I watched Cats. Or: Surviving the Covid-19 Pandemic of 2020

"Perhaps it’s the terrifying uncertainty of the day-to-day, or perhaps it’s Rogen’s delightfully delighted reaction to it, but Cats is starting to look like the movie we never knew we needed to spice up our quarantines."
The Guardian article

What a world we live in right now, eh? This is the craziest experience for all of us. (I know, I know -- Thanks, Captain Obvious!)

I fell off the blogging wagon around 2016 I see. I was slowing down on how frequently I blogged for awhile before that. It was a hobby I truly enjoyed, but then it sort of fizzled. Sometime around doing more browsing on a Smart Phone than on a laptop, I'm sure. It isn't like I never had downtime, but I just fell out of blogging.  I know a lot of bloggers did.

Recently, the concept of a Blog Resurgence was brought up on a post by Swistle -- a blogger I still continue to read every time there's new content.  This idea intrigued me!  It's a great hobby to get back into during these strange times. So, here I am!  (Ohmigod we're back again -- doo, doo, doo, doo /Backstreet Boys).

I watched Cats.

You know it -- that trainwreck Razzie award-winning musical based off the highly popular for a thousand years now Broadway show of the same name?  Amazing cast -- TERRIBLE CGI?

I watched it. I was getting anxious and sick of all of the covid-19 news and it was time for something completely different. Seth Rogen had also live-tweeted his viewing of it and it came to mind as just the sort of ridiculous nonsense I was searching for.

I’m pretty stoned and watching Cats. I’ve never seen the broadway show. It is truly trippy. Am I supposed to know what a Jellicle is? They’ve said it 200,000 times but I don’t know what’s happening haha.

— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) March 18, 2020

It worked, by the way. Like The Guardian article I quoted at the top of this post, I think it may just be the "movie we never knew we needed" at this time.  It was cheesy and awful.  I will say that the singing was good, though. It IS a pretty great cast.  But the CGI...oh Lord, the CGI.  It was truly just THE WORST.  I know they say Jellicle Cats are small -- but HOW SMALL are they supposed to be? I felt like there was a big problem with the consistency of the size of these cats and the objects around them.  There are also a lot of strangely sensual cat ballet numbers that are more than a little off-putting.

I am a huge lover of Broadway musicals.  However, I actually DON'T love/like Cats.  There are some songs I find catchy ("Memory", "Mr. Mistoffelees")... but when I saw Cats when it came to Toronto when I was a teenager, I didn't read the description of the show and when intermission rolled around I was SO CONFUSED.  I kept attempting to find the story line.  It wasn't until I finally read the synopsis that I learned it was supposed to be vignettes and short stories about all of these different jellicle cats.  It wasn't a great theatre experience for me, even if I did find some of the songs catchy.  I think the film tries to weave a bit of a story line into it -- or the bit of story line that I did notice in the movie is a part of the stage production and it just went over my head at the time.

This pandemic situation is nuts -- let's face it, every blog post I'm about to start writing will feature this pandemic in some way.  So I'm not going to get into much else about it tonight.

I highly recommend the coping tool of watching some hilariously bad movies as a form of much-needed escapism.  Cats may have been an absolute box office disaster -- but in times of disaster, maybe it truly is just what we need.

Daylight
I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I musn't give in
When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin
- "Memory", Cats