also the camera operator seems to have been unaware that the cats would have ears added in post-production, because most of the time they're cut off. Never mind buttholes, show us the fucking ears. Tails also are underused.

The soundtrack sounds like it was recorded by a 5-person band in a provincial theatre. Get a fucking orchestra or a good producer. There aren't nearly enough dancers for the big scenes. There's nothing happening in the background of scenes (no attempt at funny business or showing a city that has people or other animals). The plot is perfunctory and badly done, even in comparison to most musicals. A lot of the songs suck, are half-assed Sprechgesang that never really gets going. The CG sets are ok aside from lack of movement, but some special effects are very lame - there's a hot air balloon which has quite a nice basket but they barely show the actual balloon; cats disappear in a boring way; Macavity has an evil boat that looks like something from Histor's Eye; Magical Mister Mistoffeles's magic would look shit next to Paul Daniels.

In summary, it doesn't even work as a hate-watch. It's just inept. And boring. Afterwards I watched the Elvis 68 tv special, which is terrible in many ways, but they know to do close-ups on the star, they know how to point a camera at dancers, Elvis sure as fuck knows how to perform on camera, and it manages to keep things lively and interesting with camera movements, cutting, variations in staging and costumes, and people going into and out of the frame. Cats seems like they tried a couple of fancy sequences early on but ran out of money and just did the rest on an empty stage with special effects from ancient Dr Who episodes. Tom Hooper is one of the few directors who's never shot a music video and it shows.

Sorry, just wanted to get that off my furry, glitchy chest stuffed with cat boobs.

olliebean

Quote from: dissolute ocelot on September 21, 2020, 10:01:08 AM
I just watched this, not expecting much except a bit of silliness and bright colours, and wow it is bad in basically every department. Aside from the weird-looking fur, most of it looks like a filmed stage version.

FWIW, the filmed stage version is much better.

EOLAN

Quote from: olliebean on September 21, 2020, 11:26:41 AM
FWIW, the filmed stage version is much better.

Same with Newsies (although the film came first).

olliebean

Quote from: EOLAN on September 21, 2020, 04:53:42 PM
Same with Newsies (although the film came first).

Also any of the filmed stage versions of Les Mis (there are at least three, I think), to bring things back to the work of Tom Hooper, who quite evidently doesn't "get" musicals.

Blumf

There seem to be a lot of big musical films that have had shite treatments. The Wiz, Xanadu, The Greatest Showman.

Seems Hollywood lost the knack back in the early 70s.

They always seem to get directors who don't seem to have a clue how to film big musical numbers.