Why I LOVED the Cats movie

Photo @ Capitol Records by Stefan Colson

With all the hubbub surrounding this film, and my personal history with the piece, I figured… what better way to ring in January 1, 2020?

I went to an AMC Dine In Theatre in Fullerton for a 9:15pm showing last night. I wanted to have wine while I watched. Couldn’t hurt, right?

The last time I went to a Dine In Theatre, which was also my first time, was to watch Pitch Perfect 2 with my pal Dan Navarro. Dan wrote “We Belong” with Eric Lowen made popular by Pat Benatar, and the song was actually in the film. I also sang with the German a cappella group and a few other bits as a session singer. Dan is a marvelous talent, check out his sensational body of work when you have time.

This is the best way to watch a film! You get to recline and kick up your feet and relax. There’s a call button to beckon your server before and during the film, who communicates with you as discreetly as possible. You can eat and drink, but the AMC house trailers before the film are super excellent — very clear that you’re not allowed to light up your phone or talk. Hallelu.

That trailer said nothing however about laughter and clapping… there was that too and all six of us in the theatre were absolutely okay with it.

So!

The film starts and I’m already smiling so much my face hurts. The score has been reorchestrated for a huge musical ensemble, with a perfect nod to the original sound that I remember. Excellent score production on this film, wow. Gotta head to IMDb for those credits.

Cats came around to our town in the mid-1990s, we saw a touring production somewhere in Orange County and my Dad fell asleep. He hated the whole thing. My father is clearly not a dancer. A cat came down the aisle during the show and caught him sleeping, and that feline sure did get right up in his face and scare him out of his wits. I’ll never forget it. Everyone around us got a great laugh.

Now back to the film…

I didn’t notice anything “off” per se about the visual effects until we got through most of the film, up to the Jellicle Ball sequence. If you haven’t heard the news, there is an updated version of the film that was sent out to the theatres after it’s original release with supposedly better visual effects. I actually thought we might have been watching the original version without the update toward the end of the film. There is some facial smoothing and whiskers that made my brain tweak a bit. Some cats have pores and wrinkles, some do not. Victoria’s face seems very processed and then other cats come about with more realistic 4K-looking faces. If you’ve never been filmed in 4K, trust me: you don’t want to be. It’s a cruel thing without some serious help from your editor. Unless you’re perfect like Francesca Hayward. Victoria, the white cat. She was marvelous on all fronts. Paws? Yes, those too.

Another thing to know about the film: it’s told from Victoria’s point of view. Tom Hooper did a brilliant job directing this film. There are so many stories and character arcs that I never understood from just watching the show onstage. Then again, I’ve never done the show and I’ve never actually seen the score or script. I’ve also never read the original T.S. Eliot poetry that the show is based on.

Hold on, I’m going to order some poetry on Amazon right now…

Of course, I’ve sung “Memory” hundreds of times as a kid. … and as a grown-up. But I never did the show onstage, young or old. I did have an old karaoke cassette tape and practiced “Memory” over and over. I mean, I really and truly only knew the song at age 10 or so because Barbra Streisand made it famous in my mind. So I don’t know if those characters and their backstories are in the script, or passed down, or interpreted from the poetry. It is very rare for a musical to have a name for every cat that is onstage… every ensemble member, that is.

I’ll say it again before moving on — Tom Hooper is brilliant. You know his work from Les Mis, The Danish Girl, The King’s Speech, the list goes on and on. You finally have an opportunity to understand the “story” of Cats as a piece with this 2019 film.

Here’s my main complaint about movie musicals these days. Melodyne. Autotune. Computers taking away from the musical artform. Altering the singing voices to sound robotic and in tune, when they were pitchy at the actual captured moment.

Does this bother anyone else besides me? I would rather hear a natural, human voice that has inflections and vibrato created by a living being before you play me a computer-altered singer. Especially a singer who hasn’t taken the time to train that craft. Remember Beauty & The Beast? The first notes of “Little town, it’s a quiet village” left me cringing for another two hours and I’ve never watched it again to this day.

I’m going to see Cats again in the theatre. Probably twice. Haven’t done that since 1989. The Little Mermaid, of course. (Click here for our live orchestral video of the “Part of Your World” reprise!)

I’ve been lucky enough to work with some amazing audio engineers who have fine-tuned the art of vocal tuning. It can be a wonderful quick solution, but it will never take the place of training and vocal technique.

So keep that in mind when you watch the film. To me, the actual film vocals were left much more natural compared to what I heard on the 2019 Highlights soundtrack that was released. Yes, I listened through the new soundtrack album twice in it’s entirety before I saw the film. I wish there was a full soundtrack available with all of the underscore and the natural vocals as we heard them in the film.

Beg pardon Sir ALW… it’s on the way, right?

Victoria sings “Beautiful Ghosts” right after Jennifer Hudson delivers a triumphant “Memory.” Keep this in mind when you hear the song for the first time. My 88-year-old grandfather could barely get through one minute and 16 seconds of the song when I first played it for him a few weeks ago. I haven’t played him our cover version of it yet. I won’t hold my breath. He is a huge Andrew Lloyd Webber fan, couldn’t ever get enough of Phantom. He didn’t like Cats when he saw it onstage. He is also: not a dancer.

“Beautiful Ghosts” is the only newly-composed song in the film. Remember “You Must Love Me” from Evita? Click here to listen to our version on iTunes, that’s me playing the piano and singing. I also produced the session and wrote the solo cello part as a sort of duet slash trio. In order for music to be considered for awards, it has to be new content specifically created for the film. That’s why a lot of movie musicals have “new” songs in them. “You Must Love Me” won the Golden Globe and the Academy Award in 1997. These days, it’s usually put into the stage version also. I really hope that “Beautiful Ghosts” starts getting put into the stage version of Cats.

This is the most important paragraph of the story here: CHILDREN. This 2019 film is going to be the first introduction to Cats for hundreds of thousands of children. Maybe even more. Millions? Those kids will want to be dancers! They will see these cats on their screen and want to jump and leap around their house!

That’s what happened to me when I saw the 1982 Annie film with Ann Reinking and Aileen Quinn and all the wonderful people in the film. I knew what I wanted to do with my life! My family business in Downey was open for 60 years, selling and servicing televisions and appliances. We had a VHS tape of that 1982 Annie that I absolutely wore out — this was before bootlegs and I still have no idea how Uncle Salvatore got ahold of the film. I just wanted to grow up to be Ann Reinking. Now so many children will want to be dancers after seeing Cats, and that’s a huge part of why I loved the film. Same with the Evita film — it was my very first introduction to the musical. I had no idea that actually seeing the show onstage would be a different version, different keys, different story arcs at times. It’s a magical thing to introduce both children and adults to new pieces of historic musical theatre via any medium.

So when I decided to record a cover of Victoria’s 11 o’clock number, I hadn’t yet seen the film. I really wish I would have waited, but it is what it is. The song is at it’s finest with the acting from Francesca Hayward, with her untuned and pure vocals, the way it exists in the film — as a follow-up to Jennifer Hudson’s masterful performance of “Memory.” I had constant tears streaming down my face during Grizabella’s entire song. Then Victoria stops Grizabella with a simple lyric: “Follow me home… if you dare to.” Victoria goes on to explain her life with these lyrics and it turns into a great conversation one might have with their therapist.

Everyone of my colleagues that has done the show onstage previously talks about the cat school and character study, playing with balls of yarn on the floor, I am completed intrigued my this. But I’ve never known Victoria’s character to have this wonderful backstory that plays out in the film. I’ll leave it at that so you can report back after you see it.

Don’t even get me started on Macavity! Poof! Not there!

I used this video cover song opportunity to explain how instrumentalists and vocalists are sometimes called upon to be last minute arrangers during recording sessions. It’s a completely different skillset. Not everyone is comfortable with improvisation.

I hope you can see Cats and “stan.” Those quotation marks are probably aging me but I don’t care. So many incredible artists worked on this film — thousands? — I believe it should be appreciated and allowed to succeed. Cats is a beautiful dance piece, with poems set to music. It’s not supposed to make sense, it’s supposed to touch you and make you feel something. Maybe you sit up straighter after the film. Maybe you go home and try to touch the floor. Maybe you watch the 1996 Cats film. That’s what I did as soon as I got home. Then I went to yoga the next day.

Because there is a little bit of dance in all of us.