The Worst Idea Of All Time - MWWC2: “Immensely watchable”

Episode Date: January 28, 2020

Tim and Guy are nestled in the roots of a large tree in the beautiful Auckland domain. This second watch has drawn the fellas into the world of CATS (2019) like a cinematic siren. Leaving the horrifying CGI and confusing storyline at the door, the fellas have been left to enjoy the spectacle of this star-studded $100... Spectacular? Guy canvases some fellow CATS (2019) watchers and Tim feels very bad for Dame Judi Dench. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

today you ready okay let's go the hunt for the wildest movie of the summer everybody ends here this is your super friendly and not aggressive reminder to buy tickets immediately borderlands now playing be honest was this a nightmare to get into this hair and all of this no no you're not this is all uh computer generated so every single piece of fur is added by a computer it's technology that's never ever been used in a film before i don't believe it meow meow everybody welcome to episode two of Our Week with Cats, recorded live in the Auckland domain, just down the way from Rialto Newmarket. Absolutely not. I don't like it.

It will be playing on repeat. To and I are nestled amongst the roots of a tree. It's a beautiful evening here in Auckland, and we have just seen Cats for the second time. In as many days. And how does that hold up in your eyes, Tim? You know what? There's something to it.

Yeah. There's something to it on that second watch. Tell me about it. Let me hear more. You watch it the first time, and you're just bewildered and, like, a little revolted at the animation. And then you see it the second time and you're like, maybe these fucking cats know what's up. Maybe the cats know what's up?

Yeah, man. Maybe everyone involved in this thing actually knew what was up. But you've got to see it two times. Tell me more. I don't know. There's something that gets... So the second time, you know everything, right? There's no shocks and surprises

so you can just kind of doss down with a good song or two. Also, let's bear in mind, that is the experience of cat fanatics, I imagine. Those who have been to the Broadway musical. No. Because the thing that you have to get used to is the horrifying CGI. But. Because the thing that you have to get used to is the horrifying CGI. But once you're after that hump,

then... Here's what I kept thinking when I was watching it today. Can you please turn that off? That's really freaking me out. I don't like it at all. Ugh. Really good performances from kind of everyone.

You know what I mean? Like everyone's doing it. Everyone's doing it. A generous estimation, but I understand what you're saying. I certainly was expecting to be... Except Rebel Wilson. Oh man, what do you got against Rebel Wilson's performance?

She sucks in this movie. She got a bad role. She got bad lines. More than that. No, it's not. Do you know what they said? Tom Hooper said, Rebel, you're our comic relief. We're going to have moments of light and moments of shade throughout the movie,

but whenever you're on screen, it's your job to relieve any tension with you know wittier sides and the wittier sides they gave her were atrocious the decisions i've made around the editing of those lines has been most ungenerous i don't think the blame lies with rebel wilson she got laughs in the cinema on site yeah that's true actually and i will this, much tougher audience today than yesterday. Yeah. Yesterday I felt like there were consistent titters, if not full-blown laughs, amongst the crowd. Today, deathly silent. Yesterday we started what was a fairly rousing round of applause as the credits rolled.

Today, literally... We kicked it off. No one joined in. It started and stopped with Timbo and Guy Guy. What did the woman say? You were sitting next to someone and you said, what did you think as the credits started rolling? I said, what do you think of that?

And she said, well, it's the best movie I've ever seen with a big fucking grin across her face. Fuck, that's good. Good on her. I overheard a guy when we were walking out just say, that was too long. It wasn't that long. It is a really...

It's about an hour and a half. It's just under two. It's 111 minutes, but it'll be an interesting experience. Like even today when we sat down as the trailers were rolling. The same trailers. Yeah, it was a really sort of out-of-body experience. I was like, oh, it's going to be really weird seeing the same film in the same environment, but with new people around you.

It's like we've got new special guests for the screening each time, but they don't know. Yeah, so I found that novel. And then I just think if you meet the movie at face value, if you meet the movie on its terms, it is... Something. Well, it is immensely watchable, perhaps. Not necessarily something. It's like, it's the Hindenburg. It's a spectacular failure.

It's a spectacular. I think you can put a full stop after the spectacular. It's a spectacular. It's a spectacular. I think you can put a full stop after the spectacular. It's a spectacular. It's a spectacular. It's very glitzy. I don't know. I might be affording too much to the film this time because I, you know how we pretty promptly got to that point

with grown-ups too, how you can't look at the middle of the screen or whatever's in focus? Yeah. I couldn't do that today like i was just searched mainly because i know that the visual effects have been a little bit half-baked and i was just trying to see if there's anything still there with this new version of the film out there i spent a lot of the movie today wanting to visit the set i want to know what the measure of real set building versus green screen is. Because if, I was thinking specifically during the Mungo Jerry and Rumpel Teaser song, when they break into that sort of quite nice house with Victoria leading her astray,

and they start running up and doing backflips on the headboard of the bed, which looks like it might have either very high cotton thread count sheets or perhaps a silk over sheet and i thought that looks fun and i thought and the actors i mean i don't know if they're just flipping on a wall and everything else is being put on but if beds were built to the scale and perhaps this is why the scale of the movie moves around so much is that they contracted different groups of builders to build different parts of the set yeah so they're not like necessarily extravagantly different but of builders to build different parts of the set. So they're not necessarily extravagantly different, but they're all just different enough that it feels like you're sort of walking through Puzzling World.

If you don't know, because you're not from New Zealand, Puzzling World is a very low... I'm from New Zealand, and I don't know what Puzzling World is. It's like a very low-budget funhouse just outside of Wanaka in the South Island of New Zealand. And it involves like it's like when the residents of springfield rally together and build ned flanders house but so the feeling is that maybe they just got different builders to build different rooms and that's why the size isn't perfectly to scale across the board well again i think this falls

to tom hooper because you frequently have different teams working on different bits of the film like you have different different teams working on different bits of the film. You have different visual effects teams doing different scenes, but usually you've got a strong enough Bible to work to that everyone is on the same page about what the scale is going to be. But these guys were just kind of ad libbing it.

That is one thing you take away the more you see the film is sort of the way in which it got away from Tom Hooper. I don't know what specifically he was concentrating on the whole time. It feels like he was doing a lot of jobs poorly. Poor Tom Hooper. Can I say this, Tim? Yeah.

Some of the cats wear shoes. Yeah, two of them do. And some of the cats don't. Yeah, that's right. So those guys are called the Twins, and they're like a quite famous, I think, dance duo. And they were in some other shitter of a film recently,

but I can't remember what it was. I think it was something with Will Smith, potentially. Maybe. Can't remember. Probably one of his Instagram videos. Maybe they're Romanian Black International. You know, Will Smith's Instagram has a writer's room. Doesn't shock me.

Do you follow him? Yeah, he's sensational. It's crazy. Like, they should have got the visual effects team from Will Smith's Instagram to work on Cats, and it would have come across flawlessly. Well, I'd like to ask you this. Who amongst the wider cast and crew and production team of Cats do you think did a good job? Wardrobe. And they didn't have a lot

to do three coats and those blindingly red beautiful brass buttoned overalls for old what's his name the sprinkle sprinkle sprinkle scramble scramble shanks the railway cat yeah you got it who was a delight once more i'd like to uh issue an amendment to my assessment of his entry from uh the the previous episode he in fact is a member of the jellicle cats just a silent dancing member of the jellicle cats and he really gets his moment um before his big song he's revealed to be and i wouldn't be surprised if he's a very well-known dancer because the guy has moves. I think he's from a ballet troupe, like a royal ballet troupe.

I really was... It was impressed upon me how incredible... Did you put the first track on repeat? Yes. How incredible high-quality dance is because Victoria, the actor who plays Victoria... Francesca Haywood? Yes. And Skimble Shanks. And then also the the main cat whose name i still don't or not the main cat yeah what is his name he's sort of the the two ic of the jellicle cats he looks like a young robert downey jr as a

cat and he's he's a phenomenal dancer and when i would see some of these ballet moves. Like they do these insanely lengthy dance recitals that involve no singing. In between songs, sometimes the cats will just dance as though they are compelled by some power on high for sort of two to three minutes. This is the thing. Cats is actually a dance movie with some songs in it, I've come to realize.

And this is why it doesn't work because when you watch a dance movie the artistry of that is seeing these human bodies move with such precision and just being able to use the human body like that that kind of movement is an incredible thing to watch when you're steering down a choreographed professional busting a move but when you put a layer of computer generated fur on top of that it takes away because then you then you're just looking at something that might have been made in a computer you know yeah so your brain automatically sort of switches off to the impressiveness of the moves and i feel like this is why cats the movie didn't work and

again i i'm inclined to agree because i think back to that sort of semi-viral video that was initially released about cats which was on the set and you saw a lot of the famous people involved in rehearsal and then sort of doing pieces to camera saying this is going to be unlike and also please help don't know it's gone insane he's trapping us here on a boat to their credit a lot of what they're saying remains credible to this day. They're not saying Cats is the most compelling film of all time, but they're saying you have never seen a movie like what we are making right now. Their wording is so particular. Shout out to James Corden, who did so much press trying to make this a thing.

But the thing is, it has the feel, those dance recital moments, and what you're articulating and considering the rehearsal space and maybe where they were recording, it has the feel of a stage show. Like the community, it feels like they were building and the feeling of community I'm, I'm projecting onto the cast when they were doing it all feels like a stage show. And so by the time they were finished,

I don't know that they knew they'd made cats. I feel like they might've thought, well, we did it. You know, we did all this stuff. We were asked, we learned the dances, we did all the stuff we were asked we learned the dances we sang the songs we fucking showed up and then you know they head along to the release this is what we were making oh this was what it was well i hate

to poke holes in your theory guy but would it shock you to hear that all of these a-listers had to go to cat school to be involved in this film? Tell me more. So during the pre-production of this movie, where they were first starting to get their head around the choreography and whatnot, they had to attend daily a cat school. And I've heard that Sir Ian McKellen did not attend it daily. He skulked off. It doesn't show because that man is a convincing cat.

He turns in one of the best acting moments in the film, which is right before he sings his song, and Mr. Mistoffelees says, do you get nervous? And he says, no, no, practice, practice, practice, and then nothing can go wrong. Touch wood. And then he rubs the nape of his neck on a piece of wood as though the man himself is a cat.

Exactly. So they had to go to, what is cat school? Cat school is a movement class instructed by a cat behaviouralist telling these A-list actors, some of whom have been knighted and damed, how to move around like a cat. That, I mean, if you're dealing with a movie that has a $100 million budget, it is not totally surprising to think that they would go to, it does feel like, if maybe, i think someone needed to be telling tom holland what tom hooper what to do sorry tom holland not a part of the film tom holland i wish was in it tom holland

might be one of the mice we don't know that's true taking a break from a spider of a man to a mouse i believe tom holland might be a dancer anyway that's that sounds familiar you're not allowed to cross the streams of the MCU. He's out, though. This is the thing. They had that big bust up, and now Holland's out because Sony and Marvel couldn't agree on a price to keep Spider-Man in there.

Wow. I'm going to have to wait two years for a new Spider-Man? Yeah, believe it. What year is this? 2005? So, yeah, they all went to cat school, which is just such a funny wrinkle to me. And it's funny also to know that Serene McKellen was,

like, everyone else was, oh, you know, we're going to go to cat school. No, no. Yeah. Know your place. Serene McKellen's like, no, you're lucky to have me. This is why I'm so sad for his big, he's like in the back of shots leading up to it,

but his big introduction on screen is him laughing. And again, it fucking got me. It's just so sad. Laughing at a plate of water backstage like a common rat because he's playing himself. He's kind of this old wizard actor cat absolutely and i will say this i didn't think to mention it yesterday but it happened to me again today his performance is gus the theater cat and also maybe in the moments leading up to it uh both times made me consider my own mortality

jesus christ he's reflecting on the career and the life he's led, and he's sort of dancing on stage and sort of regaling these young cats. I remember when I first discovered that my grandparents were interesting and being like, oh, I had it wrong. You guys rule. There's a certain quality of that that he's bringing. And just hearing him talk about it and sort of knowing his place amongst the cats, the Jellicle Society now, and saying, but there was a time, and people loved to hear me talk about it, I was fucking King Cat.

I was it. You see that cat driving the railroad train with the bloody overalls on? That was me, baby. Exactly. And I would say I've never achieved Gus the Theatre Cat status in my life, but to look at that, I thought, wow, you know, even the greats amongst us. Time comes for us all. Indeed.

Anyway, I did not expect to be confronted by that two times over. It's pretty deep. Whenever he and Dame Judi Dench were on screen as well, I thought it was really irresponsible to put them in the movie because this might be the last one no you know they've got legs i hope so i hope so i really hope so i did uh notice some visual effects snafus though go ahead so tomorrow when we watch it um keep an eye on Mr. Mistoffelees' sleeve in the scene where he produces the knife and the fork.

You can see they've had some trouble. You laughed to yourself. The satisfied laugh of a man who spotted a very small technical error with a high-budget movie. I was hunting for it. It's not big as well. It's little. It's just little, but you can definitely see it.

They've had some trouble because he's wearing a coat, and he's got black fur underneath, and his coat is also black. And they've mapped the shadow of the black fur onto him, and it doesn't move with his arm. It gets a bit out of sync when he pulls the knife out. The fork? The knife. He does it. out of sync when he pulls the knife out. The fork? The knife.

He does it. Oh, yep, the fork. Thank you. I don't think he reveals the knife. Yeah, you're right. That'd be cooler, though. It keeps harping. Well, I mean, it would be more dangerous.

He does keep harping on about the forks. You know what I didn't like about Dame Judi Dench, though? Do you know? That bit where she raises her leg up And you're like Oh no Dame Judi Dench

That's a cat I know it's a cat She picked that up at cat school brother I know But it's still Dame Judi Dench Do you know what I did like about Dame Judi Dench? What? The fact that her wardrobe is very clearly

The original lion costume from the Wizard of Oz Hard out It is 100% that And nothing else who wedding ring switches hands yeah it's really weird at some points it's on the right and then at the end it's on your left hand i've i feel like i read a story where it came out that uh that that the wrong edit of cats being released is what revealed to her longtime partner that she is leading a double life and has a different marriage on which she wears a wedding ring on her right hand.

Gotcha. And depending on the day, she'll switch them around. Yeah. I mean, it seems like madness. It does. But it makes perfect sense seeing the movie because the one that you see on her right hand looks smaller, and then later on in the film, it's big and chunky on the other hand. Maybe she was just closer to the

lens maybe you think it's forced perspective and i'm just getting thrown off nearly always i feel like for a group of professional actors who went to cat school and again i don't think this is their responsibility maybe this falls on tom hooper but um some of the decisions they made where instead of going full cat or remaining largely human, they sort of split the difference 50-50, come out really, really questionable. Namely, I'm thinking about the blend of crawling on all fours and then also hopping up onto their legs. I mean, the actors would have got sore knees. I thought that pretty early.

I thought this is going to hurt their knees. And it reminds you that cats are supposed to be on all fours. Absolutely. When you see it and you're like, oh yeah. It's like when, what's his goddamn name, the train cat? Oh, Skimbleshanks. Skimbleshanks. It'll be my mission.

Skimbleshanks. Skimbleshanks. I'll remember that by the end of this. When he wears pants, you're reminded of what cats are supposed to do. And you're like, oh yeah. What the hell, man? Yeah. But that's sort of okay because I feel like they had to make that decision

and reveal it to the audience at some point. The more harrowing split the difference 50-50 human-cat hybrid moment is after some of the numbers performed at the Egyptian when they are performing for the Jellicle Ball, the cats will do this bizarre blend of applause and meowing that doesn't quite execute either of those practices. So they'll be going, meow, meow. And it will be sort of 25 to 30 adults doing this.

Yeah. And it doesn't communicate. Guy's putting his hands together, by the way. It doesn't communicate the overwhelming excitement of, you know, raucous applause like, holy shit, you blew us away with that. And it also does not convincingly communicate a group of cats praising another cat. Instead, you're just like... They've all picked a path there.

Because if you look around that room as well, about over 50% of them are scratching on the ground. Oh, I see. And then less than half of them are actually clapping. So you're right. Everyone has just picked if they're going to be a human or an animal in their applause break. That reeks of tom hooper walking through and pointing at different people in the cast and saying cat human cat human and the end result is immensely

unsatisfying and frankly somewhat scary i've written down i think this is why i got confused i think maybe the visual area is when we see James Corden produce a fork from his sleeve. Does that make sense? Maybe when he's on the boat. He doesn't reveal a fork on the boat. Are we watching the same movie? I've crossed the streams. I've written down something weird.

And then I've written on top of my notes because I was doing it in the dark, so I can't even make sense of what some of this is. Yeah, you've done a bad job there. I've done a bad job there. Today. You ready? dark so i can't even make sense of what some of this is you've done a bad job done a bad job there today you ready okay let's go the hunt for the wildest movie of the summer and here this is your super friendly and not aggressive reminder to buy tickets immediately borderlands now playing Rumble Cats sticks a nail in... Oh, I know what you're saying.

Rumble Teaser sticks a pin in Mungo Jerry's tail during their performance. Yep. I wrote that down. You didn't have any thoughts about it. You just observed it happening. I thought it looked painful. Rebel Wilson scratching herself as well, man. I don't like it.

Get off her case, man. I don't like anyone scratching. Because they're all scratching themselves in their ass. They're cats. Yeah, I know. But I don't want to see it, man. Not on a big old cinema screen. What would you sooner they do?

Just continue to be humans. Do what Serena McCallum does. Be sad and like lick your ears like a cat you know the classic cordon does that unconvincingly that is what you do as a child when you're pretending to be a cat yeah i don't think it passes muster in like this huge large-scale movie production of cats i bought james cordon's child lick ear stroke thing, man. I mean, again, I will say it, and as everyone listening will know, we're not looking out to enjoy James Corden, but...

We do not stan the man, but we stan his performance in Cats. Yeah, he does fantastic work in this movie, just reading the tone. But just remember, James Corden fucking sucks. You do love saying that. Rum Tum Tugger's song, absolutely no good once more. Wasting one of the best singers in the cast with a really shitty cat and song. The Rum Tum Tugger is a fucking waste of everyone's time. He adds nothing to the movie.

He just comes in. It's like Andrewrew lloyd weber had some half-baked ideas about the ways in which cats are annoying and he sort of wrote a third of a song and then i mean i just think it's a waste of jason derulo and also that's not how you say his name jason derulo thank you they also the only redeeming feature of that song is that uh it would seem that they used the bass from the seinfeld theme to accompany the rum tum tiger song and uh it sort of supports what you're saying about the opening reprise that we're listening to right now and other sort of

tinier elements of the sound quality like it sounds thin in places it's a lloyd weber thing he doesn't mind it and it fucking shits me here's the thing that i learned in my research um so andrew lloyd weber based cats on a ts elliott collection of poems about cats yeah so he didn't write this per se in fact i think a lot of the songs are directly poems they're poems they're not even that much that he's put into it yeah well so which suggests that he just kind of wrote the music and stuff to it i guess i feel like you know he would have had to update some of t.s elliott's work i wonder what t.s elliott would make of cats specifically in this i think it would shock and horrify him considering the fact that he died about a hundred years ago do

you get the feeling that andrew lloyd weber had maybe learned the word ineffable the day he started writing this movie i'm so glad you brought that up, Guy, because it's one of those things where the word comes up half a dozen times, and if it was attached to one particular cat, I'd be like, that's a character trait. But because it is spread across the cast, you're like, why is everyone saying ineffable so much?

I think just amongst the overwhelming high of cocaine and the knowledge that this was a guaranteed smash hit no matter what he did. Have you ever been so high that you fucking solar punched a thesaurus and just saw it fell onto the floor on an open page and then you got very excited by whatever word presented itself?

Ineffable. Ineffable. Ineffable means too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words. So perhaps a not so subtle effort to communicate what the film or the musical is trying to do. The rules of a musical are when the emotion is too great to say out loud, you sing a song to express it. So he's obviously, someone's told him that's how you write a musical. And he's like, love it.

Great word. There are no, like, again, only reallyudson is grizzabella brings any emotional gravitas to this otherwise fuck yourself francesca hayward our lead victoria i i'm not what did you think of her think of her i thought she was great i think she ties it all together really well and she sort of does play a satisfying audience surrogate, where she's essentially, as we are, dropped into this world. She acclimatizes much quicker than any audience member would have a fucking dream of doing. This is her first ever movie.

I don't think it's going to hurt her. She is a phenomenal dancer. Again, her voice, for mine, a little bit thin. Go, Anne. Fuck yourself. It's called musical theater singing. You've got to half-talk a little bit thin go and fuck yourself it's called musical theater singing you gotta like half talk a little bit you gotta over enunciate so people can hear i know but at one point they they stick her on a duet with jennifer hudson and it really sort of reveals what i had a sneaking suspicion was true in the first place which is just i don't think because you know a

triple threat there are probably there are singers who dance and there are dancers who sing. And she is a dancer who sings. She is. But I don't think that her character carries any emotional weight. I mean, she's sort of just experiencing this world of Jellicle Cats, but she's not... Do you know who's going to be absolutely livid to hear that when she tunes into this podcast? Taylor Swift. Because the song, Beautiful Ghosts, which has about three repeats throughout the film,

was written for this movie by Andrew Lloyd Webber on music and Taylor Swift on lyrics over the course of one day. And they chucked it into the film. That makes sense. That song fucking blows. I hate that song. Anytime this movie attempts to be serious, outside of Jennifer Hudson's character arc, it sucks. And the first time it happens, which is after they open with a bang, Jellicle Cats, I'm here for it.

Then all of a sudden, they all sort of scatter and run away. And then Victoria's left alone, somewhat confused. I mean, do the jellicle cats sing that song every time they met a new cat i guess so yeah that's how you introduce them to the pack that is so much work i know and there's so many of them they've done it so many times but it's why they're so good now they like they get practice down that's another thing i thought why don't they enter as a troop all of them can go get a new life that's a fucking mean technicality i anyway they all sing jellicle cats and you are here for it and then all of them can go get a new life that's a fucking mean technicality i anyway they all

sing jellicle cats and you are here for it and then all of a sudden they they scatter mr mistoffelees comes out he's immediately developed a crush on victoria and he sort of pulls into this graveyard where the cats are lounging around and then what you do when you're smitten with someone robert downey jr cat robert downey jr jr Junior Cat sort of starts Robert Downey Jr. the third yeah this very sort of

serious instrumentation comes in and he starts singing this really sort of like what's meant to be a vaguely haunting and quite proper song

about you know how cats have three names oh yeah man and that's the first time the movie sort of descends into genuine chaos when I'm like

totally this is a huge. This is off the rails. This is a lurch into the unknown. And then every time from there when the movie starts to try and take itself seriously or a cat sings a song as though I'm invested in their ludicrous fucking life, I'm like, get fucked. Bring back the Jellicle cat.

Give me some Astopheles. Give me Skimbleshanks. I don't need to hear about whatever's going on. Save again for Grizabella because, I mean... This is Jennifer Hudson. Yeah, she's got a story. There is a story inside of what is otherwise

12 songs of varying qualities about various different cats. My opinion. Jesus. What do you think? Are you invested in any one story outside of Grizabella's? I take issue with you taking issue with francesca haywood's portrayal tell me tell me victoria's journey tell me the story of victoria cast asunder alone in the streets of london she has been cast out from her owners she's. She doesn't know this world. She's scared.

And then she gets taken in by this odd cult, but with love. Jellicle cats and Jellicle, Jellicle cats. And yes. Jellicle cats and Jellicle, Jellicle cats. They're a threat. No, it's going to throw me mad. There's threats and there's darkness in the form of, what's his name? Idris Elba?

McAvity. McAvity, right. Idris Elba. Did he bring it today or what? Yeah, big time. Why did he get contact lenses and no one else was allowed? They make reference to his green eyes at one point. Oh, do they?

Yeah. It's like, this guy's got fucking crazy eyes. They should give everyone crazy eyes. He's got Idris Elba eyes. Here's what adds weight to your she's a dancer who sings thing. Because she's part of the Royal British Ballet. The Royal Ballet, whatever the fuck it's called.

The Queen's Ballet. She's one of the Queen's swans. And I reckon what happened is she got cast because apparently Victoria, the character, doesn't have her own song on the musical. So what about this guy? Andrew Lloyd Webber and Taylor Swift wrote that song in an afternoon. Francesca Haywood had already been cast.

They knew she would support a couple songs. She would duet with Jennifer Hudson to bring up memories or Moonrise, whatever it's called. Goosebumps. Again. But what if they had to shoehorn, like, because I watched part of an interview today and it's got Francesca... Way to apply yourself, bro.

Francesca Haywood and Taylor Swift and two others there. And Francesca Haywood's talking about it and she's like, yeah, they wrote the song and then I had to learn it the day before I was going to do it on set Andrew Lloyd Webber and Taylor Swift just kind of took me into a room and gave me this private concert it was amazing but then terrifying because I had to perform it in the movie the next day that is nuts so this whole production like how does

that situation come up this is also you know here it lloyd weber by the way is a notoriously bad guy really beyond the the musical output that might be worth some research between today and tomorrow like he is a a like a almost qualifies for super villain status really his general outlook demeanor and behavior he's just a political menace uh he's like an old school conservative uh he lives outside of the uk but flies back to vote on legislature which like really makes lives difficult for various different minorities the guy sucks but you gotta hand it to him he's got commitment certainly but to me uh what i'm getting out of this and the way that this set and entire production was run is that Andrew Lloyd Webber said to Tom Hooper if you're going to direct Cats you're going to do it the way that I made Cats

which involves coming into this room with me and just plunging yourself into this mountain of cocaine and any idea you have is a good idea and that's not just when you're high any idea you have is a good idea forever you're saying that like it's crazy, but this reeks of that mentality. And it's kind of inspiring that way because you see Cats and all of this as just pure confidence. There's, like the music is good,

but the lyrics are bad and the story is bad and the concept is bad and baffling. But it's done with such conviction and confidence. To put on a musical is a lot of work a lot of people a lot of money a lot of time and for a man to convince everyone that adapting a t.s elliott book of poems about felines into a stage production worthy of you know at least tens of thousands of pounds when it opened in 1981 that is that is some sort of mastermind.

Yeah. And people get behind that. It doesn't matter if you're right. It just matters if you're confident. Yeah. This movie is a testament to that. 100%, except for the $70 million that it lost. That arguably will count as being wrong.

Oh, nah, because everyone who worked on the movie got paid. That's not coming out of their pocket. I guess, but they may not work again. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. You miss 100% of the stage adaptations you don't make to a weird CGI film favourite line again back to Skimble Shanks when he says

I'm a cat who cannot be ignored I thought but are you I was like absolutely I mean you're fucking

singing a song in trousers on a railway it would be impossible for me to ignore you right now who is your

Jellicle choice this watch you're not gonna like it. Uh-oh. No, actually, initially it was. It was hers to lose from the outset. Yeah.

Because of the technical mastery required, the cockroach or beetle tattoo that she puts together is so impressive. Is it a story element? Or is it a digital work of art? No, within the story... I see. The idea that she has trained these cockroaches to perform this way,

and also baked a delicious cake. And she carries them around in a little briefcase. And then she threw the cake away. Yeah. She biffed it in their face. Hey, that actually reminds me. Dylan Reeve, who was the co-maker of Tickled, the film with David Farrier.

About professional tickling. He's a film editor and whatnot, and he sent out a really great tweet with a very minor technical detail when the trailer came out. You know that bit where they rotate the screen 180 degrees with the cockroach tattoo? It's done in this really like...

Because I was looking at that shot and i was like something about this is fucked like when the trailer came out it's like what is it about this and it happens completely in uniform motion like it's literally just the screen turning 180 which like apparently in the visual effects world this is what dylan was saying you would never do it that way it would like slow down just before it hit the end and sort of correct as if you're actually moving a physical object like a camera crane around. But because it's just going the same speed the whole time, it just comes off as really cheap and shitty

because it's completely digital. Nothing's got any weight. I can see Tom Hooper in the editing suite saying, speed it up! Why does it slow down? Yeah, man. So anyway, I thought it was Rebel Wilson for that reason. However, fucking hats off to Mr. Mistoffelees.

Really? A hundred percent. That song is a belter. His performance is sensational. And what really clinched it for me, I was singing along in the cinema to Mr. Mistoffelees. Oh, well, never have I ever... Something like that.

I got it wrong, but you get it. Seen a cat so clever as Marvel... I don't know. It's magical. So good. And then at the end, after he's been... The cats have been galvanized by the power of his magic, and he in turn has believed in the ability of his magic

thanks to the confidence of the other cats. He creates this sort of situation where all of the instruments in the room he has conducted to float above the cats who are performing in synchronicity at this point and belt out

a full instrumental version of the Mr. Mistoffelees song and at the end of it if you think about the context of the story he has justelees song. And at the end of it, if you think about the context of the story, he's just saved Dame Judi Dench, old Deuteronomy, from her fate of walking the plank on a barge on the Thames.

Yeah. So in the context of the movie, of the story of the movie, and also for how much I enjoyed the song, he's my Jellicle choice today. Who do you like? Nice one, dude. Before song he's my jellicle choice today who do you like nice one dude before i get to my jellicle choice the last bit sat a lot better with me today because i think i got it more it was like oh this is a joke but it's just it's a joke that's supposed to work because the rest of the thing is supposed to work and then this is supposed to be a bit of

light like a bridge back down to real life. It's like, yeah, you just watched a thing with cats telling you a story as if, you know, they've got these full-fledged emotional lives and conflicts. But realistically, we're talking about cats. Isn't that funny? Didn't we all enjoy the magic of the theatre to take us into this other realm for two hours or so?

And then this is a nice ramp back so that when you come out and get into your car, you don't have the mistaken impression that your cats are running around, breaking hearts and wizarding other cats. But it's just the fact that the movie was so weird and didn't work on any particular level that it didn't land.

But the second time watching it today, I was like, I get what this is supposed to be.'s yeah and that is why i think it's not a total failure because you cannot describe it wholesale financially you can but as a as a film the entire thing is not unenjoyable the entire time and it's like it's patchy yes but there are moments of genuine giddiness inside of the world when it isn't taking itself too seriously and when you're allowed to have fun and you are in it with the cats. It's nice.

There also remains nothing to suggest that there aren't actual cats that live in this universe. And these are, as suggested previously, a terrifying cat-person hybrid. I did turn to you and say the scene where the jellicle choice has been made this is a real emotional high in the film and jennifer hudson is approaching um what turns out to be a hot air balloon but is sort of a um what do you call it a uh what's it called in the roof ch Chandelier. With a big balloon attached to it. And Mr. Mistoffelees at this point has established

he is indeed magical, so he waves his hand and a ring of candles lights up. And you know when you have those lanterns that you can light the bud and then it floats off into the air? It's like that. So it's producing this heighty to lift it. And so you've got, there's a lot of star imagery on the ground. There's like

50 cats all circled around standing on their high legs and then there's this fire this candle circle and then this cat is getting lifted into the air and i just turned to go i went imagine if a person just came in and saw these cats pulling this off i would freak i would pay serious money if someone could edit that into the film just to see someone go, and then watch the cats see the person and scatter. Especially if you consider the idea

that the person has not seen this hybrid before. I like the idea that it's like Rugrats with the language, that they can all understand it. So we're seeing cats through cat's eyes, but this is actually just cats. So then we get it from the human perspective and it's what we see as cats but they've pulled off this sacrificial ceremony to send jennifer hudson up in a hot air balloon it was they don't even

have thumbs these cats have full-blown hands um so my jellicle choice this time is robert downey jr the third and it's mainly it's's the little things, isn't it, guy? It's his reaction to Dame Judi Dench as Old Deuteronomy at the end, where she is fucking eyeballing us as audience members, one take wonder, with the song explaining how to address the cat and the etiquette involved. And he is just, I'm obviously not looking at her. She's in focus.

That's what the movie wants me to do i'm off to the right looking at robbie downing jr the third and he's just doing a great job of reacting to whatever she says yeah he's committed and that acting is react and that's one of the fun things about uh musical acting and sort of you know this sort of it's almost pantomime really but yeah there's no there's no top end that you're not allowed to reach. And he embraces that. He dials it all the way up. His reactions are huge reactions to her barreling the camera and telling you, that's right,

you just watched a movie about cats for the second time. So on that night? Well, I'd just like to say, again, I am feeling A real kinship To the Jellicle clan And the Jellicle cats And again

In spite of an improved attitude I don't quite feel like You have what it takes Me I don't know that you are Presently A Jellicle cat I think you're right

But I think I can get there And I think Just what the doctor ordered Another watch tomorrow. I mean, there's nothing else for it really, is there? Hey, thanks for listening to episode Meow Meow. We'll see you. Meow.

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. We'll see you soon. Cats prefer chef. Meow. today you ready okay let's go the hunt for the wildest movie of the summer ends here this is your super friendly and not aggressive reminder to buy tickets immediately borderlands now playing