cats
graham.rickson
As films involving cats go, The Cassandra Cat (Až přijde kocour) is up there with the best. Part fairy-tale, part political satire, Vojtěch Jasný’s 1963 fantasy, shot on location in the picturesque village of Telcis, is an offbeat, unclassifiable gem. Unsurprisingly, the post-1968 Czech authorities disapproved, withdrawing it from circulation.Jasný’s characters have their lives turned upside down by the titular feline, a hefty tabby wearing dark glasses. If they're removed, those who the cat gazes at will change colour according to their nature.A prologue features Jan Werich’s affable Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The bond between humans and animals sometimes passeth all understanding. Wildcat is the story of 20-something British Army veteran Harry Turner, American ecologist Samantha Zwicker, and a young ocelot called Keanu, who becomes an almost mythic talisman of Harry’s battle with post-traumatic stress and suicidal urges.Harry’s experience with the army in Afghanistan, where he’d served as an 18-year-old, had left him shattered and burned out. He was medically discharged suffering from recurrent depression and PTSD, his brain clanging with terrible images of violence and death. He recalled seeing a Read more ...
Gary Naylor
LJ's dream has come true - she has her very own wine bar. Unfortunately for us, it turns into a bit of a nightmare.This new musical open on a nostalgic 70s vibe. Tables and chairs fill almost all of Southwark Playhouse's smaller space, a set that conjures memories of the sitcom from that period, Robin's Nest, or the infamous dining room at Fawlty Towers; recent films such as Boiling Point have also found comparable environments fertile ground for exploring the narrow line between comedy and tragedy.Initially we focus on LJ herself, Mischief theatre alum Nancy Zamit's harassed manager Read more ...
Marianka Swain
Cats is, declares composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, a show that doesn’t really have a story, but was beloved on stage because it’s “the ultimate theatrical experience”. That’s the point which Tom Hooper’s grotesque, nightmarish movie adaptation so profoundly missed, with its computer-generated monstrosities and ham-fisted attempts at miring this fanciful material in leaden reality – albeit one in which relative size warps every second, and Judi Dench wears the carcass of another cat.A great relief, then, to revisit Cats as it was meant to be seen – still inarguably eccentric, but with a clear Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
The excellent booklet essay by Michael Brooke that accompanies this Second Run release of Pavel Juráček’s second, and final feature (it’s presented in a fine 4K restoration) tells us much about the director’s importance for the Czech New Wave, that remarkable period of independent filmmaking that spanned the 1960s. It was brought to an end, of course, by the Soviet intervention in 1968. A Case for a Rookie Hangman intriguingly spans that crucial dividing line: written in 1966, it was filmed only in 1969 and released two years after that, albeit only on a very limited scale (for many observers Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
There is a jaguar in the house. Aged five days, and having been rejected by her mother, Maya has arrived from the wildlife park where she was born for hand-rearing by Giles Clark at his home in Kent. The cub is going to spend her early days with his family, with round-the-clock care from Giles, obsessed as he is with the situation of big cats worldwide.For Maya, it will be an attempt to make sure of her survival, not least as an ambassador for endangered species at the Big Cat Sanctuary nearby, where Clark works as head of cats and conservation. A charity, it houses some 50 big cats from 15 Read more ...
graham.rickson
The Incredible Shrinking Man starts innocently with a young couple bantering on a small boat off the California coast. Before what looks like an atomic mushroom cloud wafts towards the unfortunate Scott Carey, lightly coating him in glittery fallout. Six months later, Carey seems to be getting smaller. Initially it’s little more than an irritation.Shirts and trousers don’t seem to fit any more, but a chirpy doctor refuses to believe his baffled patient. Soon, this unwanted diminution is undeniable, and medical tests – cue ominous shots of phials, test tubes and syringes – confirm that a Read more ...
Saskia Baron
It takes a while to get going, and doesn’t altogether evade sentimentality but overall this black comedy is hugely endearing. Rolf Lassgård (complete with bald cap) plays Ove. He's a depressed and resentful 60-year-old widower who can’t see any point in life without his beloved wife, especially since he's been made redundant from his job as an engineer. His suicide attempts are thwarted by poor quality materials and a rag-bag collection of neighbours.Flashbacks to Ove's childhood and courtship are beautifully done, but it’s the portrait of Swedish small-town life that intrigues. This isn’t Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Oh clever title: cheetahs, when fully grown at about 18 months, are the fastest mammal on earth, clocking 70 miles per hour in short bursts. For this documentary, we were in the magnificent country of Zimbabwe, in all seasons, following a cheetah family which uncharacteristically lived in forest as well as river plain.Guided by the soothing and authoritative voice of Sir David Attenborough, armed with an elegant script, we followed the fortunes over nearly two years of a mother cheetah and her five cubs, four females and a male. We were enabled to do this by the cameraman and conservationist Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Cats on film. There are plenty of them. Elsewhere on the web you will find loads of listicles featuring top cats, boss pussies, big mogs, killer kitties, whiskers galore and other such. Cats get their biggest billing of all in the wonderful if anthropomorphic world of Walt Disney. It’s rare for a cat to be played by a cat in a film about a cat. Cat people will be purring, therefore, at A Street Cat Named Bob.It tells the true touching story of James Bowen, a down-and-out heroin-addicted busker whose life was given shape and meaning when a ginger tom clambered through a window of his supported Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
In film and photography, zoos and on safari (we should be so lucky) we admire the great cats, kings of jungle and forest, top of the food chain, predators, and gorgeous to boot. But in spite of this admiration, some human populations hardly bear affection for the cheetah or lion because of their perceived threat to cattle, while human encroachment on their habitat is leaving many a feline population vulnerable and endangered.Following the Rio Olympics and huge political scandals in Brazil, this quiet and surprisingly emotional documentary on jaguars is curiously topical. For jaguars, powerful Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
One of the many astonishing things in Mia Hansen-Løve’s fifth film is watching Isabelle Huppert hold back tears. In one scene they smear almost involuntarily down her face, in another she transforms them into a bark of nervous laughter. Huppert plays Nathalie Chazeaux, a sixty-something Paris philosophy teacher, who paces the film with almost frantic speed while her life unravels around her.Finally, when the immediate causes of her grief have passed, she surrenders to sobbing. It’s a beautifully delayed scene that catches the build-up of emotions (pictured below), her only company in her Read more ...