Episode 11: Musicals Pt. 1 - Cats

I cried like a bitch at that part, like , like started weeping and like my hands were sweaty and my whole body was sweaty and I was like,

[inaudible] ravioli. Please don't treat people . Put your hands up where you just stand up. Welcome . [inaudible]

yeah . Hello? Hello everyone. It was most show . Most shows that how you say it? I think so. Yeah. I had to throw it out a little. Catherine mix for the show. A little Portland pride. Oh shit. Did I tell you that I met him at the bar like a few weeks before coven destroyed everything? No. Yeah, he came at my mom . Me first . My mom is like obsessed with him, obsessed with him. She dressed this 65 year old white woman dressed up as Moshe, the cat rapper for Halloween. And I was like, for the love of God, don't post any pictures. So I , yeah . I introduced myself. I got his name wrong when he asked me that . I was like, listen, my mom just really loves you . Can I get a picture? Oh my God. Wait. He was there with the Unipiper right. Oh , that's fun . Yeah .

Well, welcome everybody to episode 11 of solid six. I am your host today, Brady Kimball . I am joined as always by Allison and Josh is what they call me. And to throw a wrench in things as if this bat shit insane movie wasn't enough. We have welcomed our first guest. Welcome. Torbin welcome aboard . Torbin thank you very much for having me. So Torbin uh, if I were to read Tobin's bio, it would be, let's see, rapper , filmmaker, viral hit maker, Thai speaker, cookie Baker, most important skills. God, I've known to Arbonne for about 10 years. He and I have of drunkenly talked about movies for hours and hours upon ends and , uh, made some music together. So what better, what better episode than to have you on to discuss cats?

I appreciate it. I had the worst migraine the other night, but I knew the show was coming up. So I , uh, I watched cats with a migraine. It was just jelly , close fight . I loved it. I kind of feel like it might go hand in hand though . It makes the experience of watching it better. Yeah, that's a good point. So , uh, before we did this episode, we were planning on doing

this episode as a full blown musical. But after going around to investors and having them realize that we needed about $20 million to see our true vision, we decided to just go back to the same episodes that we usually do. So our apologies.

denying our genius the world will ever know your loss world.

So today's question is what real world story or person would you want to make a musical about and what style of music would it be? Josh, why don't you kick this off?

Um , I'm actually, I'm kind of torn. Uh, my first, my gut reaction when the , the question came up was the uh, brand new child Messiah offspring of Elon Musk and Grimes , uh, X a I a 12, or whatever you call his name. That's who this musical needs to be about. What is the future going to be like through this child's eyes? Or maybe it's just about Elon and all his struggles.

Do we remember like conversations about Indigo babies back in the nineties?

Indigo babies? Yeah. Where they were like supposed to be the next like psychic , um, evolution of man, what the hell are you talking about? I don't know . You're talking about tell me everything. Where were you in the, somebody write this down. It was , it was supposed to be like the next evolutionary jump for mankind were Indigo babies, which was basically just like a term for poorly behaved children that were really good in art. Oh, it was like, it was like another term for like your child has autism or has add , you know? Um , but like, no, no , no, no. This is evolution is what's happening. Yeah. Um, anyway. Yeah,

yeah. That's, that's it. I see a soundtrack by queen, you know, we'll, we'll use an AI to recreate Freddie mercury. Well , it's basically going to be like, like flash Gordon or Highlander all over again except with more rockets and like 20 electro pop and electric cars and flamethrowers and um, and Elon Musk's kind of like crazy billionaire madness. Where you guys at ?

I think I'm going to go with your suggestion and do a musical about steely Dan using their music. Because what I really want is a , a group of just incredibly unattractive men on stage sweating because of cocaine and angry at each other and like screaming at each other in the hall . Like the music just full stop. Everything stopped. It just gets really, and it's just a bunch of guys yelling at each other like one of the 16 year old girlfriends like storms off stage, but then the music comes back in and there's a whole song about a steely Dan and you know, like the chorus is like, that means a dildo, you know, just like 16 year old girls. Yeah, you got it. Oh boy. You really have a thing for steely Dan. I do really love steely Dan . What's your favorite? What's your favorite album? You have a thing for Oh Asia. It's just so good. Yeah, I said it wrong for so long. I always was like, have you heard this album? Aha. It's definitely like the song Asia that is, I'm as human beings are not the best, but as musicians, you know what? I'll cross that bridge. All right . The whole art artistry, artists conversation continues. Going to pretend to not hear all the lyrics about, Hey , 19 and talking about how your cousin's hat, you know what, your cousin wasn't hot. No, not mine. Really. That's true . We have very attractive people in my family. I don't think I had any attractive cousins. I can think of that . You have like a thousand. That's probably why I can't remember

one of the right family reunions. Oh really? You? You have some attractive cousins? Not ma'am . And my family is super small and I can't speak to it . My brother, my cousins are attractive or not.

Or if I had a question on the wink . Yeah , it's good to say, this is what , this is what I'm here for. Our listeners tune in back each one of us into a corner about wanting to have sex with our family. Now they got the proof. I kept the receipts. We're all going sticky corner. So Torben what kind of musical would you make?

Oh, sorry. I w you know, I , I'd love to say that my first instinct instinct was like a founding father. Like , uh , I don't know Gandhi, but it was a master P Oh yeah, master P would make a great musical because his story is amazing. You get Manny fresh to compose it and uh, I think , uh, you , you , it's like, you know, it's new Orleans culture, you know, the master P deal is historic. Wait, what's the backstory ? I mean he basically like sold CDs out of a trunk , uh, and like built his own business to the point where people came to him and wanted to sign him . And instead what he worked out was a distribution deal where he still owned all of his masters and that's why they made so much money. And while they were able to do so much because he owned everything because he was , he was like kinda like the prototype to what I think you see now where somebody builds an audience first. And then once I have an audience, a record company comes to them and like they negotiate how to leverage the audience that they already, but this was back in the day, like selling CDs out of trunk and new Orleans, like all self funded says on his Wikipedia page that he was a former basketball player. He was, yeah . Yeah, he was Charlotte. Charlotte Hornets I think was he really shut the front door masterpiece . He's asked . Pete was really good at basketball. I don't know if he ever, like, I can't remember if he, I don't think he made it to the actual MBA , but I think that he was in like a , whoever you call the equivalent of a minor league, what was semipro. So other than him producing and releasing other people's music, like what was his most iconic song? Let's see if you can filter yourself on there . Probably ice cream man. What , how's it go? Uh , actually no, probably , um, I mean there's bad about it, which led me to be like way more violent than I should have been in high school because I went from listening to underground hip hop. Awesome. Listen, masterpiece warped my brain , uh, put me in like completely unnecessary circumstances given my upbringing. Uh, yeah, that was the big one. And the other one with the gold tank and the basketball, what was that one called? Uh , like ride the gold tank onto the basketball more . Say yes, that's the one. That's another big one. Oh yeah. Well, and the fact that all of his covers were like glitter glitter tanks and stuff. That's perfect. Musical fodder. Right. They were like up there were like a wholesaler. Oh, I see . Glitter tanks are us cranking out covers. They were putting out like , there was a period of time where they were putting out like 20, 30 albums or something like that in a quarter or something like that. Something crazy like that. I remember I worked at a , I worked at a CD store and like whenever any of the no limit stuff would come through, I'd be like this shit. So Gotti and then who knew? Like in my mid thirties that I'd be like Memphis rap and uh , new Orleans rap and stuff like that. I'm totally down with that. So and Houston Everett , it never really made sense to me until I moved to the South and I went to the mall and they were selling like chains with fake diamonds and fake , uh , diamond earrings. And I wore those. What'd you get? Yes . You had a dope ass watch and I had a big chain. I had a few chains and I also had these hoop earrings. They had like diamonds in the middle, like can crusted. Wonderful. What's your girlfriend's name ? Them . She wouldn't let me. I begged. I bagged Dukey rope. Right. They call that the big, the huge thick chain. Oh yeah. It's a great chain. There you go. Awesome. Well, for me, the musical I'd make would be about the history of Portland over the last five to 10 years. Uh , uh, chronicling the struggle between Antifa the proud boys, the Patriot prayer people , uh, the city and the silent majority of people who are held hostage , uh , by the entire experience. And it would be this very kaleidoscopic musical where the Antifa people would have punk and hardcore music and the proud boys and Patriot prayer people would have like country, you know? And anytime we would go to city council with Ted Wheeler would be like,

you know, Mumford and sons folk. And then there'd be some sort of like forbidden love story with an Antifa member and a Patriot pair member. And then there would be this really awesome hybrid punk country song at the end that just brings all the musical stylings together. You mean rockabilly?

He stepped back. I was trying to invent my own John . Okay. Alison . I don't feel like I'm Liz originals. I thought I was so , can I add one note? Yeah . He's like a homeless guy thinks he's a cat portrayed by Ian McKellen to be like the narrator of this entire side . Oh , bring it all together. Yeah ,

you have Antifa people beating them, beating the Patriot guys up with a padlock or a bike lock. And Ian McKellen comes out and says, but are you a gelical Katz ? You gelical shallow gold , please be gelical.

Oh man. Yeah . Shit. You gotta start out your musical with just dropping an Antifa person off in a big sack. See how that goes. Don't show him the world song by song. Well, I was like,

when I , when I thought about this idea, I was thinking, wait, have they done that for the history of Utah? And then I realized in the nineties that I saw, like when I was 14 years old, this musical that was done by this well known Mormon contemporary musician named Kurt Bester , who did a thing called Utah, a musical spectacular. And it's all about the settling of Utah. And it was a local production at a fairly well known theater amphitheater in Southern Utah. And so I have now been feverishly trying to find a copy of that. So , um, I'll get back to you and uh,

I'll ask him. You've got a fever and the only cure is Utah. That's what I just heard.

Pretty much. Pretty much. Yes. So, all right , ladies and gentlemen, let's get into cats.

Tonight is a magical night. I choose the cat deserves a new life.

Good, good, dangerous.

Come on. [inaudible] I catch a cat bite , so I've got plenty of soul spotlights and a drum roll please. [inaudible]

all right. 2000 nineteens cats directed by Tom Hooper is about a cat named Victoria who is thrown out of a car and as quickly thrust into a nightmare sequence of cat person after cat person with confusing names who teach her a lesson about life while also competing to be the gelical cat, a cat person who has given the chance to fly away in a balloon into the ion. His fear to be reborn. They put a cat in a balloon and just let them fly away. That's the end of the movie.

Like fuck off cat . Get outta here. That cat's dead. Yeah, yeah, for sure. There's a Bella fave rebel Wilson that way just get her off on the balloon before it goes bad.

Oh boy. So, you know, I had heard a lot about this movie , um , ahead of, ahead of it. And you know, as a, as a , um, hardened movie washer, you know, who's very skeptical of any new cultural phenomenon when people said it was one of the worst movies they had ever seen. I was like, yeah, you want to bet, try me. And then I sat down and, you know, the car drives up, they throw it back out to Victoria, the main, the main character crawls out and all of a sudden the character , uh , monk monk, what's his name? [inaudible] . Yeah, monkey strap , uh , whatever. Like slithers down the wall, like a Xeno morph and like jumps down. And then the entire background is like three times bigger than what you would expect. And so it's these tiny little humans with human ass faces who looked like cats and then they start talking about gelical shit. And I was like, Oh, Oh no. Like I, I was so uncomfortable within about three minutes of watching this movie. I'm

sorry . Sorry. Have you, have you seen any version of it ever before? No. Yes. Okay. Me too. No, it's off Broadway of it. Yeah , I've seen it twice off Broadway when I saw it as a child and thought it was like the best shit I had ever seen. I was blown away. I was just like, Oh shit, this is amazing. And then I like went as an adult kind of like a, like a tween and um , was very uncomfortable. Like the second time was very close to the stage. But watching it as like, and Josh can attest to this, watching it, you know, a couple nights ago for the movie, like my hands got really sweaty for almost ventilating. Like you were like breathing like really weird like you were, it was , I was having like, like triggers or like whatever that I didn't know what we're from, but I was just like, I was like, this is not okay . They hate it. Hate it so much. I did cry at one point from the stress, from the stress. I'm sad. Jennifer Hudson cat . Yes. And then I always cry anytime I hear memories cause that's an amazing song. But like, yeah, of course I was hyper stressed out and started like bawling when memory was song and I was like, inside this movie back in sec. Well, I didn't watch this sober. Um, I don't know if anybody else did, but I'm curious if anybody else had a, a substance induced experience. I watched the admins of sober, I was drinking , uh , a CBD soda, which I think put me in an appropriate mood for cats . I can't remember. I think I had had one of the articles had an edible. Yeah, I think that was about where we were. Yeah . Yeah. Guys, this was like watching, I don't know what that term is for comedy now when they just try to make the audience as uncomfortable as possible. Tim and Eric, Tim and Eric cringe. Cringe comedy. Is that what it is? I don't know . That's what I felt like though , the entire time. It's, it's the, the stage show is so fun. And of course, like, of course it's fun because you're watching extraordinary dancers doing acrobatics in front of you and singing and it's, and it's, you know, it's Andrew fucking Lloyd Webber on Broadway. Like of course it's awesome. But transitioning like musicals don't always transition well to screen. And this is like a huge example of that huge example. I mean there were parts when it looked like the faces were just floating around white lineup . Yeah . Um, I definitely thought that. Uh, yeah , I definitely thought that , uh, it just , uh, it just was naked like first shot. Yeah . There's the moment where, yeah, he definitely looks like he could just be like buck naked running around. Yes . With ears, cat ears with cat ears. Yeah. So the dream, the , the logic of this movie is so it's just dream logic, right? It's all over the place where it's like you start the movie and you're like, Oh, this feels realistic. They've tried like lavishly to be detailed about, you know, the alley they're in. Uh, and the fact that the cats can crawl between the Gates and all that stuff. And then all , all of a sudden rum, tum, rum, tum, tugger shows up and there's a fucking milk bar and there's just like just drunk drooling all over this bar and everyone's like jumping around this white liquid. And you're like, what movie am I watching Alison? DiGrazia confession. Okay. Oh boy. Oh , you guys remember how I had a crush on Scott Kat from the pilot? Yes . I also, as a child, had a huge crush on the character of room tone Tucker. Oh boy. So how was the milk bar rum tum tugger scene for you? It was mortifying as an adult, especially cause I had leaned over to Josh and was like, Hey, used to be so hot for that, get my wife leaned over

to me in that part and said, actually trying to be sexy and a cat is a no.

Okay .

Later on, as it built , she said, you know what? I think this only makes sense as a fetish field . It taught me a lot about lighting. I don't like everybody. That's part of the problem is that there's certain things you shouldn't see because they're goofy when they're, when everything's lit in a way that shows all the people in the background all the time. Oh, interesting. Like they, if they would have isolated people in singles or doubles, I think it would have done a lot of big service to people made it not made them look so goofy. It's probably because they just laid everything air. It was like this objective, like this is what cat has actually always been [inaudible] but we've been tricking you with good blocking and really talented performers and now we're just gonna like put it on. We're going like, we're going to give you some distance from it. We're going to light everybody and we're going to show you for like, I wonder if Tom is Tom Hooper. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if he secretly really just hates cats. No, dude, he loves it. I watched this movie with the commentary where he's talking for an hour and 50 minutes about making this movie and he is like a little kid in the candy store. Everyone was all that was involved with the visual effects artists, which we can talk about. I feel one. But yeah, that's the problem when you have theater people because you have theater people who are used to seeing this in a place where it has prestige. And I hear about and they're like, you know what, like, yes, I'm serene. McKellen and yes, I'm Dame, Judi Dench, Judi Dench, but I'm going to Don this cat outfit and being this because this is going to be the next big thing. And then the team Judi Dench was going to be one of the original cast members. Oh, she was? Yeah. Except that she , uh, so in 1989 , 1981, she snapped her Achilles tendon and she couldn't perform it, but she was, she was supposed to be one of the original cast. Isabella , uh, the memory cat fulfilling our dream . And she's saying, yeah , she could, I mean, she was original cast but yet tore . But I think to your , I think to your point , uh, I think that explains why I was so embarrassed. Like I'd walked in on my older sibling masturbating or something. Oh boy. You know, I was like, ah , I shouldn't, I don't, I don't know what's going on. They seem to be enjoying themselves. I don't know why I'm , I'm uncomfortable. So, and the room's not even dark.

Yeah .

Everything is evenly lit purple. There's no shame. There's no obscuring. You just see it for what it is. The, you know, I've thought long and hard for the last couple of months unfortunately about why I was so embarrassed by this movie and it goes back 90 years. My embarrassment starts 90 years ago where it's like Ts Elliot , he's made all these great poems and novels and all this stuff, but then he decided to do these short, short Holmes about cats.

And so embarrassment number one is just the way that he portrays cats in this like almost token light, fantasy way where he's like playing with words and then embarrassment. Number two was Andrew Lloyd Webber, who by by the point that he'd started writing this in the late seventies had already had all these amazing hits, which I watched Jesus Christ superstar in the lead up to talking about this and that movie blew me away. It's actually really good and his early seventies stuff with Tim rice is really good. So you have the misstep of Andrew Lloyd Weber who had already been full of himself and had been successful going into the eighties without Tim rice. So then the words are super over earnest and then fast forward 30 years and you have Tom Hooper who was an Academy award winning best director who loved this play as a kid who decided to use all the resources at his disposal, which apparently was the entire Hollywood system and its UK auxiliary to make this thing and it's just like earnestness after earnestness after earnestness of people who love cats, which is cool if you're a cat owner or you love cats, that's fine.

You're saying that like you're trying to hide something micro-aggression . Yeah, go on . Sure. Finish your sentence.

The thing is so amazing. It is so amazing and I'm so glad it exists because it is like 80 years, 90 years of bad decision after bad decision after bad decision that culminated in this movie that came out during our lifetimes. That I'm glad I can actually tell people I've seen.

It definitely is a whole experiential ride. I can't even necessarily like hate on it too much. It's just like, it's just like doing acid for the first time, you know, like you're not really quite sure, but you should get that notch on your belt if you can. Like that's how I felt after watching cats was like I am, I've never been emotionally touched by a movie the way I have with this one. And , and not in a good way, but so viscerally activated because of this movie. And so just on that alone, I think people should watch it. People need to know, I need to be able to talk to folks about this. Right? We need to have a public reckoning. Yeah.

So we've talked about the faces floating on top of like cat bodies. But I mean, let's go back to some of the things that I was hinting at with the artistic choices. So first of all, Andrew Lloyd Webber by this point had already made a bunch of really amazing musicals , uh , uh, with Jesus Christ superstar Joseph and the amazing Technicolor dream coat , uh, Phantom of the art fan of the opera. It was after this, yeah, it was a Phantom was 1986. So by this point he had made all these amazing musicals and then it was like he went into over earnest drive and I don't want to get like too nerdy about like music theory, the fact that like, he kept repeating the same melody over and over again, but with a key change for like three minutes and it happened like four times. It's a good one.

Yeah. I mean that's, that's all fan with the upper is, it's , it's like three, three separate melodies that he just changes minute. They all in her lap for like the very end theatrical ending. I'm probably the most

musically inexperienced here. So what, what's , could you complete your thought there, Brady ? What were you saying? Oh, so it's the idea of like, there's, there's two melodies in the movie. I'll try to use this as an example that like the mr and mrs [inaudible] chorus where he's like trying to like conjure up the magic to , to transport her back off of the barge. And then there's also the melody of when they actually let , uh, Chris Abella go off on the balloon and it's the same melody over and over again, but it's rising, right? It's a rising melody. And so the melody, if you think about it, the actual melody takes about five to 10 seconds to play, but then they repeat it. One key hire did a de de de, de, de , de, de, de, de, de, you know, and it just keeps going into like, dude, Holy shit. Like, let's move on from this, like a melodic motif. So like the movie does feel like you're , you have Covin 19 and you're like, just, it's like a fever, a fever for Utah.

Yeah .

The , the melodies and just the music was just not good. You had the shitty like farty like synth trumpet thing and like early, early on in his career, if you go listen to his earlier stuff, like jeez , again, I'm just going to keep going back to the one I liked the most. Jesus Christ superstar does like funk and soul and all sorts of weird genre mish mashes and this just feels like a guy who got a synthesizer for the first time.

I mean, yeah, actually that was kind of the case because when he very first created , uh , Katz and then , um, I forget it was like Western or something, but when he brought it to just a smaller theater, all they had was a 16 piece, you know, band to go with. And then once it was picked up for what's, what's the major , um, Western yet , once it was picked up at West end, they were given I think like a 90 piece orchestra. And so, and then they were, he talks about being really excited to be able to incorporate , um, synthesizers and guitars , um, and to make it, give it a more modern feel based on the personality of the cats. Like it was extremely intentional. But I do agree that that is, that's something that Andrew Lloyd Webber very much does. And a lot of his plays as , he'll take one or two melodies and intertwine them constantly as like a running theme through the entire thing. Uh, and have you guys seen or watched Phantom of the opera? Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh, Joshua. That's not what I do later .

So sorry Josh. I was sheepishly

shaking my head. For those of you that aren't here in the room, that's what we're doing later. Memories is dope to me. I had to think that they should just repeat that melody over and over for the whole thing and I would probably like it better. Well, so here's the crazy thing is I agree with you, but then they did that beautiful ghosts like refrain and then I , I was like, Oh man, this track is awesome. And I found out that Taylor Swift wrote it with Andrew Lloyd Webber, just for the movie. And I was like, all right . Taytay you finally have me because I have disliked Taylor Swift for years and years. And I finally, this is the second Taylor Swift movie that we've covered. I know. I was thinking that,

that , that Brady has chosen, by the way he has chosen, I think she's incepted you Brady. I think you've worked for her now . Do you remember I became intimately familiar with her voice. You did say intimate. You said intimate. You are mixing . Said I was intimately familiar with Taylor's supposed to do it. I became intimately familiar with Taylor Swift's voice . Oh my God. Throwing pots together.

Taylor Swift wrote the beautiful ghost . Beautiful ghost. Right ? So it was like in response to memory about Grizzle Bella , the sex worker cat who's like, Hey, I want to come and hang out in heaven with you. And they're like, no, you have sex for money. We don't want you so you're not welcome. And then Victoria, the cat who was thrown out, it was like hanging out with all the judgy cats is like, Hey, I like her if she wears cool costumes. And she sings well and they're like, no, you can't be friends with her. And then she's like, fine, I'll sing this amazing song. She was a prostitute cat . Is that what the implication was? I went right over my head. Yeah . Are you talking about Jennifer Hudson cat for me, that's how I know the characters. I'm like there's Jennifer Hudson, cat, Ian McKellen cat.

Yeah,

that's all I could think of. Either fell the cat . That's all I can think of the whole time it has happened with the cat. She's this, he's the sex worker. She's down and out. They intentionally removed it from the movie because Tom Hooper is trying to make it more family friendly. But yeah, it so Ts Elliot.

So you're getting sex with the cat. Other cats answer the question Brady. It's the question. You coward. Katsu unzipped their flesh to reveal other cats. All right Alison, I don't know what you're crushing here . Crossing me so hard. That cracked me up. Not sexy. Oh God . Oh yeah .

Isabella is supposed to be a sex worker and that's why she's wearing the coolest costume in the entire, in the entire show. And Victoria like looks back at her and it's like, Oh I love you. And I thought she said , what's that? That's how she got that mink coat. Yes. Yes. Merkin so none of you knew that she was a sex worker? My impression as a total Katz ingenue was that , uh , she was like this, maybe like a , a shin to sort of like a good time Jew joint kind of gal that fell on hard luck. I didn't get the implication that she was a sex worker, but I am, you know, a little naive. It wasn't obvious to me. I guess I, I just as a 33 year old found that out. Yep . Oh no , I knew that she'd seen some shit. You know, it was kind of sudden though. It came right after that. That uh, those , uh , uh, cool mouse band. Yes. Okay . So, so Torah Torbin is actually going , transitioning into the next point that I wanted to make is that the other reason why this movie and this play is such a shit show, is the fact that that with , at least with the movie, okay. Just talking about the movie you're introduced to Victoria and Victoria is supposed to be the one that you're following and rooting for. And so you're like, Oh, you're seeing the world through her eyes where she's like confused and she's bewildered and she's excited and she's interested and horrified. But then what happens is every four minutes in this movie, you're introduced to a new character who is actually competing with Victoria to become the gelical cat. I didn't think Victoria was competing, I just thought she was there to like learn the ropes plot exposition, but the other care other cats are treating her like they're competing with her, right? So like the twins that are like causing her to steal and she's like, Hey friends. And they're like, Whoa . Hooking all sorts of jewelry onto her. It's like, I thought she was just like a naive cat and the different cats that were about, we're showing you the ropes of the different offerings of the cat world. Great. That's sure. All of you are all right about the way this way. But regardless, every four minutes, every four , every four minutes you're introduced to new characters who show her the ropes, who teach her about greed or getting old or lust or envy. And then all of a sudden that character either goes into a puff of smoke, gets twirled into the sky, you know, eats themselves to death, like Willy Wonka shooting down the shoot , and then all of a sudden she's onto the next character. You're like, wait, what about that character? Are we moving on to the next one? And so by the time you get to the fucking tap dancer guy, the tap dance him out of the objection theatre out into the team. Did I forget him? That's just , that's just like a Testament to the shit show that Katz is. Okay , wait a minute. I don't even remember that. Tap dancing dude. He is the world's most, he's the best dancer in the entire world. So the world's best tap dancer in the world, and they call him the modern day Fred Astaire. Exactly. His name is Steven

Steven McRae. So Steven has fought his whole life to become the world's best tap dancer. And you knew that this movie was his time to shine. And the fact that his scene was probably where the entire movie just fell apart and like it broke my brain. And he's like pointing . It's just, Oh, okay. So what , what are things that I actually liked about the movie? Um, so I, I danced , um, most of my life and I was part of a company for about God 10, 11 years. Wow . That seems generous. I was think it was more like six or seven. Um, but either way, a lot of the lead characters in here are actually like extremely well-established principal dancers and like extraordinary dance companies. You have a quite a few people from the Royal ballet. Um, but Victoria, I didn't recognize her , um, right away, so I looked her up and I realized that like, yeah, she's the principal ballerina for the Royal ballet. And I love that they , I love that she got a lead role on this cause I feel like dance movies are kind of like that, you know, when they really, really revolve around dance like you, it's , it's more, it becomes the spectacle of the, of the art form. And so I actually really, really, she had a couple parts where she was able to show off her dance moves. Um , the two brothers who are like the world's best hip hop dancers. I forget their names. Twins. Yeah , the twins. Yeah. I forgot their names cause I'm shitty. But uh, yeah, when we got to the tap dancing scene with, let me, let me find his name. It was um, I don't think they should have put high tops on them. Oh, I agree. That was weird. Scramble shakes the railway cat . When I got to the tap dancing of scrambled troops , I was like, damn, that's fucking damn. Like, yeah. And so I , I do appreciate it for that reason that it's using kind of these like I'm not very well known people to bring their talents forward. I mean they're famous in a way for this being such a terrible movie. But

yeah, that's a key . The dancers, the, the ACE dancers, the people that at the very top of their craft that have been working forever to get to this point. And then their big reveal is the movie cats . And I feel really bad for them . It's kind of like the 1980 Olympics in Moscow that all these people didn't get to go to because it's in Moscow and Mo and the Soviet union invaded Afghanistan. So it was like you train really, really hard, but guess what you're coming out of that is a dumpster fire. I feel really bad for the dancer .

I also, it's , it's the, I feel like it's the only Avenue that they would've been able to do it anyway, cause there's not a whole lot of acting done. It's just, it's fucking cats. It's just, it's just singing and dancing and um, yeah, I feel like that's kind of the only other way that they would have been brought into the spotlight at all. Yeah . Yeah. It's a shame though, because if you look at their performance as an isolation, they're just fine. Right. But the direction and the , uh, lighting, again, that's really your problem, man. It's like if they would just focus on those people and would have like, didn't we lit all the people in the background? I think it would have just made them smaller. Like conventionally . Yeah . I do think that like , uh , they either should have been all cat that have like, are we going to talk about characters and sign now ? I didn't think a little bit if they had humanoid bodies, but like cat faces, I think that would have worked way better or if they just kept it live action with makeup. Um , and know like I , I feel like it has to be either or not both. Um, cause it's seeing the same thing with them. I'll dress up the costume I think would have been kind of cool, but I think they did that because they wanted people to see the celebrities clearly. You could still see him . I don't know. Like I just, I think it was cause what was the, what was the planet of the apes movie where they really , really did this? The , the roasteries that planned the up series? Yeah. Yeah . Um , I mean it was like the entire full mapping of the body for, you know, cat skin and CGI just so much better . When I was watching the , there wasn't a point where I was like, Oh, there goes Michael Clark Duncan where the is to being like, Oh man, it just made it, it just made it that much more sad for me to see people who are genuinely super talented. Like Ian McKellen we met Meow. Oh, that part for example. Uh , pretty, I saw that you changed your um, Instagram photo to uh, Judi Dench wearing like the greenscreen outfit while sitting in the cat bed. Yes. Which cracked me up.

Yeah. Because I think there's something about like CGI and seeing behind the curtain and thinking about how these really well known actors and actresses are put in these positions where it's alien even for them and they're doing their best to act their way out of this really artificial thing. And I don't know , I think there's a , there's like a whole , there's a super cut, there's a super cut of like behind the scenes footage of these well known actors dealing with green screen for the first time where you can just see them looking around and being like, what is this bullshit? And yeah , and the director's like, all right , you're staring into a tsunami and you're trying to hold your kids and keep them from feeling scared. You know, it's the same thing here where it's like, okay, look , cookie monster, the film directed by cookie monster. So there's something about Judy Dench in a giant ass Wicker basket, who , who was in the original cats in London with Ian McKellen , who's also a well known , uh, theatrical actor and they're both sitting there in green-screen costumes staring at each other while she sits in a whisker, a Wicker basket that just is hilarious. It's a whisker basket now. Cute little whiskers. Just hilarious to me. It's hilarious to me. And the fact that there's behind the scenes photos, that's proof of them trying their, just adds to the overall earnestness of this entire thing.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, man. I just , uh, I think made me feel safe to be honest. I kept thinking, I actually, my predominant thought when I was watching it was, why is this different than the musical? I, that's I think that's why I honed in on the lighting cause I was like, but is it, I think it this clearly, it's not like it, it's cats has been cats for a very long time and it's been successful. It's made three point $5 billion over the years. Totally. And I had a similar experience when I was a kid where I watched them. It was thought it was the coolest shit ever. So what is it about the translation to film that made it so cringe worthy? Well I think it is the earnestness. Go ahead

where I'm wet with with that, the crunch worthiness and like what the , the problem is is that a , you got these top level dancers that aren't really given the proper stage to do their thing because the CGI blends seamlessly into the performance space and their costumes. So you can't really tell what's actual performance and what is just animated bullshit. So to your point about lighting and emphasis, because there is no transition point, there was no point in the movie where you can actually determine the real physical performance from what's just simply animation. It's like Avengers, infinity, war , any of that stuff where it's fully animated. And that's the problem is that when you have a real performer who's dancing their heart out and giving it their , they're all at a very high level and you clear out the space in both the plot and in terms of like the visuals to actually emphasize that performance, it's going to show up. But that's not what they did. They made the whole thing completely animated from top to bottom, fully CGI, you know, Greenlanders suits on these cat people, animals or whatever they are. And it deescalates the gravity or the, the nature of the physical performance to just a cartoon. And that's, I think the beginning of where this whole thing fell apart for me is the character design. Yeah. Yeah. The floating, floating people faces. Yeah.

Well, and add to that, I mean they picked, I can think at least a three, maybe more uh , people. So you have rebel Wilson, you have James Corden and you have address Elba. One of those three is unlike the other, but still all three of them are so well known for TV or movies and their faces and their, their style of comedy. Or in the case of Idris Elba, it's not comedy. It's eating like one of the most infamous villains slash interesting characters ever with stringer bell in the wire where all three of them were pulled out of their elements. James Corden with Leighton , late night show stuff, rebel Wilson , rebel Wilson, you know, with pitch perfect and other funny comedies. Uh, Idris Elba , um , you know, again with his , his movie performances and brought into this thing that's supposed to be theatrical and it's like you guys are trying too hard. These people don't here. And to add to just validate what I'm saying is I was watching it with Tom Hooper's commentary and any time there was a cheesy ass joke that was aimed at the camera or rebel Wilson with her , um, you know, back off from the crazy cat lady, those were all improvised by the actors and Tom Hooper's like, Oh shucks, I just love them so much in their , their career. I'm just going to let them do whatever they want. And so it's, it's, it's, I think the combination of what Josh and Torben has said with the lighting and the CGI and also just the casting choices. Like the casting was off. And this is why, again, I don't want to belabor this point, but Taylor Swift was one of the few like iconic people outside of theater that stepped into it and was like, Oh , she belongs here. She knows what she's doing.

Love her so hard. Don't you want to be intimate with her? Don't you? Intimate with her voice. Uh , we had, we had a conversation with a friend of ours after watching this and you know, he brought up a really good point that you ha , uh, in order to transition something that's been on Broadway, like a huge musical or huge play, you have to do an incredible amount of work to make it okay for screen. You really have to, you have to like make everything a little bit more subdued. Um, when you're on stage , that whole connection that you feel with the performers or that connection you feel with the audience is like so palpable and electric and it's big and it's like showy and that's what Broadway is. And then when you take something like cats or Leymah's or , um , Phantom , Phantom of the opera or Chicago , um, putting caps aside, those other three were incredibly doctored and manipulated to make them suitable for film. That's really wasn't. And then on top of it, having the , the CGI, fully CGI, so you're not, you're really, really not sure. Like, Oh, are they, are the performance actually doing that? Um , are they actually dancing? Are they actually, you know, manipulating their bodies this way? Or is that all animation?

Well, it's the one person who's danced in their life. I mean, what about going the opposite way of, instead of like , uh , actors on screen but dancers coming to the screen, did you feel like the dancing them getting all these top performers was evidence or did it actually squander their talents as well ? Well,

cause I , I think it was a really, really great way to show this art form because obviously like a fuck ton of people went to go see cats despite whether they liked it or not. You still have incredible performers and dancers , um , in the movie. And so what the only, the only problem I had was , um, I wasn't sure, again if the dancers were actually dancing and if their face had been like put, like it was someone else's face on someone else's body doing the movements. And so until I actually started looking at who the cast members were, that's kind of what my assumption was, was like, okay , they , they had a body double because this person's famous and they don't know how to dance as well. So this is probably, you know, some hired on dancer. That's, that was my assumption. So I actually, when I found out that a large part of the , um, large part of the cast

were professional dancers, I was pretty excited about it.

I think that's the problem is like if you're gonna , if you're going to like, if you're not going to adapt it for a film, then don't also do CGI. You know? Just let it like, like if you're going to actually highlight people's like highlight people's talent and let them like let it be, let it be like the musical. Then you know , they were kind of like straddling both sides. I feel like they,

I fixed all of the problems and by they, I mean Tom Hooper if you wanted to. Apparently he was really kind of shitty to work with from the visual effects team's perspective. He really didn't understand how visual effects work. He worked them to death. He didn't go through the whole process where you look at things before they've been fully rendered and he wouldn't look at something unless it was rendered, which is ridiculous when you think about the amount of time it takes to render a shot. I think he could have fixed everything if they just set it in the seventies. If they actually just, if they set the movie in the background from which Andrew Lloyd Webber actually wrote and produced the thing, let it be like seventies makeup and seventies scenery or I guess I should say early eighties. Yeah, set it in the time from which it came. Therefore like the goofy fart noise synthesizer will sound like it's authentic to the time it's in. The makeup will seem like appropriate for the moment. Just make it like a little bit more vintage and like you fix everything.

I think it would also been been better had they not said , um , look what the cat dragged in or cat got your tongue. Oh, puns.

Yeah. They , they do make some puns that are human based regarding cats as cat people. It makes you wonder, is this like a multi-verse thing? Is this like a universe where humans evolved into kind of like cat people or we just adopted a cat way of dressing because she doesn't zip her flesh at one point. Oh my Lord. At the sake of , um , looking weird and getting yelled at and like maybe having a floating face. If that could be a possibility for my future, I would take that in a heartbeat. Just be cat person forever. That's, you know, like that the guy with the plastic surgery and the tattoos that just looks like a tiger. Yeah, yeah. Maybe that's the future of human evolution. We're all going to be cats and 50 years

we have to, if we evolve that way, do we also have to have all the different gelical performances or can we opt out [inaudible] or whatever it comes with it. Ah, dammit. Right.

Okay. So , so an extra tripping part, I don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole, but I want to speak at least generally to it, is the fact that the way that the story's laid out is like you're being ushered in from room to room , uh , as you're ascending to heaven. Torbin nodding his head because he knows exactly where I'm going with this. And so it feels there . In Mormon theology, there's this whole idea of like you, you ascend through different heaven kingdoms to get to the actual celestial kingdom. And so I'm watching this and I'm like, dude, this is like a low rent temple video where you go to temple and like you see your progression from like hanging out with Satan, AK Macavity all the way up to being in the have a slate layer, which is the celestial kingdom. So here I had smoked a lead balloon , the balloon on the blue , never got to heaven, let it be known. They didn't have enough imagination to actually show what cat hadn't looked like. Bunch of sellouts, bunch of cop outs, you know, playing it safe with their crises . So there was this Griffith magic. So there's this whole metal layer. As I'm watching it, there's this whole metal layer as I'm watching it where I'm like, dude, this feels like a religious cult. Like initiation ceremony. Yeah. Well it's like heaven's gate. It's like they're just laughing at you because you don't understand. Yeah . They get to like right in the balloon to God knows where. And so I was thinking in preparation for the show, I was thinking about doing like a game like we've done in the past where it's like, Oh, this or that. And I was thinking about doing like cult story or musical because it's like there's a certain era of musical where things were so outlandish that it feels like a cult. The seventies and eighties were a lot of fun for a lot of people. Time is self discovery while also looking outward . Like we're really, really not into this free sex thing anymore. But if Jesus is involved and I can have sex with all of your wives, we could get, well, we're real good. Cocaine is a hell of a drug. So turbine , I don't know if you had similar feelings about like just the up our upbringing with, with the video and everything.

I mean I definitely was like feeling like I was being lectured to a little bit, you know, through the, through the naive character, like going through the journey of all the different uh, performances. But uh, you know, the memories came in. It's a great song to me, like the , it's like a, it's like a movie of my experience was mostly bad and then memories and then bad and then like kinda like memories remix the return and that was good and then not so great after again. I like that melody. I don't know . I always, I always loved , uh, Mungo Jerry and Rumple teaser. Their son was always my favorite. I thought that was one of the better scenes personally at least like it , like it , it tracked for me in ways that other ones interact . The most embarrassing of course for me at least is the rebel Wilson one. That was just the mousetrap gag. A little mouse little mouse band. Oh yeah , yeah. I thought that was all right.

That's the disconnect that I had is the rebel Wilson song was like whatever. But then the fact that they had mice with the little kids faces, they had women cockroaches with the forearms and then rebel Wilson actually ate one of them and you're like, Holy crap. She just, she was eight , a little lady

like that. Right. That actually worked for me. It was,

it was the James cordon one that I was like, this guy doesn't belong here. This is like annoying his and then anytime there's a me , there are times when musicals work for me, but when musicals don't, it's usually when they do that seeing speak instead of actually seeing a melody, they're just speaking dramatically. And he did that because he can't sing and probably because the musical called for it. But anyway, his , his , his was the worst for me. Beautiful ghost was my favorite. Uh , I don't know about the rest of y'all and that the Taylor Swift one.

Yeah.

Do you guys know that at one 11 awards they're all basically for like alternative award shows that had a worst , uh, worst film of the year category. It one worst picture and the Razzie awards. I think the only, the only like nod that it got was a for music for Andrew Lloyd Webber and for Taylor Swift. And you think it want to pick it won an Emmy or an Oscar. And I like that. That's kind of like beating a dead horse though. At that point. Everybody knew, kind of like how terrible it was. It's not a really bold position to call cat's the worst movie of the year. You know , if , if you called some other movie that other people love the worst movie year , that'd be a little more interesting. I just wanted you guys to know that it won awards awards.

So what else is pointing out is the Razzies right there , the golden raspberries and Tom Hooper is in, in small company with Kevin Costner and Michael Camino. Uncle Camino won best director for , uh, an Oscar for the deer Hunter. And then w worst director for mommy dearest Kevin Costner won best director for dances with wolves. And then one worst director for the postman for Waterworld. I don't think Kevin Costner direct that one. Waterworld yeah . Did he love Waterworld

do you think ? Not directly. Waterworld dammit . I wouldn't dare, I don't feel that strongly about it.

You know, this turbine , but Alison actually has a tattoo of the covert vaccine on her back. Um, that's why she's just been waiting for this moment.

That's true. It's fucking true. I think I have a breakthrough here guys. I was thinking about the cockroaches and I was thinking about the mice and I was thinking about the cats. Okay. Right. This is the multi-verse where every animal has a human face. That's what's going on. Cats have dog faces, horses have human faces. Everybody's got people faces. Everything in creation has a human face in the world of cats. That's what this is. We did it. I would like to be a crab with my face. Have you seen the, the 1978 Bodysnatchers movie where there's a moment where a dog is being body snatched and has a human face for a second. So Donald, Donald Sutherland, the good one is a good one. Well, I guess there's two , but uh, but anyway, that one, there's a dog that runs by with a human face and I'm saying he's from the world of cats where everything's going to give it a face broke through. It's got a portal gun. He has a quantum computer. Yeah .

Something that was weird in researching. This was the TSL yet actually wrote not just poems about cats, but also he wrote an unpublished poem about cows. So I want to read, I want to read this poem about cows because if you think about it, there's an alternate universe where there was a musical about cows. But for some reason, and maybe this poem will explain a TSL, Elliot decided to come down pro cat and Concow. So here we go. Of all the beasts that God allows in England's green and pleasant land, I'm most of all disliked the cows their ways. I do not understand. It puzzles me why they should stare at me. Who am so innocent? They're stupid. Gaze is hard to bear. It's positively, truthfully , I'm very inconspicuous and Scarlet ties I never wear. I'm not a London transport bus and yet at me they always stare. You may reply to fear a cow is cowardice , the rustic scorns, but still your reason must allow that I am weak and she has horns and must. I am afraid when walking with country Dames and brogues and tweeze who will persist in Hardy talking and stopping to discuss the breeds to country people. Cows are mild and flee from any stick they throw. But I am timid town bread child and all the cattle seem to know, and when in fields alone I stroll . Oh then in vain, their horns are tossed in vain. They're bloodshot eyes, they roll of me. They shall not make their boasts beyond the hedge or five bar gate. My sober wishes never stray in vain. Their prongs may lie in wait for, I can always run away or I can take sanctuary in friendly ochre Apple tree ,

kind of a hater . No , I know what's going on. You know like when your dog just like doesn't like one of your friends and it's because your friends are shitbag . It's TSL. It's an asshole. My cows , no cows don't know Dick, I'm telling you, Josh is an expert. I grew up on a dairy farm and I have some sympathy for what TSL is talking about. A counselor , the dumbest animal I've known and they have the dumbest stare. They gawk at you and you're kind of in like the fuck cows . A club. I'm not, I'm not saying fuck cows. I'm just saying they're so dumb. They're kind of like a blank screen that you can project anything onto. So I think maybe TSL yet is talking about his own insecurities. And so he feels judgment from cows even though cows don't really give a shit about him.

Ooh, I like that. That's , that's what I'm thinking. Hmm . They're dumb. The big takeaway guys, cows are dumb. If Andrew Lloyd Webber made cows and not cats, we can work on this. We can do cows. The musical. Why not? Totally. The choreography would be like so easy. Well, I mean like the shuffle that still dance like people, why not cows? Oh my God. We all have like gigantic items that we have to dance around the big CGI that shit out. And then we need those full flopping floppy outers and gorged cows. The dance of floppy adders and there's a couch sipping scene or it's just like, you know, it's the memory. It's the memory scene. It's like the emotionally resonant scene where this Jennifer Hudson cow would have been counted. She got tipped and that she has to live as a cow that got tipped. She got tipped. Yeah. But instead of sending to the habits, Lee layered, somebody gets a shotgun to the face.

So obviously we all know about the buttholes. Right? Can I get it like a round in the room? Where are you guys at with the cat balls ?

I'm aware, I'm aware. Okay. Tell me what you're aware of. I am aware that when they were mapping the cat for some of it, some of them had um, cat butt holes that were also mapped onto the actor. So sometimes they would show up, sometimes they wouldn't. But there are, there are scenes with cap holes and the phone had to do the painstaking work of removing said buttholes or as one, right? Yeah . Or as we would like to say, scrubbing battles . Squiggle . Okay. Brady, is that your consensus as well? Why not? We live in a hellscape. Anything's possible. So that sounds reasonable to me, but you, you clearly know more than any of these , these

people. I was able to track down what I think is a very um, believable quote from a vanity fair researcher that dug into the visual effects team and talk to people and blah, blah, blah, blah blah. I'm just going to read this cause I think it clears up everything. So one second. Alright . Uh, the anonymous source explains there were never, there were never shots of cats with buttholes or at least by design, none that I saw anyway. However, there were a dozen or so shots where the skin and for SIM simulation was groomed or folded in a way that really, really looked like very furry lady genitals and buttholes by accident. The task as typical with heavy CG shows fell on two D to paint out the offending articles where it was brought up and spotted daily reviews were constantly awkward discussions of people plucking up the courage to the point

things like, does that look like a Fannie to you in quotes ? So it was coincidental. Fuzzy lady genitalia . Yeah, I think we're talking about like furry free little cat butt holes and

very little Campbell toes . Oh, that's adorable. Yeah. And this is a perfect example, right? Is this idea that everyone was so invested in authenticity that no one in, I mean no one in the list of credits if you, I don't know if any of you stopped. Uh , unfortunately I was a dumb ass and decided to see how long the credits would go and the credits lasted eight minutes. The credits alone were eight minutes. So you look at this list of people and it's like thinking of all the people who probably either didn't realize because they were so committed to the project or they didn't want to like be in subordinate to their manager, you know, so you just like see corporate politics in the credits and just mapping it to this where it's like no one wants to point out the obvious because Tom Hooper , because it starts at the top, the culture always starts at the top with some, some project he so childlike and just in his element that no one's like, Hey, this is new. I'm going to tell Tom it's anyone. Is anyone going to turn to our banks ? Man? Yeah. Yeah. Georgia banks. Yep . What do you mean charge our banks?

I mean people were terrified to tell George Lucas just not to do anymore . CGI is probably because everyone hated George Irving so much. He's this funny little like comedic relief partner.

So would say is very racist because uh, how would you describe the accent ? It's like I'm cartoonish Jamaican man . Like I don't know. I don't even, I don't know if I even want to go there. Like how would you describe what they were trying to go for with that one? I feel racist even trying to disguise, describe charge our bank's his accent. I would have to come up with all kinds of threatening that I'm uncomfortable saying. Totally. I'm going to make one more point on this, but like apparently they came out with a life size jar, jar Binks doll , but a lot of ladies were really enjoying. No

damn Nunu Alison knew she's got one in the back room . It's in the closet. It's like direct drippings I don't know what charger are being sort of, do I, there was a lot of uh, effort put into this movie. I think it's what you're getting at. Right. I thought about that early on and I was like, man, the sheer amount of effort, I like working in docs row long for like 10 years now. I can tell you that it takes a lot of work to make something that's not good. You know what I mean? And it's not like that goes away and it's really interesting. Like it's actually really humbling to me and I kind of like, and it's not inspired, but it likes like focuses me when I think about the fact that somebody can win an Academy award and also make Katz , you know, most of the directors you can think of, they don't have a cats necessarily. They do have like movies that just like where they were tone deaf. They didn't like read the audience. I didn't know how to make the movie and no , like very few people are immune, you know? Yeah. I do think I do want to , I do want to view myself as a person that I was like three months into Casper preproduction would be like, man, this might not turn out. Who knows? Man.

Well, look, we all have that project. We all have that blind spot. You know that if any of us were handed a hundred million dollars that we were just all so passionate about, they were like, Oh, clearly other people are going to connect with me on this. What was the budget for this $100 million ? Supposedly it's probably larger than that because of marketing. What did it gross 75 80 million. But you're more than even destruction. Yeah. And to Allison's point earlier though, like Alison was being respectful and the fact that there are a lot of people who saw this, and I think there's this element of recognizing how this movie also came out at a weird time of superhero movies are expecting these larger budgets that are predictable, that are, you know, or this known hit aspect. And so I feel like they use the same exact marketing tools, the same exact distribution style for a movie that is, was unproven even though it's proven on Broadway. And there was a proven , uh , movie. I never saw the original movie, but point is it feels like this artifact. It feels like this artifact of even five to 10 years ago, right, where like box office now there's zero risk. And if you think about this movie, this is a risky ass movie. It really is like an experimental hippy dippy like post, post hippie post acid cocaine, weird cult ritual movie with weird melodies with human faces on it. And they're like, Oh yeah, Tom Hooper, you won an Academy award for King speech. Um, yeah . Is true. That's true. I forgot he did that too. That's suffered the same problems that suffered the same problems where like that broke, that broke all sorts of like audio production , uh, rules. Not rules, but um, transcended. And he did new things with audio production where they did all the singing live. Same thing with cats . It's like there's all this awesome technical advancement, but other than the Anne Hathaway scene in Les MIS, that movie sucks. Like Russell Crowe sucks. Hugh Jackman's like whatever. But it was like after the reach , what's that

dreamy , I think is the word you were looking for. The greatest showman, I think is what you're trying to say.

But yeah, it's just, it's, it's weird. It's just weird that somehow he, he got through this well calculated machine that would , there's so many checks and balances in place now with big studio pictures that, I mean, it's not even just him. It's not, it's not the visual effects people. It's not the dancers. It's the, it's not Andrew Lloyd Webber or with Taylor Swift. It's all the producers. It's all the executives. It's all the money. People who are like, yeah, keep going, keep going, keep going. We got this. We'll recoup someday.

Somebody's gonna write like a tell all book about the behind the scenes and I'm there for it. Yeah.

I heard a rumor that Spielberg was interested in doing a cat's movie in the nineties and it couldn't , they couldn't come together. There's some , uh , some differences and it never worked out, but I wonder what the Spielberg version of cats would have been like, would have been fucking rad hook ,

wasn't he? It would have been like, wasn't he involved though? Because the ambulance ambulance entertainment logos at the very beginning.

Yeah. Maybe he's got tangentially rights or something. Oh wait, I want to hang on. Andrew Lloyd Webber has his own, has a company and I wrote the company named down cause it cracked me up. It's a perfect world. Perfect. No, it's um, the really useful group. I thought that that was like, yeah, that's great. That's really, that's really great of you. Thank you. So, you know, Andrew Lloyd Webber , Webber and the really useful group came to help you out with your theatrical production and that's just swell.

All right . Well any final thoughts from y'all? I mean, would you recommend this movie to people to watch or not?

Yeah, I would. I because of, because of the visceral reaction that I experienced, I

people need to know. Yeah , people need to know , uh, I feel like kinda like troll two or plan nine from outer space. Uh, it's a disaster. It's a disaster movie. Um, I would say the disaster is grounded on hubris from some of the producer executive type people that you're talking about, but also fair bit of that from Tom Hooper and Andrew Lloyd Webber for not just like reading the obvious and seeing what was going on. And that, you know, what was going on , showing up on screen wasn't what they intended or, or maybe it was and they're just that out of whack. I don't know. Um, it's, people need to see it, but it is terrible. Yeah. That's where I'm at. Torbin

I would recommend it for like an academic course on , um , like tastes lighting, sensibility, lighting, kind of , because I don't know me , it was a , it was a bit of a slog for me to be honest. Uh, but I will say I did like the last 20 minutes, much more than I liked the first hour. I felt like from the time that my favorite song memories came in onward, it started to kind of pick up for me a little bit. It seemed like it was more anchored in something that looked like it was a real movie in a real world where previous to that it just was , um, I just felt it like , went , like the hardest movies for me to watch are the ones where I feel embarrassed, you know, because just, I don't know, like I feel bad for the people. Like, I know , you know, I've seen these actors do amazing things. Don't feel bad. They're walking away with millions of dollars. Yeah, that's true. But still like when they play, you're like, you're like in the morning on the video they're going to , they're not reminding people that you were eat yourself a cat buff. Buffy just Elba cat .

Well for me , um, this one is five stars across the board. Um, I'm not one to usually say this kind of thing. I'm not so bad as good kind of person. I'm not a , you know, I like things cause it's ironic, I genuinely was blown away the first time I saw this in the best ways possible of, I think Torbin touched on it, right? Like as a creator, I doubt myself just given my time or my capacity or my money or whatever it is. There's all these limitations that I kinda think of like I can't do something. And then stuff like this comes along where it's like, look, they went for it. They had a clear vision, they executed extremely well and it's terrible. And so it, it kind of breaks down any sort of gatekeeping narrative that I have in my mind about what's possible by whom. And I don't, I don't watch this movie. I watched it twice now. The second time I watched it. Even then, I didn't watch it laughing at them. I laughed at the just sheer childlike joy that they had to make. This thing was so much money that, that I think that's what I kind of laughed at. It was like, Holy shit. The fact that we can throw away this amount of this much money as you , humankind is insane if it just gets into the right hands. And so the , the, the ludicrousness of it , just the, the exceptional, it's exceptional. It's an exceptional movie. I can't think of any other movie that is in the ballpark of this in terms of the context of the background of it being made, the type of people involved, the pedigree of it going back generations. So I would highly recommend it. However, I don't, I haven't watched it sober.

Okay .

So there's a giant asterisk next to my recommendation. So do you know what the asterick looks like? Looks like a cat, but no , you're right. Dammit . Please start .

They sparkle.

All right, everybody, well thanks for tuning in. Next episode we'll be talking about Brian DePalma's 1974 Phantom of the paradise. Until then, check us out on Instagram at solid six . Dot. Podcasts, Facebook and Twitter. Solid six podcast. Um , Josh on Instagram. You're Josh spaceman. That's me. Alison lug your shit.

Oh, I'm cat. Eight woman on Instagram. And then I am brew HUD Jones on a letterbox.

I'm Brady Kimball on everything. And do you want to plug

anything? Do you have any projects or anything you want to talk about? I mean, in terms of communication right now, you have to sound like a carrier pigeon because that's not on any kind of social media. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. You were at once the social media Maven. Maven. What about that? What about that? Uh , can we talk about that documentary that , uh, the plate of Tribeca? Oh yeah, yeah. I edited a documentary at Tribeca this last year for a and E called , uh , I have a poster here . I want my MTV. It's all about the history of classic MTV from , uh, basically from its inception all the way until a real world ends at real world. We don't go into like some Butthead or it's just quite classic pop and tar era all the way to, yeah, and it's great features, all kinds of cool people stealing Dan in it. They're not REO. Speedwagon is cool. Kevin crone is Kevin Cronin's in it. Uh, uh, staying Billy idol , uh , DMC from run to MC bunch of people at school. Nice. Awesome. Hopefully get to check it out soon. Yeah, it should be premiering sometime this year. I don't know. I just killed myself and edited all day and night on it for a year. And then I just, I just move on to the next thing. Spoken like a craftsman, just like the visual effects people and cats. So anyway, until next time everyone say goodbye.

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