Soundtracking: Cats

by Chris Feil

One month after its catastrophic arrival and its official: Cats has entered the cult pantheon. But unlike the midnight musical tradition set before it by The Rocky Horror Picture Show, this disaster isn’t simply finding an audience that appreciates its merits. If the ultimate schadenfreude response to the film felt pre-baked by the gleefully unhinged  reactions to its promotional material, we shouldn’t forget that much of its failed vision falls squarely in the lap of director Tom Hooper.

Cats as a musical is supposed to be earnest, its silly concept a vessel for unbridled imagination from the bombastic funhouse of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Of course, it has always had vocal detractors - it’s still a musical about cats. But for better or worse, it’s a more tuneful score than it’s often credited as, even if it grates...

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Florals (before) spring? Groundbreaking.

Miranda Priestley would not approve! 

more florals after the jump...

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Review: "Cats"

by Cláudio Alves

Somewhere along the journey of popular cinema, an unholy change of standards occurred. Once upon a time, the artifice of movies was seen as a delightful feature, but it slowly started to be seen as an enemy of quality. The pursuit of "reality" began to preoccupy serious artists and Hollywood hacks alike. The audience’s taste was thus guided in the direction of pseudo-realism. The look of natural reality isn't the point, but the feel of it is. For instance, Lord of the Rings' fantasy isn't close to our reality in any significant way, but there's a sense of material credulity that satisfies modern audience's limited suspension of disbelief.

To speak of such matters in the context of a flimsily plotted musical populated by cat-human hybrids probably sounds preposterous. That said, I firmly believe the movie of the Broadway smash Cats would be altogether less horrifying if it had embraced the artifice and theatricality of its premise...

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Beyoncé's "Spirit" and the Best Original Song Competition

Please welcome new contributor Kyndall Cunningham...

When the soundtrack for this year’s The Lion King remake dropped in July along with the lead single “Spirit,” performed by Beyoncé, fans on Twitter described its long-awaited arrival as the singer “coming to collect her things” - one of those things obviously being an Oscar for Best Original Song. 

The gospel-inspired ballad penned by Beyoncé, the British singer-producer Labrinth and songwriter Ilya Salmanzadeh includes Swahili chants, a choir and, of course, Beyonce’s acrobatic vocals that practically summon thunder by the end of it. The song is noticeably Oscar-baity in its grandeur but also in that a live performance at the ceremony would prompt a long standing O and make for one of the best moments of the night...

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Link is a cabaret...

Marisa Berenson, Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli at the premiere of Cabaret (1972)Vanity Fair smart piece by Mark Harris on what four Oscar campaign's (or rather the potential success thereof) might tell us about the "new" Academy including Lupita Nyong'o in Us

The Guardian talks to Marisa Berenson (Cabaret) on why she walked away from the spotlight so many years ago.

After the jump animated short Oscar hopefuls, Taylor Swift Cats news, Jeff Goldblum, a new film from The Lighthouse's Robert Eggers and more...

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