Cats (Tom Hooper, 2019)

[mfunk9786]

I'm anecdotally hearing that this is on the fast track to being the new Rocky Horror Picture Show in that audiences are laughing uproariously, singing along, and really getting into the camp of the whole experience. Which, frankly, is pretty cool in my view. Whenever somebody can make lemonade out of a creative failure it's better than the alternative, although it takes a special kind of strangeness to result in midnight movie status

[Big Ben]

I've been hearing the same. At least one reviewer pointed out that it makes for great ironic viewing and likely has a great future ahead of it if it can be adopted by the right audience. As much as I like to dunk on Cats I think that if can do some good through cult viewings I'm all for it.

[black&huge]

I'm anecdotally hearing that this is on the fast track to being the new Rocky Horror Picture Show

At some point during production I must believe people involved knew this was not such a great idea and thought that sorta reputation was all they could hope for. So the movie wins.

[swo17]

I'm just glad we're all in agreement that RHPS is also an awful film

[Orlac]

Hey, I love it!

[The Curious Sofa]

The Rocky Horror Picture Show isn’t a great film, but for many it was an important film. Where so
many movies of the mid-70s were demonizing and mocking sexual and gender minorities, Rocky Horror was sex positive and playful and prudery and intolerance were the villains. It may not have been very sophisticated in that regard, but it spoke to a huge number people in their late teens/early twenties who came to terms with their sexuality and/or gender identity. The movie was all embracing in that regard and it grew beyond its modest qualities as a film into an important community experience for many who recognised an aspect of themselves in it.

What community does Cats serve ? Cats ? Also, the music in Cats sucks, while Rocky Horror at least has some decent tunes,

[colinr0380]

Rocky Horror Picture Show deserves all the praise it gets, if just for being Christopher Biggins' finest hour among the backing dancers during the Time Warp! And the way that both Little Nell and Richard O'Brien seemed to go on into Derek Jarman's dystopian anti-musical Jubilee! (NSFW)

But the difference is probably that Cats seems like it will be taking itself seriously(?), compared to Rocky Horror. Which might make it funnier of course! (And all the songs in Rocky Horror are fantastic!)

[tenia]

I quite like RHPS too, actually.

[colinr0380]

Here's Mark Kermode's review which I think gets to the core of the issue, which is that it feels that like the photorealistic version of The Lion King, filmmakers are attempting to doing something in a medium that just is not suitable (or even worse, redundant for audiences and seemingly only made because of the 'safe' financial returns a new version of the material will provide). Sometimes the abstraction of animation is more suitable than trying to do a 'real' version that destroys the artifice. The irony is that these kinds of films are probably created by people who feel that showing dancers in leotards, or a puppet horse, just is not suitable to the cinematic medium because audiences will not be able to suspend their disbelief the way that theatre audiences presumably inherently can, and end up producing something even more unsuitable for anyone to view!

And on Kermode's dismissal of Tom Hooper, I think I would generally agree (although Hooper also did a fine, if anonymous, job of directing a couple of episode of the recent BBC His Dark Materials series) but think Hooper has been a director almost destroyed by his material having to get grander and grander. He almost miraculously just about pulled it off with the Les Miserables film (though its not as appealing to me personally when compared to the non-musical versions) but I cannot help but feel that the Oscar sweep for The King's Speech in the end appears to have done him no favours. I think his 2006 film Longford is still a magnificent and (unfortunately) shockingly rare in its humane-ness piece of work and he deserved a great career from that, but everything that came after felt far too 'grand' in scale to retain that sense of truthful emotion. Which is probably why his work moved in the direction of overwrought musicals, over-stylised fantasy material, and material with 'historical import' and about 'issues' to somehow compensate for that lacking of an engaging central core. If there is anyone that needs to do that Steven Soderbergh (or Danny Boyle after The Beach) thing of taking a break and doing a few really tiny and small scale pieces to re-orient themselves again (and no, the Oscar-baiting The Danish Girl does not count), it is probably Tom Hooper.

[Feego]

I think the difference between RHPS and Cats, though, is that while the creators of RHPS may not have anticipated the enduring audience participation, it was a movie that was clearly intended to be tongue-in-cheek and sleazy from the get-go. To me, Cats looks to be on track as the new Mommie Dearest, a film that was conceived with the utmost seriousness to be a major awards contender but that absolutely no one could take seriously. Paramount was smart enough to realize that while Mommie Dearest was in theaters and capitalized on it in their marketing.

[Luke M]

Cats was 4th at the box office on Friday coming in behind Jumanji and Frozen sequels. I think it's doing as well as expected from the reviews.

[The Curious Sofa]

I thought this might be critic proof and prove everybody wrong, but it seems not. Hopefully it will keep Tom Hooper away from musicals from now on.

[Never Cursed]

Cats is without question one of the most embarrassingly incompetent big-budget films I've ever seen, even putting aside the nightmarish design of the characters - the film is straight up not finished. There's the presence of temp effects in multiple shots, the features of characters occasionally change in between shots (I noticed it specifically with Ian McKellen's character), and the sound mix is rough and uneven, frequently being quiet to the point of unintelligibility in group songs, while some solos, like the climactic rendition of "Memory," are ear-bleedingly loud. But that's still in the same realm of technical details as the CGI - I was hoping while going in that the film would rise above being defined by those elements to at least the level of interestingly bad, but it failed at that too. As a musical, this film is a failure in the same way that Tom Hooper's previous musical or the cut number from Vice was a failure - Hooper films around rather than in concordance with the actors and their movements. Everything is shot in deep-focus close ups (no less than three songs are just sequences of two actors singing in shot reverse-shot to each other) or wide shots where it's impossible to tell the cats apart from each other or the scenery, and all the major dance sequences are cut together with a hypnotic, almost Michael Bay-esque rapidity. There are so many talented dancers in this movie, pulling off (I presume) so many elaborately choreographed routines, and every single one of them is wasted because they're impossible to see or track. "Mr. Mistoffelees" is gaining a small reputation on social media as being the only good song in an ocean of bad, and I think that's because it's the sole number to exist in the medium between horrifying visual soup and terrifying unbroken tedium (it actually allows for a nice little visual rhythm to build and for a cute little joke at the end thanks to that rhythm).

Spoiler

And speaking of terrifying: there are a few unsettling aspects of the effects/character design which I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere that I'd like to quickly mention here:
1. Rebel Wilson eats four singing humanoid cockroaches during her number, each with a loud crunch.
2. There's a recurring joke involving small humanoid mice children being violently thrown or dropped onto hard surfaces. Each time this happens, one of them stays lying down wherever they were deposited.
3. Twice in the movie, Rebel Wilson dons a new outfit by unzipping and fully removing the skin on her body, revealing the new outfit underneath. No other cat does this.
4. The final number is sung, Mr. Rogers style, directly to the viewer in an (almost?) unbroken single shot by Judi Dench in close-up.

It is genuinely insulting on the part of Universal that this unfinished and hideously made film has been deemed fit for release and sale. Hopefully, this film's much-deserved catastrophic failure will keep Tom Hooper away from musicals from now on by virtue of ensuring that he never makes anything else.

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks Never Cursed, I've been waiting for a good writeup on this one. Box office report says this made only 2.6 million opening weekend. As someone who detests Hooper, and holds an admittedly unfair resentment towards him for taking both top prizes from Fincher and Social Network back in 2012, his comeuppance is Christmas come early.

[mfunk9786]

...The King's Speech and John Adams were good

[DarkImbecile]

Box office report says this made only 2.6 million opening weekend.

I think you’re just looking at the opening day numbers; estimates are $6.5 million for the weekend, which is still atrocious for a $100 million budget before marketing.

[knives]

...The King's Speech and John Adams were good

I also liked The Danish Girl and some of his BBC stuff especially Elizabeth I. He's not a great filmmaker, but I'd argue him as mostly decent.

[therewillbeblus]

My comments are in jest. I liked The King’s Speech, but I loved the Fincher. It’s a playful resentment and as I said not one stemming from fairness (though what is?) but at the time Fincher was my horse in the race and I felt passionately about him deserving the statue. That was also the year I realized I had to stop taking the Oscars so seriously if I wanted to keep my head.

[Never Cursed]

Certainly not all of his films are on a Cats level of quality (though I can't say I like The King's Speech or The Danish Girl...), but Hooper is also directly responsible for two of the worst musicals in recent memory, so I can't say I'll mourn his loss even a little.

[domino harvey]

Hooper could probably return to television where his mediocrity can be affixed to smaller purse strings and safer projects. I kinda doubt this will be the career killer most commentators are labeling it. I think his days of big budget films may be over for now, but Elizabeth Banks just got signed to direct another big budget film after Charlie’s Angels bombed, so never doubt anyone’s ability in Hollywood to fail up, esp someone with an inexplicable Best Director Oscar

[The Curious Sofa]

No doubt Tom Hooper is a proficient TV director which translates into making middlebrow dramas for the big screen. I guess one problem with Cats was that Tom Hooper has no experience with visual effects. That takes a particular skillet in terms of design and production pipeline. I‘ve worked in visual effects and whenever we had to work with directors with no affinity for that field of work, it spelled trouble. Just from the trailer and stills I’ve never seen anything as disastrous in a big budget film and them still trying to fix the effects after the release is unheard of.

[feihong]

It sounds like something we'll see more of in the future, though. Between this film and Rise of Skywalker futzing around fixing the edit the week before their premiere, it wouldn't be surprising at all if this becomes a totally acceptable addendum to the production schedule for these big-budget movies, since they couldn't possibly delay the picture and miss these fixed premiere dates they set. So I imagine we'll see more of these pictures with post-premiere tinkering, sending new DCPs to theaters a week or more into a theatrical run.

[Nasir007]

It sounds like something we'll see more of in the future, though. Between this film and Rise of Skywalker futzing around fixing the edit the week before their premiere, it wouldn't be surprising at all if this becomes a totally acceptable addendum to the production schedule for these big-budget movies, since they couldn't possibly delay the picture and miss these fixed premiere dates they set. So I imagine we'll see more of these pictures with post-premiere tinkering, sending new DCPs to theaters a week or more into a theatrical run.

This. Now that films are digitally transmitted to the theaters (and no shipping of the film is involved) what is even the limit? The director could finish the cut at 4 PM thursday for a 6 PM audience show.

This is basically pushing movies into the realm of software where you have CICD - continuous implementation continuous deployment. Currently movies have to be downloaded by a theater and then played. Who knows in the future we might even remove that requirement and have them play from a server in the studio (or in the cloud if they can trust security enough). In that case, the director could literally make real time updates - just like you can do with software.

You can already do this with streaming. Like for example the famous starbucks cup in GOT. It was gone in less than a day. Bloopers and mistakes could be erased off now while the movie is in theaters. There's some backlash on twitter - adjustments can be made. There was a funny extra in one crowd scene - can be removed now. One shot is dark - no problem can fix it. This line was hard to hear? Done - raised the volume.

Take this to its logical extreme and you will erase the boundaries between a release cut and WIP. It could all always be in flux. And then always be adjusted for streaming or digital release where most movies will spend eternity.

[colinr0380]

Tom Hooper did just direct the first couple of episodes of the BBC adaptation of His Dark Materials though, which is nowhere near the utter trainwreck that Cats appears to be, and that features lots of CGI of every actor being combined with their 'spirit animal' companion. Perhaps the difference really is material too (even if Hooper was silly enough to attempt doing it), as I doubt Cats could ever have been shaped into something acceptable whatever director had been at the helm.

[The Curious Sofa]

On most TV series a director exerts far less control than on a movie and the decision process gets delegated far more. This is necessary to keep production aspects consistent. Things like character design, art direction, signing off on fx would not have primarily been up to Hooper.