The Big Picture - 'Cats': Seriously, WTF? | The Big Picture

Episode Date: December 20, 2019

Tom Hooper's adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's smash musical hit has finally come to movie theaters and … well … yikes. Sean and Amanda break down the history of Webber's show and its enormous impact on Broadway. Then they take a closer look at the characters, the confounding production design and costumes, and just generally have a meltdown about the absurdity of this enterprise. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelley, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Over the holidays and into the new year, we'll still be publishing new shows to keep you up to speed with the NFL playoff race, the NBA, and awards season. We've published some great episodes in the month of December, including two rewatchables on Happy Gilmore and The Godfather Part II, Chris interviewed Watchmen showrunner Damon Lindelof on The Watch, and the Ringer NBA show ranked the top 25 players of the 2019-2020 season so far. Lastly, happy holidays from The Ringer. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins.

And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about these motherfucking cats. That's right. It's time to talk about one of the last and certainly one of the most bizarre releases of 2019. Tom Hooper's Cats is here. And boy, oh boy, is this a dog baby of a movie, Amanda. We had a sense that this was going to be at least a peculiar film. I think it turned out to be certainly worse and a little bit more even confounding than we expected.

Let's just give me some quick emotional reaction to the movie Cats before we give you the long arc of the movie Cats. What and why? And how and why me? And what again? You and I were expecting to be baffled. I can't say that I was looking forward to this. I know that the trailer came out and this became a fun thing on the internet because it was so ridiculous. And there were lots of memes. And people were looking forward to this as a sort of going to be so bad and absurd that it's good. Everyone likes to pile on. And I confess I was not really in on that train because I was just extremely disturbed by everything in the trailer.

And I was like, it's not my taste. But I thought maybe we would go to the movie and there would be some fantastical absurdity and bad choices and we would have a great time. And did you have a nice time, Sean? I'll be honest. I was relentlessly bored. I thought it was incredibly boring. It was so boring. Yeah, and I didn't know what to expect.

And I think that that's kind of an interesting way to set the stage for our conversation about this movie, which is that you and I don't really have a relationship to Cats the musical. We have lived in New York. We're familiar with the fact that there is a musical that features cats. This is untrue. I have seen Cats the musical. What? When did you see Cats?

When my first trip to New York, my parents took little performing arts Amanda. How old were you? To New York. I couldn't have been more than 10. I might have even been eight. Okay. And they took me and we went to New York. I grew up in Atlanta.

It was like a very big deal to get to go to New York. And we went to see Broadway shows and we saw Guys and Dolls. And I believe we saw Les Mis. I might be conflating trips here. So, you know, you can fact check me if you want or don't. It's my own memories. But we definitely saw Cats. Oh, I misunderstood. So you have seen this musical. And it was one of the most scarring and upsetting experiences of my life because, you know,

what one of my greatest fears is. You kind of know this having dealt with me in real life. Audience participation. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I hate it. I don't want to be called on. I don't want the performers to interact with me. I would like a boundary. Don't touch me ever. Do the cats touch you? Yes, they go down the aisle and they kind of, they do their weird dancer cat moves and they like lean over the chairs.

And I think I had an aisle seat. I mean, this, it's like a really vivid sense memory of sitting in the chair and like some actor in a unitard and cat whiskers just being too close to me. And it was extremely upsetting. So I don't think I realized that that was your relationship to it.

The only relationship that I had to it growing up was seeing commercials for it on local television every day of my life. Cats now at the Winter Garden Theater is something that I've probably heard 500 times just from watching local NBC news or a football game on Fox in the afternoon. It was an omnipresent, it was an ever-present piece of pop culture that I never wanted to participate in. Not because I don't like the theater. I love going to the theater. But there was always something understood, whether it was in my family or otherwise, that Cats is for tourists and it's kitsch. And it's not camp,

it's kitsch. And there is a difference between those two things. And it just didn't seem fun to me. I didn't want to participate in it. Lo and behold, after we saw the movie, we started doing a little bit of research into the history of Cats. And I will say, I'm kind of amazed by this show's legacy and power because it is truly one of the three or four greatest phenomenons in musical theater history. It is one of the most profitable things that's ever been put on stage. And it has clearly been suffused into people's lives in a way that I completely misunderstood. Now, I knew about memories and I knew some of the classic songs

just because you can't avoid them in the culture. But maybe we can talk about the history of the show a little bit here. So where did Cats come from? It's a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. And Andrew Lloyd Webber adapted some poems by T.S. Eliot called Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, published in 1939. I believe he wrote them for like nieces and nephews or godchildren or similar and then published them. And Andrew Lloyd Webber was like, what I'll do is turn this into a musical. A confounding choice. Now, a lot of Andrew Lloyd Webber's most successful musicals are collaborations with Tim Rice, who would write the book for them. And, you know, he has a kind of supercharged, rock operatic, highly emotional, kind of corny

approach to musical theater and storytelling. You know, it's been a year of Sondheim in many ways, the movies. We've talked about that in Marriage Story and in Knives Out and elsewhere, The Morning Show. Yes, thank you. It has not been an Andrew Lloyd Webber year. It has not really been an Andrew Lloyd Webber century as far as movie musicals goes.

His movie musicals appeared in the 70s and 80s more frequently. Cats is different than some of those other Andrew Lloyd Webber shows, though, because it is only based on this T.S. Eliot poetry, which is loopy and silly and meant for children. There's a nursery rhyme quality to it. And silly is a great word. And I think really the crucial thing is that there's no goddamn plot. Yes. Well, I'll read you what the plot is a great word. And I think really the crucial thing is that there's no goddamn plot. Yes.

Well, I'll read you what the plot is meant to be. Yes. Which is that this book and this show tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles. And the night they make the, quote, Jellicle choice, deciding which cat will ascend to the Heaviside lair, essentially heaven, and come back to a new life. What the hell? I don't know. You heaven, and come back to a new life. What the hell? I don't know. You know, I mean, I don't know. I don't know.

I spent a lot of time in the movie being like, so is this about how cats have nine lives, but they want to have a different life? Yes, I was thinking the same thing. They don't explain any of that. No. And I definitely was like, okay, what's the Jesus element of this? Like, are these the apostles? Like, what's going on?

I can't really say the text supports that, either T.S. Eliot's poetry or anything that I saw in the movie. But I was just trying to make some sort of meaning after this, out of this thing that has, like, literally no meaning. One interesting fact, I read a very helpful New York Times article about all the things that you don't know. So the whole Jellicle choice and Heaviside layer is not actually in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Like even T.S. Eliot didn't include that in his published poetry. They just, it was like a little piece of work that he did on the side or a separate thing.

And when they realized that they had literally no plot in Cats as it existed, they borrowed it from some unpolished work. Okay, it was very strange. That's a lot of time spent with the works of T.S. Eliot, a complicated artist in his own right. You know, there's also a famous story about this show, which is that Hal Prince, who's sort of one of the granddaddies of modern theater, asked Andrew Lloyd Webber what this show is about.

He implicated, you know, is this about sort of the history of the British monarchy? Is it about London at a certain time? You know, who are these characters supposed to represent historically? And Andrew Lloyd Webber said, no, it's just about cats. This is just a show about cats. Which, like, I guess that's why it is successful? I guess so. I guess screw metaphor.

What we want is animals. It's hard for me to understand the phenomenon of this show, but here's some context for the phenomenon of the show. It premiered in 1981 in the West End at the New London Theater. And then it came to Broadway shortly thereafter. I think in 1982, the show opened. It's one of the longest running shows of all time. On June 19th, 1997, Cats overtook a chorus line to become the longest running show in Broadway history with 6,138 performances.

At the time, this is 22 years ago, the musical was found to have had an economic impact of $3.2 billion on New York City and it generated the most theatrical jobs of any single entity in Broadway history. When it closed, it had run for almost 7,500 shows. That's just amazing. And I hate it. I can't believe how phenomenological this is and how silly it is. Do you think it's one of those things where people go because they're like, you can't believe this,, this is a real thing. And then you think people are genuinely responding. Is that just because people like cats and don't want something complicated?

Is this like the Michael Bay of musicals? You know what I mean? Where there's just like, it's all surface and absurdity. And it's not Deep Man? Well, I would say that Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals in general have a kind of spectacle quality. You know, like his shows are like Miss Saigon has a helicopter in it. You know, that's not normal of traditional musical theater. That's not Fiddler on the Roof exactly. So I think that there is something spectator about it that

draws people in. Obviously, even in the musical theater version of Cats, the costuming and the dance style, the choreography, it has a visual panache that a lot of shows don't have. A great show like Guys and Dolls doesn't have. Guys and Dolls lives and dies by the charisma and the charm and, it's, you know, it's narrowed to those things. Cats is all outsized. And that must be one of the reasons why it works so well. It feels like money well spent, maybe, because you can see the money on stage. I couldn't disagree more.

I think that ends me trying to be empathetic with cats and why people like cats. I just don't get it. I was horrified by it. So I thought one of the most fascinating and disappointing aspects of this, having never seen the show before, is that this is a sung through musical. Oh, God. This is a musical essentially with no dialogue, maybe five to 10 lines of dialogue in the whole movie. And otherwise otherwise everyone's just singing the whole time now that's not always bad there are a handful of examples of that on film that work well i think i've got the umbrellas of sherborg here jacques de meuse film which is beautiful but i you know hamilton also famously is a sung through musical and has

obviously been the new cats in many ways. This sort of the dominant show, Broadway show of its time. But this is what Andrew Lloyd Webber does. Almost all of his shows are sung through. So Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Evita, which is good. Jesus Christ Superstar, Miss Saigon, which we mentioned. Starlight Express. Have you seen Starlight Express?

I haven't. The roller skating one. I know of it, but I haven't. It's completely ludicrous. And it just, it feels wrong. It feels wrong to watch people do this. I don't know what to say. I'm sure people will hate that we're saying that.

But in this show in particular, I was like, you guys got to help us out. You're using a lot of words that we don't understand. There's hardly any plot here. And what plot there is, is confounding. And it's not beautiful or interesting or exciting enough to justify this approach. I can't express to you how disappointed and upset I was when I realized about 12 minutes in that they weren't going to talk.

And I didn't know. And, you know, they stacked the songs up one against each other. And I was like, all right, you know, just grabbing our attention, a lot of music. And then I was like, oh, no, they're not going to sing. I mean, they're not going to talk. It doesn't work for me. Here's one reason why. I'm not good at listening to words and songs. So I just like I'm not. It's not what I listen to. I listen to the music. And so I was like, well, I, it's not what I listen to. I listen to the music. And so I was like, well, I'm never going to know what's happening. I think, you know, the opening song is called like Jellicle Cats or something.

And they just like list cats. And it took me a good seven minutes to just be like, they're just saying different types of cats. But then I was like, did I miss something? Did they say something else? Are they explaining what these cats mean to me? One of the manias of this movie and this show is that it's essentially a list show. It's just people saying who they are and what what they are into. And that's it. Like the absence of plot, the sort of like, hey, I'm this kind of cat and I got I got tap dance shoes on and I'm just tapping away.

Like that isn't, that runs out of steam fairly quickly. It's a musical review more than it is like a narrative. Right. But pulling with original songs, not like gathering songs that you've loved for years and then integrating. It's not like integrating the songs of Cole Porter into a beautiful story. It's original compositions drawn from poetry that are nonsensical. Right. And the music also doesn't really do anything narrative, except for Memories, which is a very beautiful song.

But, you know, like, to compare to opera, which is also sung through the entire time, but number one, there's plot. And number two, even, you know, the music gives you a mood and a sense of where you're going. You can just go on a journey while listening to it. This, honestly, it's just like a bunch of cats singing. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's described as a song cycle.

And one of the things that it does that happens in a lot of Andrew Lloyd Webber's shows is there are sort of preludes and reprises and motifs throughout. So that's sort of the Jellicle cat, the idea of what this community of cats that they're discussing. And I guess like a society, if you wanted to put a metaphorical lens on the movie, you probably could, even if it wasn't the intention, is repeated throughout the movie. It's kind of called back to and referenced time and again. But usually when you're doing that, you're doing that to make a point. And in this case, it just feels ornamental. It doesn't really feel like it's adding anything to the story. I feel like we're already

conferring too much egg-headedness to this affair. Like, this is one of the most absurd major motion pictures that I've ever seen. This movie costs

$95 million. That's insane. It's directed by Tom Hooper, who, regardless of what you think of Tom Hooper, and I'll say I'm not a fan, but is one of the most sort of decorated and successful filmmakers of the 21st century. He made The King's Speech, which won Best Picture. He won Best Director for The King's Speech. He

made Les Miserables. He made The Danish Girl. These are very big, quote unquote, prestigious films. Now, they're the exact kind of prestigious films that I do not like. So it's not surprising that this dumb material and this filmmaker coming together made for something that I find deeply strange and perhaps a sign of the apocalypse. But I still can't wrap my head around why he wanted to do this and why this had to be a movie. What do you think? Why do you think this exists? I really don't know. I don't know. I don't understand this at all.

I mean, Tom Huber directed Les Miserables, which I guess was some people commercially successful. Obviously, Anne Hathaway won an Oscar for it. I thought it was terrible. And I really like Les Mis. I think that he has a really boring style of shooting musicals, which is just a really tight close-up while someone belts out a very loud song and then otherwise just kind of moves the camera around

to try to create the motion of the choreography, and it doesn't work at all for me. Also, talk about the dark colors, and it's really not my palette at all. But I guess they needed something because this seems to me like a Greatest Showman redux. I think you said that, that that is the plan. Greatest Showman was a surprise hit release at the same time. And the kind of silly, fun family, hopefully people will go to it. And they got Tom Hooper because he handled another Broadway musical with, I don't know, commercial success. Yeah, that makes it seem like it's easy,

but this is such an actually difficult thing to pull off. Like regardless of the quality, the choices that they've made to execute this movie are kind of extraordinary. Not only is it packed with famous people, not only is it based on something that has been immensely valuable to the history of musical theater, but it's about people dressed like cats. So they have to look like cats. Now, one of the failures of the movie is that they don't look like cats. They look like human beings with hands and human faces. And also, one thing, when I was in Las Vegas for CinemaCon in April,

Universal's big presentation ended with a kind of sneak peek at cats, the making of cats, a behind-the-scenes featurette. And there was a lot of time spent on how they got things to scale. They didn't! It's not to scale! I turned to you during the movie, I was like, the cats are too small. They're too small. Even if you're trying to make like small cats in big sets, their proportions are wrong. They're like baby cats.

They're like micro cats. It's a very strange choice. There's one scene where the main cat and her new friend, I didn't learn their names. I'm not going to learn their names. Her name is Victoria. That's not a cat name. Okay. Well, we'll get to the characters. Don't worry. I didn't learn their names. I'm not going to learn their names. Her name is Victoria. That's not a cat name. Okay, well, we'll get to the characters. Don't worry.

I got a lot of questions. They're like leaned up against a door. And it's just, and they're kind of sitting up. You know how sometimes real cats like sit like humans with their legs played out and their arms kind of like on their fake lap? That's not how humans lay out. That's how you lay out, I think. Sure. No, but I mean, it's like as

if that they as if I don't know, they're kind of folded and they're doing this against the door, which I guess is, as you point out, is more a human thing than a cat thing. But they're just not high enough on the door for where a cat would be. They're creepy cats, creepy baby cats. I wonder if at some point someone realized what was going on but was just afraid to tell Tom Hooper, like, dude, the scope here, the size is just not correct. You just didn't get

the scale correct. It's actually quite confusing because there is a sequence later in the film that features both mice and cockroaches, which is maybe the most brain-melting thing I've ever seen. Like queasy, queasily sickening and terrifying, like way worse than any grotesque horror movie to me.

I was like, I'm just disgusted by this. I'd want to be ejected from this movie immediately. I just, it was so CGI'd and like you could, all of their perspectives and people were so shoddily pasted together. I was like, oh, I can see the various screens and where you're all standing and I can see you without all of your stuff that I wasn't scared. I was just like, this is bad. This is poorly made. Yeah, I thought a lot of that, a lot of the sort of production aspect of the movie just wasn't very strong aside from even the scale stuff. I did think that the choreography was

pretty good and I did think that the dancing was pretty good i did it did feel however like tom hooper does not know how to shoot dance choreography at all too frequently you couldn't really tell what people were doing in the frame because he was using that close-up style that you're describing which is effective if you're making a drama but not if you have a set with a hundred dancers and your star Francesca Hayward, who is a gifted ballerina, executing a lot of beautiful work that you just can't really see

or you're not holding on or you're not executing. When you go to the musical theater, there's no such thing as a closeup. Everything has to be done louder and bigger and more clearly. It has to be physically enunciated for an obvious reason because you're in a theater together

and everyone has mostly the same perspective on the thing. With a movie, if you're going to apply the choreography, you can't apply the close-up and vice versa. So it's just an odd choice. I do think that this, I mean, I don't think it was well done, but I also just think that this movie does not, this musical doesn't make sense as a movie. I absolutely loathed every minute of my childhood time at Cats, but I do suppose that the appeal is the, that same theater appeal of being in a room with all of these people and the energy and it's kind of a one-time thing and it's going on all around you. And the air changes a little and you respond to the movement and the music differently because you're there with them.

And it's so flattened on a screen. And you're just like, why are all these people in bad CGI like singing about cats? So one of the things that was a hot talking point when those trailers were hitting that you were describing earlier were the CGI fur and the tail and the just general creepiness of the whole execution. Tom Hooper, I guess, went back and did some more work, some more digital animation work to make it seem more natural. What did you think about the way that these cats look? I really felt like it looked like a bad Halloween costume from the 80s. If you told me that someone made those, put fur on unitards, and was like, wear this, I'd be like okay

yeah that seems right I that isn't what they did they spent millions of dollars to animate that that's insane I would be so mad if I were universal I would ask for every dollar back yeah I I it doesn't it doesn't look good and in fact there is, there are some curiosities around some of these things. I think some critics have rightly pointed out that Idris Elba's character, Macavity, wears a fur coat. And Rebel Wilson's character, Jenny Anydots, also wears like a fur skin suit that she removes. I can't believe you just did those names from memory just now. I have a very strong memory. It's one of my only gifts.

I know, but, you know, I blocked these out. And those characters are wearing fur. Is that the fur of other cats? Are they wearing the, like, imagine if I just came into the office one day and was just wearing a human skin suit like Buffalo Bill. Yeah. What the hell? That's really upsetting. It's disturbing.

You know, I think that you're, I don't want to give too much power to the imagination of this movie because I think it has basically no imagination. But perhaps you're supposed to interpret it as different styling of the fur that they have. You think it's their fur? I don't know that it's supposed to be that literal. Well, I mean, that's part of the problem with the movie is we're trying to give this a literal interpretation and it's obviously a fantasy. And anybody who's listening to this and is mad that we're taking it so seriously, I think it's because it's such a big production and it's treated so seriously in the telling that it's hard to not treat it as such. There's something about the sexual nature of the movie that I want to try to unpack with you. Oh, okay.

I can't quite put my finger on it. Cats are simultaneously, as creatures, dismissive and kind of rude, but also kind of alluring. I think that Cats wants to imply a kind of seductiveness that is, I find to be like one of the most grotesque things I've ever seen in a movie. And like Idris Elba, what Idris Elba's doing, wearing a nude full body suit. Yeah, that was upsetting. Grumble singing about magic and about stealing people's essence is like insane predator talk.

And I could not wrap my head around like the specific tone that they were going for. Like, are the characters in this movie supposed to be sexy? Or is there like, is there romance in this world? Let me ask you a more pointed question.

Is Jennifer Hudson's character, Grizabella, a sex worker who has been cast out of society? Because that is the impression that the movie gives. There is a very odd relationship between these cats and sex. I'm like really uncomfortable right now. I just, as soon as you said, is Grizabella a sex worker, I wish there was a camera on me.

I'm just being like, what are you talking about? I think that's the plot of the movie. Like maybe, maybe. I don't know. It's not working on those levels. I will say we did walk out of the movie and there was so little to focus on that I did focus on the words of memories. And I was like, hey, Sean, did you know that the song Memories is about not being beautiful anymore and then your life sucks? And you're like, yeah, that's what it's about. That is definitely what it's about. That's what it's about. It's about growing old and ugly.

And I think it's related to the fact that we're meant to believe that she is a glamour, quote unquote, glamour cat, Grizabella, who, you know, spoiler alert, gets a happy ending. But glamour cat is meant to indicate that she was like a prostitute. This is insane. Now, they don't come right out and say that,

but just read about the show, and it'll make it clear what's going on here. Now, the point I'm just trying to make is, Taylor Swift's character, similarly, is meant to be very alluring, but consistently throughout the movie, every figure is emitting a kind of sexual energy that is just weird.

It's just very, very strange. I have to be honest. I am so resistant to the idea of cats and sex that I basically blocked it out. And there were times when I couldn't. Like, Taylor Swift does kind of a shoulder and torso shimmy that has been immortalized in the trailer. And that's just very upsetting. And you kind of, you can't ignore it.

And then she and Idris Elba do a sort of... And that's just very upsetting. And you kind of, you can't ignore it. And then she and Idris Elba do a sort of, what kind of dance would we call that when he jumps in to save her? They make Taylor Swift dance far too much. I think Taylor Swift is a very gifted singer-songwriter. And my girl has not been able to dance on stage for a decade. And I have no idea why this is what she decided to do. Because she's just flailing those arms around and it's not working. They look like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers on CBD.

You know, they're just like, they don't have any, there's no smoothness to the movement. You know, it's herky-jerky and they're kind of bobbing and weaving around each other, neither of whom are really trained dancers. I guess Taylor Swift has done plenty of dancing in her life, but it's in stark contrast to some of the other sequences in the movie, which are kind of like robustly designed

and choreographed and sometimes ridiculously so. You know, Rebel Wilson's character also similarly, like her whole entire introduction is just straight up sexualized. She's literally spread eagle, cat eagle. Spread cat? What's the phraseology here? I don't know. I mean, that's also just kind of the humor that Rebel Wilson goes for at this point.

I think I've seen her do that in five movies this year. I confess I haven't laughed at one of them. That has nothing to, it's just, it's tired for me at this point. That's another thing that I think is kind of an issue with the movie is it's just a major collision of tone. You have at certain sequences this kind of almost like frat comedy aspect that James Corden and Rebel Wilson are playing with, a sort of like over-the-top ridiculousness,

like almost like very sophomoric, very almost like scatological approach about like eating garbage. Right. James Corden is also doing like a weird Dickensian comedy thing. There's like a Victorian element to all of this that comes in with the fact that they're cats. It's really confusing. But then there are other aspects of the movie that are meant to be a lot more sentimental and emotional and are meant to put you in the shoes the paws of these cats and that also it feels like treacly and and and overwrought and not sincere and that stuff doesn't work and then there's also this kind of like mystery box. What is Macavity really after aspect of the movie that is completely ill-defined and confusing. All jammed into an hour and 50 minutes.

And, you know. Nothing is jammed into that hour and 50 minutes. It's the longest hour and 50 minutes that I've spent in some time. Yeah, lugubriously wound slowly inside a music box. And when it pops open, it emerges with Satan's head. And people just say Jellicle Cats like 80,000 times. Let's talk about some of the characters. I think that, you know, the movie is basically a series of introductions to characters. And so the movie should live and die by the characters. Now, I've come to learn that the way that the movie is positioned is slightly different than the show.

Now, Victoria, who we mentioned, is played by Francesca Hayward, is actually not the sort of entry point of the musical. She's not the main figure. But we see in the movie, in Tom Hooper's movie, the story through her eyes. She's described as a demure and graceful white kitten. Described by who? On Wikipedia. Okay. Described by... You could have said anything. You could have been like T.S. Eliot. Teddy Roosevelt said she's demure and graceful. She's a featured dancer opening with a ballet solo after the naming of The Cats, which is that first song that you described, and is the first character to touch grizzabella

francesca hayward is sort of the discovery of the the movie i suppose has not acted before why does it matter that she's the first to touch grizzabella again it's like a it's a detail that i think we're meant to believe in something i'm sure that there are plenty of people who listen to this show and they're like god you spend so much time talking about the arcane mythologies of Marvel and Star Wars and even movies like Little Women.

Why can't you just pay homage, pay due respect to cats? I'm trying. I don't understand. Tell me why it's significant that she's the first character to touch Grizabella. Is it like because

all the cats have to touch her before she can ascend to the other place? Like, is this a Jesus thing? That's fine. Let's just talk about it. But who is Jesus in that case? The person who is reborn.

Okay, well, we'll get there. Okay. Then there's Old Deuteronomy. Now, Old Deuteronomy typically in the show is played by a man. One of the big changes in the film is that this character is played by Judi Dench. Okay. She's okay. Apparently, Judi Dench, who at this time,

when the show was premiering in the West End, was one of the biggest stars in the West End, and she famously had a great run in Cabaret, and, excuse me, not, yes, Cabaret, and was supposed to play, I believe, Victoria. Maybe Grizabella? I think Victoria. I was going to say Grizabella.

I don't know. We're going to get it wrong no matter what. Nevertheless, she got injured. Yes. And she had to pull out of the show. Yes. So this is her making up for lost time. And also there were rumors going around the West End at the time that it was a faked injury.

So she didn't have to be a part of the show because they thought it was going to be such a disaster. I think that turned out not to be true. She came back to rehearsals. She was in crutches. That's a great point. And that's something that runs throughout the history of this show is that every time it was being mounted, someone said, this is really not going to work out. This is going to be a straight up disaster. And that was also true of this movie.

And I wonder if we're going to get to the end of this podcast and we're going to find out that this movie is a bigger hit than Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker. I doubt it. It's running at 17% on Rotten Tomatoes right now. But you never know. I would be so surprised. Here's the thing is that even you and I wanted to have fun with this. Yes. And we're going to try to have fun with the characters, but I feel like we aren't delivering enough fun right now, and that's because the movie just isn't fun.

I know. You're right. That is the ultimate sin. It's just not fun. It's just not funny, and it's just not fun, and it doesn't make sense. Grizabella. We mentioned Jennifer Hudson plays Grizabella, a former glamour cat ostracized by the Jellicles who has lost her sparkle and now only wants to be accepted.

Who can relate? We've all been ostracized by Jellicles. Yeah. Right? Yes. How does this happen? Being ostracized by Jellicles? I don't know because—

What? Why do I have to do this? Why do I have to relate to cats? I don't know because, what? Why do I have to do this? Why do I have to relate to cats? I don't want to relate to cats. Can I just say? So, Grizabella sings Memories, which is the famous song from this movie, from this musical, and I think is a beautiful song.

She spends 90% of her singing time in this movie just doing like a scratchy early morning cat delivery of memories. And I was like, I was honestly, if they didn't give her like a one full belting out memories, I was going to walk out of this theater. And I am pleased to report that the only thing that this movie does right is they train that close up on Jennifer Hudson. And for 10 seconds, my girl is just belting it out at top volume. And if it had been that the whole time of people just committing and doing things ridiculously at top energy, maybe it would have been more fun. Maybe.

Probably not. Maybe. This is kind of a thankless role. I mean, she obviously gets the big show-stopping moment, and Jennifer Hudson is known to crush the show-stopping moment. I've been a fan of Jennifer Hudson since she first appeared on American Idol. I honestly felt when I was watching the show and covering that show at that time, I was like, this is a real person.

This is a person we will hear from again. And I didn't feel that way about almost anybody I saw on American Idol. And shout out to her. She is following through. She's got an Oscar for Dreamgirls. She can be relied upon to crush these moments. But in a way, her performance is so overwrought. It feels so out of place in something

that is so ridiculous. Like actually, if this was a sort of more like Les Mis, I think a performance like this makes sense. Anne Hathaway did something similar in the film. You know, whether you liked it or didn't like it, she was trying to give you that classical guts out. I'm giving you everything. And I don't care if you think I'm corny.

Like, I'm just going for it. Is that where you got the sex worker thing? No. Well, I mean, Fantine. Oh, I mean, I guess they have something in common. Yeah, okay. But no, read about Grizabella. I don't want to.

I don't want to read about Grizabella. Maybe they could have put something in the movie so I didn't have to do like three hours of fucking homework after seeing this dumb movie in order to understand it. You're so upset. I am. We've taught, I've given it, I told you. I was empathetic for a while and now this doesn't make sense.

So I need you to talk about the next character. Yeah, you went to the bathroom. Because I went to the bathroom for his big show-stopping moment. Gus, Asparagus, the theater cat. Ian McKellen. Wait, let's go back one second. Yeah. I think Asparagus being shortened to Gus is pretty smart.

I enjoy that. Okay. That never occurred to me as something you could do. Like as a name? Yeah. Okay, so you're just going to like name a child Asparagus. Well, maybe my dog. Okay.

But call him Gus. Okay. Do you like Asparagus? I love Asparagus. child asparagus. Well, maybe my dog. Okay. But call him Gus. Okay. Do you like asparagus? I love asparagus. Really? Yeah. Okay. One of my favorite vegetables.

I think that I'm, like, I'm neutral on asparagus. Okay, good to know. I don't dislike it. I wouldn't go out of my way, you know? But you would rank it well above the musical Cats. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

So tell us about Gus the Theater Cat. Okay, so I'm just going to read what you have written here because you, I just like wrote poetry of your own about the cats in like the middle of the night. A frail elderly cat who likes reminiscing about his past exploits. By the way, that like that describes every single one of these cats. A cat who likes reminiscing about his past exploits is like literally that's the definition of Cats the Musical. When he used to be a famous stage actor. Yeah. So according to the bits of his song that I paid attention to or like could follow the lyrics on, which I get, I was touch and go throughout this movie.

He was a stage cat actor. And I believe he was in some Shakespeare as a cat. And I think it was luck that made him an actor. He was just a cat hanging out near the theater and jumped on the stage at the right moment. And the theater production was like, you've got talent, cat. And then he became a cat actor. And then he delivers like an endless four-minute spoken word song about that experience. Well, what a shame that I missed that song.

We've mentioned Macavity, who's played by Idris Elba. He is a notorious criminal known as the, quote, Napoleon of Crime. Okay. Which, sure, I don't, what is that? Because Macavity is not short. Is it just that he's good at crime? I don't know. He refers to himself as the napoleon of crime imagine if i was just said i'm the napoleon of podcasting i'm gonna start doing that okay well

i'm sean fantasy and i'm the napoleon of podcasting i want to tease this out so do we think that napoleon of crime is from the original ts elliott be. Okay. What does it mean, though? Well, so here's what I want. So in 1939, do you think that, like, the Napoleon complex, as we understand it, which, like, short guys with a lot to prove, had established itself in the popular consciousness yet? Do you think that in 1939 they had the same understanding of Napoleon that we do now? I have no idea. Okay.

I'm guessing no, just based on what I understand of like average heights over time. But also, you know, I think that developed as we as a species grew taller that we developed the Napoleon complex. I don't know this, but off the top of my head, I would guess that there is some difference. I mean, also, again, we mentioned T.S. Eliot and his various things. So what T.S. Eliot think about Napoleon and what you and I think about Napoleon is hopefully different. That's a good point. Macavity in general is a strange character. I believe in the show, and people will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe in the show he does not have any speaking parts or songs, which has changed in this movie.

He gets to sort of perform and talk a little bit. He's one of the few characters who we hear dialogue from. I have no idea why Idris Elba wanted to do this. None. Do you have an idea why any of these people wanted to do this? I think for some it's money. For some it's prestige. For some it's like, this will be different and it'll be a gag.

And maybe that's how Elba saw it. Maybe he was just like, this will just be a trip. And then maybe they might've realized what they got themselves into when they were sitting in cat makeup for three hours at five o'clock in the morning and had immediate regrets about it. I think on paper, two years ago, people were like, this will be a kitsch delight. We will find a way to make this a phenomenon. And lo and behold, it obviously is not that. That takes us to Bambalarina and Taylor Swift. Yikes to this. She's described as a flirty and confident red queen. She is best friends with Demeter, who I don't think is in this show. And the two share an intense hatred for Macavity, which is also not in the film. No, she dances with Idris Elba. Yes, and she sort of presents him.

You know, I'm pretty on the record about Taylor Swift. Not a fan. What did you think of the song that she wrote? Beautiful Ghosts? Yeah. I thought it was bad. You did? Yeah.

I honestly thought it was better than like 30% of the rest of the music in the show. I wasn't mad. It just seemed dissonant. It just didn't really seem like a part of the show. And, you know, we've experienced that a lot this year. I think Spirit and The Lion King by Beyonce is very similar. It's like maybe it's not bad, but it just doesn't really belong here. Like there's a preexisting property.

It was only written to get a famous person to sing a famous song to draw more attention to the movie. I will say I really didn't expect Judi Dench singing Taylor Swift in a movie while wearing CGI cat fur to be part of my 2019 experience. An amazing way to end the decade, isn't it? Yeah, something like that. Bustopher Jones, played by James Corden. For some reason, this guy's got a long character description. I'm going to read it. A fat upper class cat with a fastidious black coat and white spats.

Respected by all, who is Bustopher? I can't keep cats facts in my head. I just stop listening or paying attention. Cats. I just can't. It's like my head. I just stop listening or paying attention. Cats. I just can't. It's like, I just don't care. The ways in which this doesn't move me. I thought James Corden was fine.

He has a lovely theater history. Did you happen to see Harry Styles' little residency on the James Corden show where Harry Styles was just like performing? I think it was like Beverly, like right by the CBS studios and they like stopped traffic. Did not see that. And I, James Corden was like one of the backup dancers. I really enjoyed that. That's what I recommend in terms of James Corden performances in 2019. Okay. In December. Now onto Growl Tiger, who's played by Ray Winston, which is confounding that Ray Winston's in this movie. You know Ray Winston, right? I think so, though.

I have no memory of this character or this part of the movie. He's the evil henchman on the boat. Oh. Helping Macavity and intimidating the captured cats. Okay. Can you believe I just said that out loud? No.

You know. You know what? We have already made a lot of fun of the plot, but I just said that out loud? No. You know what? We have already made a lot of fun of the plot, but I would say that I thought that this was like a particularly weak feature of the plot that they made up. I agree with you. Ray Winstone, you know, one of the more iconic film actors in London, often playing heavies in crime films, probably best known for starring role in Sexy Beast.

This is just weird. This is just weird that he's in this movie. He seems to be having a nice time. Rum Tum Tugger. Once upon a time at Gremlin,

Alex Papademos put up Young Thug for Rum Tum Tugger for the Cats movie, which I thought was very inspired. Very funny piece that he wrote about it. Young Thug has a kind of Rum Tum Tugger for the Cats movie, which I thought was very inspired. Very funny piece that he wrote about it. Young Thug has a kind of Rum Tum Tugger energy.

They didn't quite capture it, but they got close-ish with Jason Derulo. I'll just say, this was the only thing in the movie I liked. I actually enjoyed the Jason Derulo song, the performance. He seemed like the only person who had the right energy for the movie.

Yeah. Which was very camp, but I thought worked very well. Maybe it's partially because his song, which is a little bit more of like a rock and roll funk song, just didn't make my skin crawl.

But I liked what he did, even though he basically has to be on screen for six minutes and then vanishes. Yes. And maybe the show, as you said,

should have been more of a review like that where people came in and then they came out and then theyishes. Yes. And maybe the show, as you said, should have been more of a review like that where people came in and then they came out and then they didn't even pretend to have a plot of any kind, which wouldn't confuse people. But I did like Jason Derulo. Yeah, he was good. Okay. Jenny Anydots, aka the old Gumby Cat, is played by Rebel Wilson.

She sits around all day and is seemingly very lazy, but at night she becomes very active as she rules the mice and cockroaches, forcing them to undertake helpful functions and creative projects to curb their naturally destructive habits. I did not get any of that from the movie. I have to say, if you printed this

and just handed it out to people before they went to Cats, you know, like a play program. Like you read the liner notes in an opera before you see the opera. Maybe. I don't really know that that would help. I didn't.

This isn't my type of humor. How about that? Didn't work for me either. And that sequence that they're describing about the cockroaches, again, I just have to say is bizarre and is nightmare fuel. There are so many more cats. There's a lot more cats. Those are the cats that are played by famous people. Yeah.

And this collection of famous people is one of the most curious I've ever seen in a movie. I think Dame Judi Dench and Jennifer Hudson and Idris Elba and Taylor Swift and James Corden and Ray Winstone and Jason Derulo and Rebel Wilson is a real rogues gallery of people that I mostly don't care about. I love Ian McKellen. I have a lot of respect for Ian McKellen. I mostly don't care about. I love Ian McKellen. I have a lot of respect for Ian McKellen. I love Judi Dench. Yeah, she's good. Everybody else here, though. God, what are they doing?

Now, there's a series of other characters who are essential and canonical to the story. Mr. Mistoffelees and Mungo Jerry and Rumpelteaser. Mungo Jerry and Rumpelteaser have a very famous song together in which they wreak havoc in a home. And Skimbleshanks, a.k.a. the Railway Cat. Oh my gosh, this was the one I hated the most. I was really, really upset. Because this is the one he's like wearing suspenders and he's supposed to be like a sexy ginger cat that tap dances.

And there's a lot of thrusting and a lot of tap dancing. And it was not for me. Skimbleshanks is described as an upbeat and active orange tabby cat who lives on the mail trains and acts as an unofficial chaperone to such an extent he is considered rather indispensable to the train and station employees.

Okay. How would we know that by watching this movie? Is there a single indispensable cat in the world? In the whole world? In the whole world? In the whole world. This is a great question. Yeah.

Oh, my God. Hmm. The only one I can think of is Halo because Mallory Rubin would absolutely use Halo as an emotional source of energy and support. Yes, that is her nightmare fuel. Yeah. That is Halo's energy. I can't think of one. I'll say I'm not a cat guy.

Me either. Just not a cat person. I grew up with cats. I had plenty of cats in my house. I think I grew up with four cats total across my lifetime. They're fine. I gave them love. They gave me nothing back.

I find that hurtful and strange. I find they're an odd species. Dogs, on the other hand, overwhelm you with affection and sincerity. You know, where is the dogs musical is my question. I don't know. You know what? Give me dogs. I don't really want either, to be honest.

I appreciate what animals contribute to our society, and I'm just not interested in the emotional lives of animals. Let's try to helicopter up on this movie a little bit. Okay, great. It's been a long time since we've had like a full-blown fiasco. So I'm kind of excited about this. Even though we've just spent

the last 45 minutes running down this movie that people worked really hard on, you know, and that people tried to make this good and there was a flaw in the design. The idea of making this a movie was a mistake, and that's why it doesn't work ultimately. And because the plot doesn't make sense and it's humorless.

Nevertheless, it's fun to have a movie like this out in the world. This is the most fun I've had reading movie criticism in a while because people are doing their best to get creative about what's going on here. And some people are saying, well, this is just a nightmare. And those are funny reviews to read. And some people are saying, we've kind of entered the fourth dimension of takery by having to analyze something this stupid. And so I thought Alison Wilmore's piece in particular in New York Magazine was a great example of like how to contend with something so preposterous,

which is like, is it good? Is it bad? Like, it doesn't even matter. Like we're just, we're inside of a machine that doesn't care about us and it's just going to try to draw our attention any way it can. What do you think the sort of like

next couple of weeks of Katz's life will be? And let me just preface it by saying The Greatest Showman, while not like considered a fiasco at first, was not terribly well-received and it seemed like it kind of bombed at first. And then it built this extraordinary life over time where families started discovering the movie and it kind of stayed in theaters for six to eight weeks. You see a world in which cats can recover from this initial hell no reaction.

I personally don't because I, why would you go see this movie? Because. Maybe you like the songs. Maybe you like the songs? Maybe you like the songs, but even you mentioned the families that went to see The Greatest Showman. Can you take an eight-year-old to see this movie? Let me tell you, as an eight-year-old who saw this musical, no.

Spare your children. It's very disturbing. And boring. And like, and there's nothing visually exciting for the kids to watch and be like, oh, look at the, you know, Frozen 2 didn't have a plot either, but at least there was like the things to look at and songs. So I have a hard time imagining it as like a family activity in the way of Greatest Showman, especially when you've got Rise of Skywalker, which I know, but also people are still going to see it. And if there are people who are like,

I kind of see Little Women, if you're like, oh, Cats the Musical, what an interesting history. I want to go see what they see about it. Then you also kind of know about the history of Little Women and it's better reviewed. I don't know. I just also, it's not fun. That's the thing. Like you were saying, it's fun to have a movie like this. And I think we'll all read the takes. But I'm curious how many people who will listen to this podcast will actually go and spend two hours watching this movie. I don't know. You know, as you know, I obsess over what the audience is for something on a regular basis. I'm kind of fascinated by that idea.

It took a long time for this to get adapted, and it's obvious to me now why that was the case. It does have me thinking a bit about other shows that haven't been adapted and maybe will and maybe won't be. I don't know. You're a musical theater fan. Is there anything that you're surprised we've never seen or that we should see? I don't know. You're a musical theater fan. Is there anything that you're surprised we've never seen or that we should see?

Or I don't know. I'm trying to think. You know, in a lot of ways, because I didn't grow up in New York, I know so many musicals from the movies. So I can't. It's hard for me to think of a lot of things that I haven't seen. And maybe that's just, that's instructive in a way is why we're just getting cats because there are so many other things that lent itself to being movies first. The thing that I keep thinking about this though,

we've talked all year about like the difference between the movie that exists on the internet and the movie that exists in real life. And this to me seems like, it is peak internet movie. Like we all had fun with the memes. I think we're having fun with the reviews.

There will like certainly be cat's jokes. It does seem to me like it's impossible to have that entire experience without ever actually going to the theater and sitting through the movie. Nothing has really added to it. So I'm curious. Maybe that's wrong. I don't know. I mean, the movie I've seen referenced most frequently as a comparison point has been Xanadu, which is a 1980 musical fantasy starring Olivia Newton-John that is widely considered one of the worst movies ever made. It also stars Gene Kelly.

So it's not it was not without some prestige ahead of time. And it bombed. And it's just just very stupid. It also stars Gene Kelly. So it was not without some prestige ahead of time. And it bombed. And it's just very stupid. It's just not entertaining or funny. But it has that, it has a kind of kitsch camp factor

that has let it persist and carry on throughout history. I don't know if this will be able to take on that kind of identity long term. I guess I could see it.

I also, it probably depends honestly on like what streaming service it finds its way to like i guess since it's universal this is going to go to the peacock long term and then the people will go from like friends to to cats yes okay truly wow which is a dark future was there never a um friends episode about cats you could kind of you could see that happening. Well, you know, Phoebe famously wrote that song, Smelly Cat. Smelly Cat.

One of her greatest hits. But that was not related to the musical. No, but maybe if they had got Smelly Cat into the movie Cats. Yeah. There we go. The shit would have taken off. There we go. We should have just had Lisa Kudrow's character write the book for Cats.

I honestly would have enjoyed that. What else is there to say about Cats? This was kind of a crisis of faith. We've had a long year. We've seen a lot of movies. You and I have talked about a lot of movies on this show. I will say when I walked out, I was a little bit crestfallen that I was like, is this really the last one that I'm going to see? This is the last new movie that I'm going to see this year. Yeah. You had a rough doubleheader also. I did. I saw The Rise of Skywalker on the same day.

And that's been part of, I think, a lot of the dialogue on film Twitter and in the movie receiving community is this being the kind of conclusion. Now, we still have a couple of other great movies coming out this year. We saw some of them a long time ago in 1917, of course. Little Women, which we'll be talking about on this podcast early next week, which is a wonderful movie. Uncut Gems is going wide for people to see on Christmas. That's exciting. There's obviously been a lot of press about that.

But Cats, because it took so long to come to us, and because Tom Hooper reportedly, when he premiered the film in New York, said he had just finished it like 18 hours prior, probably a sign that maybe the movie's not ready. that you're editing it all the way up until the very last minute that everyone knows that that to me is a sign of like maybe if I try one more thing that it'll work suddenly very very very sad I don't know what else to say about Cats I found

it even in its in its awfulness disappointing which just, it's just not what you want. Yeah. It was boring. It was just really weird and boring and not for me. That's okay. There are other movies for both of us. It's a perfect ending to the show. Amanda, thank you so much.

Please stay tuned to The Big Picture. As I mentioned, next week we'll have an episode entirely dedicated to Greta Gerwig's Little Women. See you then. most scarring and upsetting experiences of my life. They don't look like cats. It's like a really vivid sense memory of these motherfucking cats.