I’ve never seen the musical, and I’m not inclined to, but nowhere near as much as I’m not inclined to see the movie, which is getting terrible reviews.
[Friday-afternoon update]
“I watched Cats, and I have some questions.”
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[Saturday-morning update]
Follow the whole thread.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Here’s the unroll for that thread. RTWT.
[Update Sunday afternoon]
Universal notifies theaters that the movie will be “updated” for special effects. For a film already in release.
[Update a few minutes later]
This is one of the longest-running Broadway musicals. Can anyone tell me if there is a single memorable song in it other than “Memor<del>y</del>ies”? It seems to me that it’s like Les Miserable; apparently tunes aren’t important in musicals any more.
[Wednesday-afternoon update]
OK, here’s another Twitter review.
And here’s a review of the software update.
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[Saturday afternoon update]
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“‘Cats’ is the second-worst thing to ever happen to New York City.” – Ollie Trinkie, Jersey Girl
Between “Cats”, “Rise of Palpatine”, and “Bombshell”; I’m glad “Joker” just came out on digital release.
But is it worse than the last 10 minutes of Kubrick’s 2001?
When 2001 was released, many theaters still allowed smoking. The people who enjoyed the movie the most were not smoking tobacco. They might have also been using other enhancements like LSD.
“Cats” in the form of the Grizabella character, the aging, washed up Glamour Cat, the one who is selected (SPOILER WARNING) to be sent to the Heaviside layer is what life and aging and reflecting on the glories as well as embarrassments of one’s youth along with contemplating what lies ahead and regrets of what could been.
C’mon guys, what is there not to like about it? The meaning of life. That and a lot of slender young women in cat suits.
What the hell, man?
I loved the musical, both in a recorded version and when I saw it on the stage. I haven’t seen the movie but the trailers certainly make me want to see it; and if I really want to see a movie, I see it, despite the critics–if I can afford a ticket. Harder and harder to do these days.
The musical is entirely dependent on the theater environment, wholly lost on film or video. On the other hand, if you could make a movie in which the entire cast was real cats, that’d be worth seeing. 10 to 1 it’s already on YouTube…
…. so in other words Cats has gone to the dogs?
Maybe they should have had Rankin/Bass do it.
The uncanny valley is strong in this one.
They didn’t just cross into the uncanny valley. They parked and then took a sightseeing tour of various corners of that valley.
I don’t get the Uncanny Valley part. To me, the cast look like humans in body stockings with glued-on fur.
Humans in body stockings. Female humans in body stockings. Young, physically fit female humans in body stockings.
Yeah, also male humans in body stockings — not that there is anything wrong with that!
The male felines had clothes over their body stockings.
Tina Fey’s The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Season 4, Episode 11, has an absolutely hysterical take on Cats. One of the main series characters is an aspiring theater actor, the flamboyantly gay Titus, who one day puts on a homemade cat costume, walks onto the stage during a Cats performance, and sings a bunch of nonsense – and is a complete hit. Afterword, the rest of the cast appear to confront him, but actually congratulate him – because that’s all Cats has ever been! And they celebrate a “new kitten” being born!
It’s on Netflix, free, and worth the watch. I really liked the series, as I’ve liked almost everything Fey has written. This one is a classic.
Your comment about tunes not being important anymore caught my attention. That’s a keen observation.
On one hand, I enjoyed and still enjoy the soundtracks of Les Mis and Phantom, for example. They have several quite evocative pieces. But then I realized they aren’t detachable from the narrative setting at all. by comparison, Cats’ score is inferior overall to either of them but got that one song, Memory, vaulted for years into the public imagination and onto radio airplay including cover versions, like the all-important Streisand cover, and it was first heard by some number of people who hadn’t even heard of Cats and/or never went to see it. By that standard, Cats beat most other modern musicals hands down, which never manage that feat.
I guess the signature song from Miss Saigon had a brief heyday, but in no way comparable.
Compare classic pre- and postwar musicals. Possibly everyone who hummed those tunes knew the sources and remembered the stories, I don’t know, but the tunes took on decades of lives of their own just the same. Though probably not more than one or two numbers per show, if that. Still, advantage: old school musicals.
Have to disagree about Phantom, which I think has beautiful music (though you’re right that its songs don’t work outside of the story). But Les Mis I just found tuneless, other than I Dreamed A Dream, which I still find mediocre. But I also find it interesting that both are considered “musicals” when they’re really opera (good opera in the case of Phantom, lousy opera in the case of Les Mis).
Interesting. I think I agree that Phantom is the superior of the two- It’s tunes [music of the night, especially] bear repeat listening and could also stand up as an instrumental suite far better than those of Les Mis, and although still essentially inseparable from thoughts of their source, can be listened to for pleasure more easily.
From Les Mis, I agree the best candidate would be a I Dreamed a Dream, although the narrative-inseparable Stars is my actual favourite thing in that show. By any performer except Russell Crowe, who acted Javert well enough but sings poorly.
I always assumed the American broadway musical could be considered an heir of operetta or even comic opera more generally. Where the line is has always been vague to me, other than geography. Do Les Mis and Phantom count as opera simply by being dramatic subjects?
This song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSwuJlV9VE4 Last Night of the World from Miss Saigon, got some decent FM airplay in Toronto at least, back in the day. Still seems catchy, but googling without the title was surprisingly difficult, so I guess it’s more obscure now.
Musicals are plays interspersed with songs. Opera is continuous music. Either can be comedic or tragic.
For example, Carousel is probably the best musical about domestic abuse ever made…
Ah- then yes, the “through sung musical” is just opera, good or bad.
Another modern-ish musical tune that managed to get some memory space and radio play but is inseparable from its source- “Don’t Cry for me, Argentina”, from Evita.
“One Night in Bangkok” did well from Chess.
By the way, there is a difference between Phantom and Phantom of the Opera. The former is the stage version of the NBC mini-series.
“This is one of the longest-running Broadway musicals. Can anyone tell me if there is a single memorable song in it other than “Memory”?”
I can’t remember one. Of course, I can’t remember “Memory”, either.
It’s for furries. Can’t figure out why it’s so strange? Then you dont know what furries are but you soon will as fury rights campaigns take place with all the other things Democrats organize for. Yup, the same people who think Trump saying mean things us destroying society and want to order you how to live a more moral life.
‘Cats’ isn’t about cats. It is about representative members of social classes in Victorian London. So, like ‘My Fair Lady’ without a romance plot. Or compare to characters in the Sherlock Holmes or Dickens stories. You got the literal fat cat of the upper class who belongs to so many clubs – 8 or 9?- he has lost count. Mycroft. You have a pair of juvie vandal/thieves carrying on the Artful Dodger tradition. You got a master criminal. Moriarty. You got prideful but generous blue collar railway workers who run everything precisely on time. You got Chinese immigrants who haven’t quite assimilated yet . . .
It can’t and shouldn’t be modernized or transplanted to another time and culture.
I always saw it as “West Side Story” meets “Top Cat.” Where is Officer Dibble when you need him? For that matter, how many people know the correct English rendering of the Irish word “dibble?”