Due to a manual copyright claim by UMG (that I'm still working to resolve) some of the music in this video is either muted or replaced with some of the most hilarious stock music KZhead would let me use.
If you'd like to see what this video was supposed to look/sound like, you can check it out here:
• Why the Music in Cats ...
In this video I freak out about Cats holding hands
Twitter: / sideways440
Twitch: / sideways440
Patreon: / sideways440
Also, I'd like to make a special mention of Catilin Koi's video "Let's Talk About CATS".
I wish I'd done my job a little better and found this video before I made my own, and cited her multiple times because she does a MUCH better job than I do at explaining the plot to the original stage version of Cats, especially everything with Grizabella at the end of the show.
if anything about this video has made you excited about learning about the original Cats then I cannot recommend her video enough
• Let's Talk About CATS
Sources:
The article penned by the audio leads on Cats
I cannot overstate how much of a fascinating read this is, you owe it to yourself to read it!
www.local695.com/magazine/cat...
Part 1 of the above article with some interesting insights to the film industry
(I liked the part where they lucked out with the forehead-mounted mics not interfering with the dancers' somersaults)
www.local695.com/magazine/mix...
Luciano Berio's Sequenza III performed by Laura Catrani (I love this performance!)
• SEQUENZA III, Luciano ...
catsmusical.fandom.com/wiki/T...
because of course Cats has it's own wiki
The Toronto Star article about the Orchestra having to work up to 2 months before the film released
www.thestar.com/entertainment...
John Cage's Water Walk
• John Cage "Water walk"
The Greenport Peter Pan Fiasco
• Greenport Peter Pan Fi...
Maria Joao Pires prepared a different Mozart concerto to the one that was performed
• Maria Joao Pires expe...
The same thing happened to pianist Tianxu An in the finals of a Tchaikovsky Competition in 2019
• Tchaikovsky Competitio...
Ray Chen breaks a string during a performance (and the concertmaster doesn't flinch when he has to swap violins like a pro)
• Ray Chen breaks string...
The metal pole modern dance thing that we've all seen a million times
• Crazy art dance Metal...
If I've missed anything please let me know
Seriously, if I've used a clip from your video in this video and I haven't put it here please contact me!
Tom Hooper is just a gimmick director trying to be revolutionary by reinventing the wheel, not realizing it's round for a reason
this is the most accurate thing ive ever heard
Funny that his best movie, The King's Speech, is just a straight well made drama film, no gimmicks or anything.
Quint: "Well it proves one thing, Mr. Hooper. It proves that you wealthy college boys don't have the education enough to admit when you're wrong."
... but also has literally no understanding about how the wheel is shaped or why it's shape is significant... 🙄
Simple but powerful analogy. Producers and Directors who want to change up well loved classics need to first truly understand what they're changing and know exactly why and what they're altering. Changing things for the sake of doing something different isn't enough. They did a similar thing with Ghost in the Shell, the director loved the anime and remembers some pretty iconic scenes, but in interviews he doesn't seem to grasp some of the deeper concepts behind the storytelling and the live action movie suffered as a result, it felt more like a collection of the amazing memorable scenes from the anime patched together with a generic Hollywood "antagonist is actually from the protagonist's forgotten past and the real antagonist was controlling the protagonist all along" plot.
"toUUCH MEE" "SHE LITERALLY JUST DID????" HELP I CANT I HAVE A COLD AND KEEP CHOKING ON MY LAUGHTER
Your profile picture I-
my dude your profile picture could cause people ptsd attacks lmao
Are you sure that it's only your laughter?
@@yellowjellow5744 what’s the pfp?
Feel better soon!
The whole lyrics-don't-match-the-story part, like when Grizabella sings "touch me" and she was already touched, really gets me because they treat these songs like ambience music instead of actual plot devices that forward the story. Yeah, memory sounds nice, but the lyrics actually matter, you know
Yeah, it's a mistake a lot of adaptations make, they treat the themes and elements of a story as just ambience or tonal choices. Always frustrating.
YES! Musicals are not just a story with a bunch of songs, it is the songs that make the story, they matter. Yes, I am here after 2 years cause this musical offense still make me angry and I love this dude
@@isabelafreitas8438oh my god same im just waiting for sideways’ comeback if it ever happens
It's really amazing how they managed to fudge up every aspect of this really very straightforward concept. I mean there just isn't that much to leave out, but they managed. Song and dance? Remove the rhythm. A cast of interesting, individual cats? Can barely tell them apart. A story about a cat who's desperate to be touched? Not that important.
It's still funny how a song flatout has the lyrics of "a ginger cat".......so of course he's a black cat in this adaptation. Did they think no one would care?
When Rebel Wilson slows down to sing "I'm deeply concerned with the ways of the mice", she sounds completely insincere like she's a corporate representative giving a statement on allegations of cat-mice racism.
this would have made a funny skit
oh my god im wheezing
This comment is literally funnier than any one of Rebel Wilson's lines in cats
This is the greatest thing ive ever read!
Rebel Wilson was not come to this world to be funny, but to die a Virgin!
Dude, the movie was so bad that he made a movie about how bad it was.
legit my tought
I would say "and it was better than the actual movie" but thats not exactly a *high* bar to jump over
@@brunop.8745 I don’t think you even need to jump to get over that bar
@@asterisk4540 Yeah it seems like a bar that is quite far underground
Dude did you even watch the film?
An essay about the Cats movie from a guy who actually likes Cats. This is different.
It's absolutely POGGERS
As a Musical Theatre kid who is now studying music as a minor in college imma let you in on a lil secret......a lot of us actually enjoy Cats we just hide it because it’s one of the first Pop Musicals that normies watched
but musical Cats is actually great
@caro I get the impression that he loves some parts of it, but thinks it’s just okay overall. I’m pretty sure his favorite musical is West Side Story.
Yeah! A good sidecar to this one would be Lindsay Ellis' video on Cats. I bet it's even in the sidebar of this one. She's great ♥
I never noticed this before but Grizabella in the stage play literally has a matted coat. In the context of her being a literal cat she's depressed and won't take care of herself and she's been isolated for so long no other cat has groomed her either (showing her affection, talking to her, "touching" her etc...) it adds even more to Grisabella's pain than I even thought before. But in the movie...it doesn't look matted. She just looks boujie and well kept, it honestly makes even less sense, maybe Victoria noticed how well kept she was and just assumed she was fine. Nonetheless what a shame this adaptation went THIS badly, and I don't even like Cats.
omg I didn't notice that, what wonderful visual storytelling!! I agree; the more I understand about the play CATS the more I realize how much of a disservice the movie was (and wish we got a movie that did the source material justice)
I like when people have the complaint of like, “I’m not even fucked about the story but the art of storytelling was debased here, characterization! Visual storytelling! The purpose of visuals beyond theater of the mind!” And I’m just like yeah you get it
I noticed this for the first time during this video, and it smacked me in the face when Grizabella literally belts "TOUCH ME". Cats are social groomers, so the fact she can't take care of herself yet the other cats aren't taking care of her just deeply emphasizes how ostracized she is! We cat moms know though lol Cats is truly a fantastic musical about weird cats for weird cat people lol
Bingo!
@@ernie39Cats barely uses the music to tell its story and I love it!!
“Butthole the cgi cat” is the hero we didn’t know we needed
He could have saved the movie if he was allowed 😢
That's my favorite line in this entire video. It always gets a laugh out of me.
The hero we didn't need, want, or deserve but got.
I like how he’s just slowly getting angrier and angrier and by the end he’s in the verge of aneurism.
It's a better build up than the movie ever had.
Yes
@@teenytinyredhead3817 Lol
Totally a rehash of me, a Cats newb, watching this movie with my friend who actually liked the original and watching her slow boil over as it dragged on xD
666th like
A *_YEAR_* since Cats? It feels like just yesterday everyone was making fun of the terrible CGI cat people
It was, because the movie was that bad that no one forgot it sucked.
Perhaps making Cats has convinced God to torture us.
2020 was so shit we're just erasing it from our memory as soon as we don't have to deal with it.
Well, this year hasn't felt like a year.
And yet at the same time it's felt like a decade.
It seems like Tom Hooper just has some weird personal vendetta against musicians. He seems to enjoy making their work especially hellish
Yeah that's one thing I felt. Like the whole story of how hooper treated his orchestra sounded abusive.
It's like he's trying to get some weird praise. Like as if he feels like he had this big vision and made it come true despite these super huge annoying hurdles like tempo lmfao. It's truly unfortunate he keeps being allowed to butcher some of the most gorgeous stage music ever, and then THATS the version people know.
@@otter.mayhem I'm just thrilled that it probably won't happen for Tommy-Tom-Tombo a third time. Sure, Le Mis (2012) _somehow_ stumbled ass-backwards into 3 Academy Awards, but the sheer embarrassing trainwreck that is Cats (2019) has all but ensured that he won't have this level of creative control over a musical again. They might let him direct another, but he'll have far less freedom to actively fuck-up everything. That's my bet and I'm placing it.
its like he thinks hes revolutionary, but doesnt realise nobody else is doing what hes doing because its just a bad idea
It sounds like he thought direxting an orchestra is no different than an actor.
YOU FINALLY EXPLAINED CATS IN A WAY THAT I CAN FINALLY UNDERSTAND ive been going off of my explanation as a kid of "theres a ton of cats who sing and dance. Theres also a cat who everyone hates. She ends up dying. Thats it."
"Hal...it's about cats."
"The actors made choices about the tempo" is such a great backhanded way to say "none of them were on beat."
No, non of them being in beat is the inevitable result of that decision.
@@Apfelstrudl Except for the few who actually were on beat like Skimbleshankes
@@Apfelstrudl That's what happens when you cast mostly actors who don't have any professional singing and dancing experience. This isn't to say they can't ever be cast in a musical, but they're going to need training in that department instead of being told to "just do whatever."
@@6thgraderfriends exactly that.
Directors really need to get it into their heads (again) that actors, even expensive, well-awarded veterans, don't automatically come with all the skills needed to pull off your film. Whether it's pulling off stunts, learning an unfamiliar accent, or learning to sing professionally, you need to actually hire experts to coach your talent if you want them to be good, and especially if you want the performances to match.
I feel like sideways is kinda insecure that his audience won't care about all the nerdy music stuff, but rest assured that's what we come here for.
@Mickenzie McGraw What I meant to say is that sideways thinks we only care about music when it's related to a movie
@@Isa-lh2mw fuck that, college let us down, explain everything with a personal angle!!!!
I don't know shit about music or most of the movies he's talked about, I just like hearing him talk
@@ashikjaman1940 I know right?! it's so weirdly entertaining for me to just listen to someone talk about something they're passionate about or even just someone who really knows their stuff 😂😂
@@rougedionisio2057 I think you hit right on what makes listening to him talk about music so engaging. The emotion, the passion, the fervor, its engaging. I could listen to Sideways go on musical tangents for hours upon hours. Pretty sure I've listened to him talk about Cats for over 24 full hours at this point, just playing this video again on a second monitor.
I feel like this would have been INFINITELY better as an animated picture. Screw it, EVERY musical would be better served as an animated film.
Any OTHER musical. This one is based on the poems of T. S. Eliot and when Andrew Lloyd Weber first began writing the songs, he went to Eliot's widow who was still alive and she said, "Promise me you won't turn them into cartoon characters."
Howard Ashman himself said that musicals work extremely well in an animated film while discussing The Little Mermaid.
@@ManofevilWhy? Did she hate cartoons that much? And is that why this movie that was supposed to be animated end up like this?
I don't know, An American in Paris, Singing in the Rain, Hello Dolly, those movies really worked on their own. They just need to learn why the methods that produced those movies worked, not just resign to dishing out amateurish visual feasts with no sense of composition or artistic cohesion.
@@guitarbrother1234 That's true. I think specifically when it comes to having stories with anthropomorphic characters, it should at least be partially animated, like some sort of Who Framed Roger Rabbit type of scenario.
This video has taught me a lot but nothing is gonna stick with me more than the sentence “Rum Tum Tugger is rum tum tugging the harmonies.” 😭😭
Sum up the problems with two words: actor worship. This movie was made for everyone to squee over these actors... that's why they sing about themselves instead of each other, why the music was performed around them singing instead of the other way around, etc. The musical numbers were just an afterthought to displaying the actors, which is why zero thought was given to the music or story at all.
^^^ this is 100% IT!!
Pretty much. That $200 million budget has to have mostly gone to securing huge names: Taylor Swift, Jason DeRulo, Judy Dench, Ian McKellen, Jennifer Hudson, so on, these are all people who can demand a fatass paycheck because of their star power. I sure as shit know that if I'm Ian McKellen I'm not showing up and doing a half-removed impression of a character I already portrayed for 15 years while saying "meow meow meow" for anything less than the price of a new mansion. So to bring down the cost, you gotta accommodate the actors' egos too! That means that instead of being sung _about_ (the Gumby Cat section portrayed that pretty well, the Gumby Cat barely says anything about herself and most of the lyrics are delivered by the Andrew Sisters-esque trio), they have to sing it themselves, about themselves, about how awesome and cool they are, and then the music is bent to fit them instead of them bending to fit the music as every performer in history prior has done.
Lol yes show off the actors that we covered in cgi
Not even. It was all, evidently, a gigantic monument to Hooper's hubris and abusive devotion to overengineered technological spectacle. Man doesn't give a shit about actors, he made them all sing until their throats risked permanent damage on Les Mis. Make no mistake, this was just the Tom Hooper Can Do Anything show.
Jason Derulo: "Jason Derulo"
I know it's just because of copyright mutes, but "just listen to the clarinet trying to follow him" followed by *dead silence* was hilarious.
I HAD NO CLUE WHAT THAT WAS AND NONE OF THE COMMENTS WERE TALKING ABT IT
I THOUGHT IT WAS SOME SICK JOKE I DIDNT GET
@@chunky16 lol nope, his old video got taken down for “copyright” so he edited it.
I went and looked up a clip of that bit.. .. my god it was bad. After watching some of this video, it made me buy and watch Cats (the good one) .. and wow, just, the difference was crazy.. the Gus in the 98 one was sad and made me cry a bit, but I also liked how he started out really old, but then as the song continued, he perked up a lot and got more animated, as he relived his memories (gee, maybe a theme).. it was just great Then you got this one and it's like.. he doesn't get spoken for at the start, his paws aren't even particularly shaking like he damn says (not sings) they are.. and he just seems to sorta.. keep most of the same energy the entire song. Which I would describe as 'old'
It's also not how copyright works. This is literally textbook fair use.
“This whole show is ‘Memory’ and two-and-a-half-hours of justifying the existence of ‘Memory’”. Brilliant 🎉
I think part of the reason the original Cats musical worked is because a lot of people have real cats, and we know that cats are weird, so a story about the secret lives of cats would also be very weird, so we can suspend our disbelief and care about the Alice and Wonderland world the show creates.
Agreed. Also, in a theatre it was just set in a simple junk yard - nothing distracting - which made it easier to focus on the performers and the story itself. The movie tried to create an over the top real world story that just took away the immersion.
That's one of the reasons that I don't think of all the touching as too strange or even sometimes sexual like a lot of other people do because... that's just kind of how cats are.
@@mastermarkus5307Thank you!
@@mastermarkus5307💯 That's why the toxic masculinity boys will proclaim how they hate cats, they are so openly affectionate in a more physical way than dogs, I think that's part of it.
@@mastermarkus5307 that's actually a really good point. Cats are always touching each other and the things they love. For example, my cat likes to be RIGHT next to you, and she'll fall asleep ON your feet.
This movie-length video by a KZheadr is more interesting than the actual movie made by a professional studio
Holy shit your right
You are absolutely right. The most unfair part is that CATS was originally going to be an animated movie directed by Steven Spielberg but later scrapped for unknown reasons.
I watched the whole thing, and I've watched Lindsay ellises video essay multiple times. I've never seen Cats. 😆
Just like MauLer’s TLJ and TFA Critiques!
I watched 50 minutes and then just realised I'd just watched 50 minutes
turning mr mistoffelees into an uwu shy boy is literally the worst crime in the history of theatre
i could not agree more
I think it could have worked. Him singing the song ruined it. If he was confident, him singing about how great he is would make him unlikable. The song would basically be: hey, I am so smart and clever, look at all this shit I can do. Have other people sing it (like in the show)and give him confidence to do the shit. Making all the songs be about the people singing them hurt a lot of songs. You could even have a small moment with Rum Tum if you want to acknowledge how gay they are in the show. You could still cut it out for China if you want to cater to people who are stupid.
Ikr! He’s not demure!!
Ikr. I also hate how they took away Misto and Tuggers friendship. That’s made me so mad.
schjsdhfgmhtf agreed
It's over a year later when I realized that there's *ANOTHER* character that the movie adaptation got so horribly wrong: Bombalurina. In the musical, 1: she has a friend in Demeter, and 2: she HATES Macavity. In the movie, she's helping Macavity by incapacitating everyone else. (Also, no Demeter.)
I couldn’t agree more dude Like yes, Macavity the Mystery Cat is a very suggestive song but Bombalurina and Demeter both clearly don’t like Macavity. And getting rid of Demeter is so dumb it pisses me off to an unreasonable level. Like you have these two cats that are pretty damn different personality wise but still work well together, but nnnOOOOO Taylor Swift needs a solo 🥺🥺
@@vikaaaaaa Demeter is in the movie, but you wouldn't know it's her because they turned her into a Russian Blue for some reason. Instead of being Bombalurina's best friend, she now hangs out with Cassandra, who also looks completely different that she suffers the same problem with Demeter regarding her recognizability. I actually had to pause the movie to go to the wiki to check these two female cats' names because they looked so unremarkable.
@@lmahu6627 yeah, I actually watched the movie recently, I never actually looked the character’s names up but I got a pretty good idea of who Demeter was. I’m glad she at least had a part, considering that she was pretty important to the original musical.
I think it's supposed to be implied Demeter and Bombalurina are sisters and they have history with Macavity, which is why they do the song about him. Still, they definitely hate him so wtf movie
and from a musical standpoint, they did taylor a huge disservice by giving her a duet to sing solo. ESPECIALLY because the mcavity song is not at all her style- i feel like she would’ve done 10x better if they just gave her a partner rather than try to piggyback off of her success (and i know i have a taylor pfp but it still stands!)
It is a shame to come back to this video years later only to find out that parts of the discussion had to be muted or have copyright-free music placed over it. The ENTIRE POINT is critique of these numbers & performances yet that's not fair use enough to save it from the march of the eternal nightmare machine that is the music industry.
And it’s a lot of parts where he is about to make a point, and then it just has to drop out.
He should be allowed to use any music he wants!
It’s almost like the people who direct musicals should, like....understand music in some capacity.
Why start now?
[Monkey Paw finger curls] Granted, all musicals are now directed by late 90s and early 2000s music video directors
Oh wow ya don't say
@@thomasgiles2876 this means michael bay is now back on crack Sorry i mean track
Imagine that
Before: Gee this looks interesting but I don't know much about musicals One hour later: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MUSIC, TOM HOOPER? Edit: Why is there music removed? This is criticism--doesn't that count as fair use?
We were sleeper agents for Big Musical all along. We have been activated.
It's like he used staples, STAPLES people!
Right?! I thought I've seen all the reviews i needed to see about this movie but this took the cake!
@@philipyates3194 What is staple? (Seriously)
Right he is so good at explaining things and it’s super interesting to learn about it as well.
I'm impressed that you talked about Cats (2019) for an hour and didn't once mention how awful the sound mixing was. I could not hear Jennifer Hudson over the orchestra in Memory and the woodwinds were drowning out the piano at the best of times
Watching the movie in theaters was the aural equivalent of _squinting my ears_
The instrumentation is also very inconsistent. It can't decide between synthesizers or a full orchestra, frequently in the same song.
The rage that sideways unleashed upon 56:00 was phenomenal "Tombo... TREAT IT LIKE A REAL PERFORMANCE! WHAT THEY SHIT WERE THEY DOING IN THE REHEARSALS?!" All of that shit had me rolling. Five-ish minutes of sheer, embittered, unbridled animosity.
I will occasionally by sheer accident cheer myself up during moments of utter frustration just because "Hey Tom! Tommy! Tombo! MY MAN!" pops into my head. It's so fucking glorious.
Lol my uncle is named Tommy. I've hit him with that before.
Mulan 2020 and Cats 2019 may have both been absolute garbage, but i will slurp up all this youtube content tearing them apart for years
YUP.
Along with Avatar and Eragon
Legitimate rants are so cathartic to listen to😂
same with star wars sequels and stuff i saw so many videos on those movies before actually watching them they just feel really satisfying
@@IssyCoonify oh we just pretend avatar didn’t exist
I am incredibly unhappy that parts of this video were muted presumably by the copyright owner, when this video is basically a masterclass in fair use.
Is that why some places are silent and others have random music in place of the video/talking?
@@euwue Yes
Thank you for pointing this out. I was trying to figure out what was wrong with my headphones.
Well of course! He's not praising them so no one needs to hear they're music in his video! Especially since the pieces muted were the some of the worst and most disappointing numbers in the flick. At this point we're lucky they haven't tried to have it taken down. 😡
I kept trying to figure out what was wrong!! Omg it was driving me crazy. What’s funny is he played chunks of what they kept muting before in the video!!
Dame Judi Dench as Old Deuteronomy is still one of the most baffling Hollywood casting choices of all time. The whole thing about Dench is that she is renowned at acting while not being much of a singer. It’s why she has one of the most iconic and definitive renditions of Sondheim’s Send in the Clowns - an “easy” song to sing that carries a lot of emotion in every word and line that Ms Dench is able to execute flawlessly. But the Old Dute role needs someone with a big showy voice who can make a nonsense song feel like a big climactic showstopper. The lyrics to the last song are basically a nursery rhyme, but with the sheer power of Ken Page’s voice at 34:32 , you absolutely believe it. We found the one song that Dame Judi cannot put any emotion into. It just comes off as awkward and very unintentionally camp. This ties into Sideways’ central thesis of the 2019 movie completely failing to get the point of the original while trading some misplaced sense of “authenticity” for actual good music in a fucking musical.
Her agent(s) did her SO dirty is criminal
Judi Dench was the original cast for Grizabella way back. Unfortunately, she injured her foot during rehearsal. And then Elaine Paige got the role of Grizabella. So I get casting her as a nod to her history with Cats.
I got emotional whiplash from the back-to-back cuts between the movie versions and stage versions of these songs. It's like constantly jumpcutting between Johnny Knoxville in a shopping cart with fireworks in his ass, and an actual rocket launch.
Tbf both of those sound more fun to watch than cats (2019)
Why does Tom Hooper, a guy who clearly doesn’t like musicals keep directing musicals
I think that he likes them because he knows they move people, and he, too, is moved by the originals. He's trying to alter the musicals for film in such a way that they move even more people than the originals did. However, he lacks any of the technical knowledge needed to take creative liberties with shows widely considered to be exceptional. It's like giving a toddler expensive paints simply because they love Van Gogh - while their dreams may be masterpieces, they still only have experience with crayons.
@@atlasbradford6535 I honestly don't think he likes them or gets them. I can't imagine anyone who likes them destroying the music like he does
Maybe he thinks he can "fix" them
@@OpqHMg He could just have a really bad ear for music. I love music, and I really like the music from Cats I find on youtube, but I can barely notice half the mistakes pointed out in this video without re-listening and paying really close attention to the beat and such. Heck, even most of the really obvious ones I can't really catch without having it pointed out first.
He needs to let it out, let it out, let it out I'm not sorry
They really said, "We're going to copyright this guy for using our movie's music because if we didn't make any money off of it, he won't either."
Is that why some places are silent and others have random music in place of the video/talking?
@@euwue yes
I thought my device had a problem
Thank you! I was looking through the comments for an explanation of the long silences and musical breaks. I thought my phone was screwed up a bit.
I see that everyone here didn't read the description
24:02 i had a music teacher explain it like this to me, I was doing a show and we had to sing this one harmony that 2 out of 3 singers were singing under their breath almost because they weren’t comfortable with it. After almost 10 mins of drilling it he said “A good harmony is like a ham sandwich. When you take out the bread on Top and the bottom, you just have fucking ham.”
So I had this really amazing experience in high school: my school band went to Anaheim for a band competition, we had tons of fun, got to go to Disneyland and everything. One of the best parts of this was that we got to go into the recording studio behind Disneyland and experience what it's like to play music for movies. One of the musical pieces we played was Patcha's journey home to his village. It was super cool. We got to wear headphones with a click track in one ear, see the animation on screen. And then after that, we got to watch the scene we just played, play out with OUR music overlaid. It was honestly such a wizard moment. I may not have continued playing the flute after high school but that experience honestly impacted me and made me appreciate soundtracks so much more.
I got to do that too!! And one of the pieces we did was the flamingo thing from one of the fantasias. Funny part about that one, the click track *wasn't * even, but that was because the original orchestra hadn't been and the animation followed the music, instead of the other way round.
My theater class got to this as well, but with vocals instead!
Finally a critical analysis that isn’t just “cat people bad”, from someone who knows that the musical is weird but actually does have a story and distinct characters with motivations and personalities. Bravo sir
It took nearly 13 months since the release of the movie, but anything would have been better then the hundreds of videos of people having tantrums over the cgi.
Lindsay Ellis' video is pretty good too
Lindsay and Maggie Mae Smith both have pretty good videos
I've honestly seen several great critiques of cats by several content creators
@@ILikedGooglePlus that's also because Lindsey was a theater kid growing up, so she understands how musicals work and how cats didn't work. It seems only theater and music people can accurately describe the issues of this movie outside of "CGI bad" which makes sense since no joe schmo is going to put in the time to understand why they hate the music and then talk about it in detail.
are we not talking about how weirdly unproportionate the sizes of the cats are? they're too large inside the train but then have the size of hamsters while on the train tracks.
I noticed that too and it took me out of it more than the CGI because that is at least consistent. It's also really sad because I actually liked the set design but I couldn't focus on it.
I think it's that they are cat-sized but when you then give them human proportions they look slighter and wispier than a cat at that size. They don't fit.
@@EvanCWaters but they're not cat sized in the dancing scene on the train tracks, right? they're tiny there!
what about the heads of the cats being so oddly proportioned?! on the movie version
They aren't alive. Its dream like because they're dead.
Slightly off-topic, but after studying for years as a Music Education major, it is so refreshing to have a analytical deep-dive channel that focuses on music themes on an entertaining way without speaking down to the viewers and just assumes we have basic understanding of music theory. It's surprising how hard that is to find and I love it.
i still can never believe that they put that clip of the director saying he needed a break in the special features, as if it makes the production look cool and not like they treated their staff like crap
Damage control. It was well-known that he treated the orchestra horribly during the filming of "Les Miserables". I guess, Hooper's next special features would be about him being sweet and decent towards the CGI team.
i am BAFFLED that they kept in the director's frustrations as if it was some kind of brag
@@mammoneymelon, he was suffering for the art.
Tomathy Hooper
Any time we get a Cats review, we realize Cats was the real MENACE all along.
Why is Tomathy Hooper?
Ah, a cameo appearance Lindsay Ellis The Menace!
Just... How?? Did this get all the way to theaters
You too got me into fucking Cats. Thanks a lot 🙄🙄🙄
I watched an hour's worth of roasting the Cats movie without watching the Cats movie and I enjoyed it
100 PERCENT YES AGREED
This but also I've never seen or heard the stage performance 😂
BIG SAMEEEE
What makes it better is that is roasting full of totally valid reasons and fundaments
@@chloeelimam3899 OMG SAME
I don't know if Elaine Page did this deliberately, but it stood out compared to other performers' Memory renditions... Page's highest notes sound just like a cat yowling at the moon. That's a really nice touch ❤
fun little factoid, Page originated the role in the west end in 1981, she replaced Judi Dench 4 days before opening night! Which goes ot show Dench's performance is all directorial in this movie to boot! Jeeze he has somthing to answer for!
@@GeekySquidoo quick question, you do realise that factoid means false fact, yes?
"Factoid" has two distinct meanings, one of which might imply a falsehood, while the other does not: 1. Originally, "factoid" referred to a piece of information that becomes accepted as a fact, although it is not necessarily true or is outright false, simply because it is widely repeated and circulated. In this sense, a factoid is something that resembles a fact but is not factually accurate. 2. Over time, "factoid" has also come to mean a brief or trivial piece of factual information. In this usage, a factoid is not necessarily false but is a small, interesting fact. The CONTEXT in which "factoid" is used determines which meaning is intended.
In my opinion, it would be better if they make Grizzabella the main character and how we see her perspective as she sneaks in the junk yard to let us see the festival. And for Victoria, make a little sub plot for her with the solo dance and make her foil to Grizabella, done.
This is the first Cats video essay I've seen that actually says "the stage production is good, actually" instead of just "the whole thing is a mess and should never have been made" and I really appreciate that.
Definitely - the show itself is very misunderstood and dismissed because it’s more of a concept musical than the more conventional type with protagonists, plot etc. It’s great and unique 😊
You should definitely check out Maggie Mae Fish’s video essay on Cats and T.S. Elliot.
Right? And it pisses me off so much because before the film came out, the stage version was generally regarded as a good musical, both by audiences and critics, it was a kind of a weird little classic. No one thought it was ugly, or attacked it for 'having no story', they understood that it was an odd, dreamy spectacle, and great at that.
Lindsay Ellis video essay seemed like, while she didn’t personally get Cats, she still understood the why and where the musical worked where the movie didn’t.
@@maikenzupancicdanko9377 In theatre circles, there are actually a LOT of snobs who dismiss and deride Cats, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's work in general, for being populist trash with no substance. And this was even before Cats the movie came out. There's been debates about this even dating back to when Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera" beat Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods" at the Tonys for Best Musical in 1988. To many people both familiar and unfamiliar with musical theatre, Cats' success is dumbfounding.
1. This guy sounded like he was on the verge of crying from pure rage at times. 2. I finally understand the plot to this musical. FINALLY. Thanks for that. it's still bizarre.
Well to be fair, most musicals are wierd and you loving it is what gives them sense
Only issue with the plot recap is that not all the cats (#NotAllCats) want to die. The majority of the younger cats (Mungo and Rumple, Misto, Rum Tum Tugger etc.) are just there as bystanders. The older cats like Gus and Bustopher Jones are the ones ‘auditioning’ to die, the other cats are just introducing themselves to the audience or each other (like Mungo and Rumple literally crash the party). But yeah even then it doesn’t really make sense. It’s not so much a plot as a framing device, mainly because apart from Memory all of these songs are TS Elliot poems that have no connection outside of being about cats.
yea... I've done Cats and there is basically no plot. We had to make our own little plots to try to drive our plots as specific characters, which was fun, but yea. Everyone asked what it was about and we just pointed to the front of the playbill. It's called Cats and its just about Cats
@@brooklynnking6652 It’s about a tribe of cats deciding who will have the honor of being ritualistically sacrificed and reincarnated into the next generation. At least that’s what I read from it.
@@stingerjohnny9951 Yea lmao I've done the show but they mention it in the beginning and it doesn't come back til the end otherwise it's just songs describing cats
It's so depressing to me that this thoughtful analysis is often interrupted by copyright claim muting throughout.
Doesn't he still have a link to a copy that isn't full of copyright mutes? In the description.
Full respect to Steven McRae (skimbleshanks) for being the best part of the movie. His song is the most fun to listen to, and it’s fun watching him dance. Jason does good with what he was given as well. The two of them carried the movie. They couldn’t take it far. But at least there bits are bearable
"You spent enough money to fund a quarter of a space shuttle." The outrage in that line alone is worth my patreon subscription.
Sadly I don't have the financial resources to support Sideways, but I always love his vids
Can you give a timestamp?
@@kp4692 58:50
@@kswinton2666 thanks! I love that bit too lololol
@@kp4692 58:50 ish
Alternative title to this video: Reasons why the musical Cats is not as bad as the movie would lead you to believe.
On the contrary, this video made me hate the musical even more.
@@Soitisisit why?
@@emmyloveslosing4107 Better understanding of just how bad the musical is in the first place.
@@Soitisisit There's a difference between not liking something (not to mention "hating" it which is a rather strong word) then that something being actually bad. I don't see how any of the things he said can make someone think the musical is BAD other then just being quite simple (which isn't bad).
@@OctagonCookies Alright, yes. Simplicity can be good. Simplicity can also be simply lazy. There's a difference between making something simple to be more poignant and connect with more people who might not have the time or brainpower to spare to pick apart a complex narrative and making something that's dumbed down because *you* didn't want to work hard. And Androyd Webber's Cats is definitely the latter. Musically speaking, it's competent and beyond what I can do as a composer, but for a broadway musical it's not great, not even par for the course. It definitely leans heavy into spectacle and using costumes and choreography to mask the lack of musical and narrative substance. The fact that so many people didn't even piece together what the plot even was without someone like Sideways explaining means that it fails to even be simple and therefore it's just stupid. Yes, there's a difference between hating something and it being bad, but by the same logic there's a difference between loving something and it being good. Just because something has mass appeal doesn't mean it's good or even competent. People are as inclined to go see something that's incompetent as they are to see something that's competent, especially when there's spectacle involved. And frankly, you could explain the mass appeal of cats with latent furry fetishes. Sex appeal doesn't really require any extra effort to sell. I'm not out to tell anyone that they shouldn't like the musical. It is a fun musical for a lot of people to turn their brains off to, but that doesn't make it good. I don't want to turn my brain off for a musical and I don't find it fun, I find it obnoxious. So it's not for me. But it's quite definitely bad as musical theatre, because it captures neither music or theatre very well. In terms of costuming and choreography... it's a pretty nice dance show. I wouldn't say ground-breaking, but it doesn't need to be because it's Cats and the fact that any hit was produced out of this at all is not the writer/composer's doing, it's the professionalism of the performers and directors. ( And a touch of luck, if we're being honest. All smash hits ever are right place, right time situations where they wouldn't have worked so well otherwise. ) Its badness as musical theatre is not the performers' fault or the director's. The entire fact that this video exists is down to great performers carrying a bad play and bad performers and a crappy director dropping a huge flop of a movie. That doesn't make Cats the play good, it makes Cats the movie even worse. Also, before you think I'm just mindlessly shitting on Androyd as a creator. I know he can do better because he has done better. He's a mainstay of that crowd for a reason. Now, I wouldn't say he's the guy to look up to because he's kind of a shitty guy who compromises integrity to make a buck. Just look up the time he plagiarized Pink Floyd. He's not above taking shortcuts by any means, he's out to make money. And Cats did succeed at that. So Cats is good inasfar as it did what its creator wanted it to do: Made a fuck-ton of money. In terms of artistic integrity or merit tho it's "meh" at best. It's not even Androyd's best work out of what's really his work. Ignoring the parts he plagiarized and repurposed from other material for Phantom, its a better work musically and dramatically. I can't say it's a better adaptation though, because Cats does beat Phantom as an adaptation of source material in fidelity and pragmatic adaptation, but like how many people even would give a damn about the source material these days if it hadn't been for his plays. Edit: KZhead messed up my formatting for emphasis so I just removed it. :/
Thank you. I had forgotten Jemima’s role in the stage show. And connecting up the physicalness of Cats with the story of acceptance *by touch* is a thing I had understood, but could never articulate. So if the 2019 movie did nothing else good, it made you make this, and it is beautiful. Thank you.
The sound gets overwritten by free use music at 33:13, so I was laughing at the tonal whiplash
IT HAPPENS AGAIN AT 47:13 AND IT SOUND LIKE ITS CENSORING A HEINOUS INSULT TO THE PERFORMANCE
Cats (the animal) legit touch each other to mark other cats, people, and things, as "safe". That's why they rub the corner of their mouth against your hand; it's a way of saying "this is safe, and now it smells like me, so it's extra safe". Grizabella wanting to be touched literally was just her begging for a friend. And now I'm sad.
Shoot. Now I am too.
Shit. I'm sad now.
That’s so saddd
sobs thinking of the matted little stray that bonks me when he comes by. i love that little man
AAAWWWEEEE I'm really sad now!!
You have explained the plot of Cats better than anyone I know
Agreed!
I’ve watched Cats with my sisters maybe a hundred times and we love it for its silliness. But I NEVER knew it had an actual story.😅
I'm particularly fond of the Bowser's castle analogy
A cat cult gets together to decide which cat get sacrificed; what’s not to get.
Probably better than whoever explained the plot to the director of the movie apparently
I cannot express how much joy "rum tum tugger's rum tum tugging the harmony" gives me
everytime i rewatch this video a bit more of the music is gone and it gets funnier and funnier
Just thought the same thing LOL
Hooper: reaches for a musical Everyone: NO! No! Bad Hooper! BAD! *squirts with spray bottle* No more musicals for you!
Spray him down with hairspray as a dancer that shit hurts
Hooper: But I want to do Hamilt- Everyone: NOOOO! *Pulls Hamilton and every other musical that has no adaptation yet away from Hooper’s reach*
😂 this comment cracked me up
Shake the can of pennies at him!!!!
Just duct tape him to wall he can’t do any damage if he can’t move
The Sideways Drinking game: Drink when you hear “I want” “I am” “Dies Irae”
I'd add "leitmotif" but I don't want people dying five minutes into every video.
That third one has a bit of irony to it
Dies illa
His video on Sweeny Todd would be considered a murder weapon
@@teganhunter9977 solvet saeclum
I'm just here, rewatching Sideways videos over and over, hoping they will return someday... someday...
Even without any particular musical knowledge just hearing the 1998 pro shot ost to the ost of the current movie, you can instantly tell the superior quality in the older score, and is not just the performers.
Dear KZhead Censorship Bots: This POS movie isn't worth stealing Let my mans have his video
Not only that, but this is the least questionable example of criticism and education imaginable.
Bruh this is like when Nintendo canned those fan-made CDI Zelda Remasters.
@@johnnyspeedboat6656 They were trying to sweep it under the rug I suppose.
wait - is THAT what's going on?! I'm sitting here listening to some of his points - and then suddently he's interrupted by some...8bit version of "The Girl from Ipanema"...-ish...
@@FunnyFungus I remember the first time I saw this video that one could hear the parts when Mr Mistofolees (please ignor the misspelling) and Gus singing/talking (yes, I mean you Mr. M) their songs. But the next time, they had either other music or just silence over them. And I can remember clearly that you could hear them before, because I remember reacting to what he said about Gus' song.
God bless the musicians who had to try to deal with Tom Hooper’s bullshit.
I would give anything to see their faces when he told them to "make it sound less romantic"
He’s that one high school band director that your band director asks to come “do a workshop”, and then after “the workshop,” your band director just says, “yeah, disregard everything he said, actually”
@@skyeoak3 🤣 mine was a fucking creep and he’s still working at the school luckily not the band director but music theory and he’s the reason I don’t take it
i think maybe one of the biggest problems with Cats (2019) is that it's a musical about how vanity and self-service is ultimately less important than compassion towards each other... and then they cast celebrities in it.
The director while putting the orchestra through actual hell: "should we get a cocktail?"
"THE WORLD'S MOST EXPENSIVE REHEARSAL OF THE WORLD'S MOST BASIC MUSICAL" SAY IT AGAIN FOR THE TOMOTHY IN THE BACK
@@RuleroftheSandcastle he calls Tom Hooper Tomathy in the vid as a joke
I read this as he said it lmao
I love how they still tried to copyright strike you even though; 1. This falls completely under fair use 2. The film is an absolute failure
I think it's even worse than a failure
@@royal3809 A disgraceful insult to the craft would be my take
They’re just trying to get some money that they didn’t get from the movie 😆
What siedways is doing is criticism and review. Completely protected under fair use. It's infuriating that they were able to get away with copystriking considering: a. People often get away with a lot more b. Legally the studio is in the wrong for copystriking something which is not arguably, but *clearly* under fair use
To be true it might not be 100% fair use. It would be without video though.
I just read an Author’s Note on a fanfic reminiscing how they watched this video, and used it as a springboard to watch the 1998-show and actually join the fandom. And then I remembered, that is the exactly same development I’ve been through. I’d never join the cats-fandom without this gem of musical analysis. I’ve listened to this video as a podcast while working, simply because I enjoy the voice, the complex musical-theory made easy(/ier) to understand and the snark when pointing out the 2019 worst mistakes (“hey Tom, Tommy, TombO, MY MAN” 57:08 and “badaBING badaBUM … and I didn’t even have to reinvent the wheel there” 57:25 XD) And I think it impossible that myself and the lovely fic-created aren’t the only two people entering the cats-fandom exclusively through this video, and I find that hilarious (And also, this video, with many of your others has filled my working days with joy and snark and musically knowledge in a perfect mix of intelligent and witty background noice I could listen to 29:12
even after years of this video being out, i cant stop rewatching it. this is my 15th time. this is not a problem.
Christ, as soon as he said the actors were changing the tempo of songs whenever the hell they wanted to, even my non-musical ass, who hasn't touched an instrument since the recorder in elementary school, thought, "That sounds like a fucking nightmare."
Yes. Even my individualistic grade-school ass would have been like, "The hell?"
I'm a drummer and this is basically the musical equivalent of just stabbing a baby in the face on stage. If there's a click track you fucking play to the click. The thing about getting off-tempo the way they clearly are is that this ultimately ends up sounding like just sounds being laid on top of each other rather than actually, you know, music.
Those poor souls in the orchestra... I bet they still wake up in a cold sweat.
How to give people in an orchestra PTSD
@@2480hanna having done orchestral work to weird tempos with soloists I can confirm that it is an absolute nightmare. That singer really butchered Purcell... T.T
As a former ballerina, I can’t IMAGINE someone telling me to dance to the music in my own time 😂
Yes! Even IMPROV has more structure.
"just wing it, this is the guy who didn't care enough to make the paper rip at the timing in Les Miserables, so as long as you don't die during the dance he'll take it"
@@leopoldsimmons4804 he might take it if you do die considering how much he told his actors to tear up their bodies
THIS. I literally couldn’t imagine them giving you a dance to a piece of music but oh also do whatever the hell you want cos it doesn’t matter. I would actually die.
hello fellow former ballet dancer, I fucking can't imagine not have even a click track to dance to... fucking excuse me? dancing is moving TO music, not the other way around
I've never heard someone say a more perfect line than "Rum tum tugger is rum tum tuggering the harmonies"
4:12 there’s no way!!!! If you’re going to hire actors to be a part of a musical they should be the ones to learn the proper technique. The musicians have done this their whole life and they have to memorize the tempo of the actors? I’m shook
Really sucks that this video is another victim of the absolutely horrible copyright system here on youtube. Edit: For those who haven't seen the full thing, check the description.
Im now re watching it. Im glad I managed to see it early on before it got butchered.
I just watched it two days ago and rewatching it, I got so confused about what the heck was going on and scoured the comments for an answer.
Wow they’ve made him butcher it.
@@nou5614 Me too! I was super confused for a fat minute.
@@daphnerosales2072 did he have to cut some out? i’m just now watching it
tom hooper just looked at a photo of the cast of cats and went "oh the one in white really stands out, shes the main cat right?" and noone corrected him
Seriously, has ANYONE told him 'no'? For ANYTHING!?
People have always told me bourgeois culture is white supremacist, but I didn't know it was to this extent! XD
AND SHE DOESN'T EVEN STAND OUT IN THE MOVIE! ALL THE CATS LOOKED MUDDY GREY
@@alexlefay seriosuly, in the original i could tell which was which, but here they all look the same (with only a few exceptions)
It feels like he never even saw CATS befor
The thing that really gets me is how the practical costumes offer more to each character than the CGI skins in the movie. I'm a big practical effects guy and that kind of movie magic is my jam. In the practical the detail work is distinct with each costume giving every character a unique profile. If you put them in silhouette they're all recognizable down to details. This is HUGE for designing memorable characters as you can pick them out in a flash even in the way the costume forces the actor to move. Then you have the skin suits. Oh god the skin suits! Uncanny valley and furry shit aside they're too smooth. Like I get the idea is that fur doesn't encumber an animal but it just makes all the actors glide across the screen without character. All the actors move the same because in reality they're all in green skinsuits. It's made worse by the fact that they're all pretty much colored the same. About the only thing recognizable is the actors face, not a good thing when the movie is mostly wide shots of dancing. This has been my ramble.
i've never seen either version of cats but from what i saw in your video i think a huge part of why the stage worked better was bc the cast was SERIOUSLY talented- they so obviously had been rehearsing it nonstop. they were professional dancers and vocalists, makes rebel wilson's performance harder to get through lol
jesus christ i literally got chills from the og cat's vocals...how could they ruin something that amazing
Seriously! Especially Old Deuteronomy, whose vocal range is so varied and powerful! WHY, Judi, WHY?!
@@stellabelikiewicz1523 exactly! i was wonder ing why they chose her because most of his lines are meant for a deeper voice!!
@@thextremekittenmdj I don't necessarily think a change in the octave to support a female casting would be a bad one. It just would have helped if she actually... you know... sang.
@@rcslyman8929 you're right, it would still be good. and yeah she really did not sing at all lol
@@rcslyman8929 it’s not just the octave, it’s the sheer strength and volume. 2019 Deuteronomy is a nice old lady singing a lullaby, og cats Deuteronomy is belting out emotion
I didn't think I need more "Cats is horrible" hot takes on cats, but I was wrong
This doesn’t seem to be a hot take at all 😊 maybe that’s what you needed ^^
Hal...it's about cats.
I agree. I feel like Cats 2019 required some explanation - its a monstrosity that needs exorcising - but most people explained it as "look at this obvious monstrosity, isn't it obviously monstrous?" Which isn't satisfying nor does it explain it. But this video actually provides an insightful analysis both for the musical's existence and the movie's horrors, beyond the obvious "uncanny valley" nature of the effects.
This video is a comfort video for me, I love seeing someone passionate and knowledgeable thanks so much sideways!
I come back to this video so many times and just watch the whole hour, just to hear Sideways yelling "Hey, Tom! Tommy! Tombo! My Man!" few minutes before the end, it makes me so happy to hear his rage in episode 5
I can't believe, that I just watched someone ranting for over an hour about a movie I haven't seen, based on a musical, I only know the main song of..... and still had sooo much fun.
The ranting was entertaining on its own merit. Now don't do what I did and go listen to the one good song and get it stuck in your head for two weeks.
Sameee
me too. I even got mad along with him.
Unlike you, I actually DIDN'T know the main song, until now. I literally knew nothing about cats, yet heard that melody my whole life thinking it was some Hollywood opera or something.
Me too. I've watched my fair share of musicals, but I have never seen Cats. And I only know about Memory, because I watched the movie Jersey Girl once and they made a joke of it because the little girl's school was doing a presentation and EVERYBODY but her sang Memory from Cats. She sang God That's Good from Sweeney Todd and made her teacher faint. I DID enjoy his perspective though. lol
Imagine getting copy-striked for a valid criticism.
You don't have to imagine it - it actually happened! Not surprising considering that Universal and UMG had also covered up a massive archival fire that ended up destroying the original master tapes for a century's worth of artists. The joys of bureaucracies valuing copyright over both art and artists... :(
@@matthewfloyd2195 Oh is this why there's random cuts in audio in the video?
@@cammo353 Sadly yes it is the reason why! Sideways had to insert random cuts so that his video would stay up, as UMG had claimed it as violating copyright.... despite him critically reviewing/analyzing the film, which does count as fair use. Even for terrible media, corporations will always exploit systems just to claim ownership of their property rights, almost aways at the common good's expense. :(
Yeah I thought that it was playing on the different things they were playing in the performers ears.
Did anybody actually download the original one?
How they should've fixed this, if they INSIST on keeping Victoria as a protagonist, (which is stupid): - Have Victoria's 'I want' song about joining the Jellical Cats - Keep the other cat tjat realises Grisabella want to rejoin, keep Sunrise. - HAVE VICTORIA HEAR SUNRISE AND REALISE GRISABELLA WANTS TO REJOIN. - Memory performance - Victoria touches Grisabella BOOM That. Easy. Jesus christ.
I’ve watched this video at least twenty times, because it is such an engaging breakdown of why Cats: the Musical works, and why Cats: the Movie doesn’t! Bonus, it got me into Cats (stage show version) to start with, and I’ve found myself loving almost every song after a few listens! Plus, as someone who loves music but doesn’t have much serious training/education, I love how much more I learn about composition and performance and theory from your videos! Learning about tempo rubato in this video was a MAJOR eye-opener! Long story short, thank you for this video!! Still one of my absolute favorites :)
The reason the vocalists follow the orchestra is the same reason that you stop a string of cars instead of the train at a railroad crossing. Christ have mercy
how is this the best analogy
This is the best way to explain the issue with this
It also reminds me of how in early animation they used to finish the animations first and then have the voice actor do their lines, and that's why old animated movies sound and look like that, it's the voice actor trying to sync up with the drawing, not the other way around like it is now
“Oh, but the crossing was built for the cars, you see. They should be able to make the creative decisions about who gets to cross.” - Tomathy Hooper
@@christopherj.lechner4529 you're welcome!
Long Story Short: Tom Hooper is a HORRIBLE Director.
Oof lol
Agreed.
I mean, he has made some incredible films. Cats was just not good.
We could already tell that by how he treated actors for Les Mis.
he id horrible doing musical
56:13 For context, the soloist did not mess up here, the conductor messed up, they prepared the wrong song, one that came later in the competition, the soloist caught on 2 seconds in and played the song they were played. They asked him to return and wanted to make up for their mistake.
That is a really good "what the fuck" face though
One of the biggest misconceptions about Cats, and one that Hooper put in his own version too, is that all of the cats are competing to go to the Heaviside Layer. The Jellicle Ball is not meant to be a competition (confirmed as far as I've seen by several actors from the stage prodcutions, the original choreographer, and ALW himself). The cats are performing and showing off simply because that is what is traditionally done at the ball. They sing and dance together to show affection and validate their belonging to the tribe, which emphasizes Grizabella's lack of belonging, and therein is the plot hook. They're not going "this is why *I* should be chosen". In most of the cases that doesn't make sense. Most of the songs about aren't even sung BY the cat that the song is about, but instead by another who is affectionately going "isn't this cat awesome? We love them." People are just desperate for there to be more of a plot than there really is. The musical is literally just cats dancing around and singing poems by TS Elliot. Once you stop overthinking it and embrace the absurdity, it's actually really lovely. Anyway the 2019 thing is still a dumpster fire though lmao.
Another thing I'd like to mention is the fact that the actors in the musical actually seem enthusiastic, like they're enjoying their time onstage and having fun with the choreography. In the movie it looks like they're being held at gunpoint
Hooper: "Hey, that's a great idea! Write that down, write that down!" *[Quietly, to himself]* "But can we hold the orchestra at gunpoint too?"
considering how the movie actors had to attend cat school, i can see why they were less than enthusiastic
@@imhappy7632 I’m sorry what
I think the only people who are enjoying the show are the people in the Skimbleshanks number.
@@ArmindaAirth Cat School, yes, it’s not as bizarre as you’d think. It’s training where the singers for the show do a form of pre-training to get the cat-like movements that they use onstage. What usually happens when you do a production of Cats for the stage is a few weeks of Cat School and then you do dance and song rehearsals. The Lion King and any show with puppets does similar stuff so you can master movements independently of what you need to do onstage. You don’t train in everything all at once; kind of like normal schooling where you learn things sequentially, you get time to train as a sort of being before training to be the character. However, it’s Hollywood, so what’s normally a very brief few hours for a few weeks was condensed into days on end in a week. With far more content and personal innovation, I might add, because of the new cat behaviours and the need to allude to the flicking ears and tails. I’m certain it was typical Hollywood steamrolling a normal musical thing, again. At least they were probably all hydrated in their weird skin suits, unlike certain actors I could mention.
Can’t think the music is bad if I never saw the movie. *taps forehead
Sideways had me convinced anyway less than 10 minutes into this video
Wrong. You can watch this video. I, for one, will never watch the movie but especially after this video am plenty aware how bad it is.
@@Callmekatielee might be a joke
This is soooooooooooooo 5 brain
My choir buddies sacrificed themselves for me on both Les Miz and this movie and saved me the trouble after their reviews.
It's funny how the audio for the new Cats has clearly been hit with strikes later in this video because they clearly took the points made very personally. Anyway, wow, this makes the original feel like it's (almost) worth sitting through! Amazing work. Follow up: it was pretty pleasant. Still hate Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats though.
As both a musical theatre performer and an orchestral musician I am SCREAMING at these films. THAT'S NOT HOW YOU USE AN ORCHESTRA!! Yes we are used to following a soloist but that's usually when we can hear the soloist and they can hear us in real time, not a rubato ing click track! And thanks for this video very well explained and I enjoyed it somehow :)
This man's righteous fury at the mishandling of CATS is much appreciated.
Agreed when it first came out some friends told me "it did a great honor to the musical" and I just walked away cuz I just couldn't
@@thunderlighting2006 You must be friends with Zach of the Try Guys because that's literally the only person I've ever heard say that they love the CATS movie.
Mishandling is not even close to being a strong word as to what they did with this movie.
@@shadelings i literally lost respect for Zach after he said that Cats was his favorite movie
@@thunderlighting2006 Yeah, love the Try Guys but not gonna lie, I kind of did too a little, at least I was extremely disappointed to hear him say it the first time I heard it. But still, he's definitely a quirky guy and I suspect he plays that up on purpose as he has brought up the fact that he loves CATS movie on other Try Guys episodes. But yeah, that's a flimsy excuse for him, I admit, but he's Zach, and I just have a hard time being mad at him. ;)
Movie: I need a protagonist. Jemima in the play: *drives the plot* (what little there is) *forward at every turn* Movie: So, Jemima is probably an optional character.
It’s almost like Tom Hooper is a moron when it comes to musicals
I feel Grisabella would have worked bwtter as a protagonist than what we got
@@klaudiaosmalek6105 hell, the cockroaches would’ve worked better as protags than what we got
@@acookie7548 lol True
I saw Cats when I was 9 years old in theatre and even then my 9 year old self picked up that Jemima was a main character lol
I watch this video twice a year it never gets old
I've watched this review several times and it is still the best take on the Cats movie I've ever seen. It's also the best explanation of the musical Cats I've ever seen.
"Allows the actors to really makes choices in the moments that bring a life to the lyrics" *"MIIIIIILLLLLLLKKKKKK"*
Timestamp please
45:01 @@Zarmdthecoolest
@@l3ahmags thank you!
Seeing the guy whose violin string broke just swap with the guy behind him and keep playing is oddly badass
kzhead.info/sun/aZxvqNOdiHOMdGw/bejne.html Here's the full video in case you're interested.
that's Ray Chen one of the amazing soloists of our time (he also has a great sense of humor in his skits in his instagram and youtube)
The pianist right before that footage who is giving the "WTF" face is even better @56:12. He was there for a very high level competition. There was a mix up and the orchestra played the wrong music and so that face ensues but he picks up the cue immediately and plays the piece that he was not prepared for since the orchestra just chugged on. The competition masters later wrote an apology to him and asked him back but he declined. How stressful and unfair for that guy, though.
@@Vely1 thank you very much
@@doublea8462 Also, and adding to Mr. Yeet, he has appeared in a comical (but educational) setting in collaborations with Two Set Violin.
Back again for my umpteenth watch/listen through this stonking masterpiece of critical analysis. Hope you're doing well Sideways.
Why did he leave?
My little brother just showed me this video - absolutely amazing - would love if you did something like phantom of the opera movie adaptation. Such a shame about youtube copyrighting you so frequently seems that they don't understand that this is transformative - great video though! Hope you post the next one soon!!!!!