Cats

Unfortunately, the next movie in my winter break marathon was Cats.  I saw the stage musical Cats for the first time on a trip to London.  I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen but the friends I saw it with absolutely loved it!  Clearly I was missing something (to be fair I saw it the night after I saw Les Miserables, which was a dream come true, so almost anything would have been anticlimactic after that).  I decided that I needed to see it again so I went with my best friend and her family when the Broadway touring company came to SLC.  They were amazed by it and, once again, I was completely underwhelmed.  I have since seen it several more times and, even though it is not my favorite, I have come to appreciate the choreography and the song "Memory."  When I saw the trailers for the movie adaptation, the CGI looked horrible but I thought that, with Andy Blankenbuehler of Hamilton as choreographer, the dancing would be fantastic, and, with Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella, "Memory" would be great so I decided to see it on Christmas Eve.  It was even worse than I was anticipating.  There really isn't a plot because it is about a gang of cats, known as Jellicles, who compete to be the chosen one who gets to go to the Heaviside Layer and be reborn into a different life.  It is a weird premise but this is not the main problem with the movie.  The CGI is an absolute mess and I found the cat characters to be so strange looking.  Some of them have human hands and feet, sometimes their heads just seem to be floating on their bodies, and their proportions are so inconsistent.  Many of the musical numbers are incredibly bizarre, especially "The Gumbie Cat" which is truly horrific with Rebel Wilson as Jennyanydots eating mice and cockroaches with faces and "The Jellicle Ball" which is basically a cat orgy (several people walked out of my screening after this).  As much as I love Judi Dench, I was not a fan of her performance as Old Deuteronomy because she is not really a great singer and she always seems so confused (maybe she had too much of Bombalurina's catnip).  I also didn't really care for Idris Elba as Macavity because his characterization is really evil rather than mischievous.   What was most disappointing for me was the dancing because it could have been so amazing.   There are lots of fast cuts and changes in angles so we never get to see sustained shots of the dancing.  There is one exception when Victoria, played by Francesca Hayward, pirouettes around the room and it is so exhilarating that it makes me wonder what might have been.  Finally, I didn't even like Hudson's version of "Memory."  I have seen both Elaine Paige, who originated the role of Grizabella in the West End, and Betty Buckley, who performed the role on Broadway, sing it live with the Utah Symphony and Hudson's version doesn't hold a candle to theirs.  I thought she sounded much too angry and I was distracted by the snot running down her face.  I did, rather surprisingly, enjoy James Corden's version of "Bustopher Jones" and I loved Taylor Swift's version of "Macavity" but there is just so much that is truly awful that I can't possibly recommend it.