2023 Just Another Film Blog Awards

It’s once again time for the Oscars. In 2019 I decided to start my own film awards the JAFB Awards and I received an overwhelming response! So, I am very happy to share with you the winners of The JABF Awards 2023. You should probably know that I my issue with the Oscars is their lack of diversity not just in gender, race and background but in genre - I give awards to the films I enjoyed over the past year, most of which are popular movies.  2023 was a huge year for film, the first year post covid where all films scheduled to release at the cinema did so. It was a huge year for franchises and superhero movies however this success is not reflected in the Oscar nominations - not that I'm surprised. Diversity wise the Oscars is making no huge moves to change, with most nominations and awards going to white males in general - the majority of the best picture nominations feature male leads and no female directors have been nominated. The Oscars year on year highlight the lack of equalit

Cats Review

So, for some reason I decided to see Cats at the cinema tonight. I never even watched one of the trailers in full, but I couldn't resist the Lure of a Musical. I went into the cinema having never seen Cats before, I had no idea what it was about, I didn't even know the song Memories was from Cats. I had no idea what to expect and honestly, I thought it would be a fun and visually exciting film however Cats is just weird. I can finally say that for the first time ever I considered both walking out of a movie and falling asleep. This review is going to be shorter than usual but please do read on because not everything I thought is negative (I promise). Trust me there will be no spoilers in this post.  
Normally I would start by giving a quick rundown of a film's narrative, however I don't think I can do that for Cats. Why you ask? Well because I am not fully sure what this movie is about, I spent the first twenty minutes being completely confused - during this time I considered leaving the movie several times. Then I got slightly to grips with what was going on and it seems like this movie is about a conveniently timed talent show that may or may not lead to the death of the winner (I mean the winner just vanished into the clouds so...). It's all very strange and honestly, I'm not even going to try and work out what was even going on. 

Cats has a cast full of huge stars all of which perform very well. There is so much talent on screen but that does little to the boring songs and lack of coherent narrative. The main character Victoria is played by the incredible ballerina Francesca Hayward - her voice is stunning, but her dancing is dreamy. Jason Derulo was fantastic, he should sing like that more because he would get so many number ones! Taylor Swift and James Corden shinned in their brief roles - the movie should have given them more screen time. Jennifer Hudson had the only moment of the film that I loved - when she sings Memories in full. There is no denying Jennifer Hudson's incredible voice and she shinned despite her undeveloped role. Sadly, both Judi Dench and Ian Mckellen fail to shine and I think thats down to the poor narrative and dull characters. Sadly, even the amazing performances fail to make Cats anything more than boring.    

I just want to touch quickly on how strange the cats looked, not only did it distract from film, but it also just looked wrong. The main characters at least had nice realistic looking fur, whereas the extras looked clearly CGI. I'm not even going to discuss the coat thing or the fact that Rebel Wilson could unzip her fur - I'm still freaked out. Cats had the potential to be at least visually interesting and creative - but it wasn't. The CGI was patchy at best. 

Ugh I hate writing such a negative review but Cats really is dull. I would love for someone to tell me why the stage show was so popular because if it was anything like this movie, I cannot see the appeal. I honestly don't think I'll ever even attempt to watch this film again. 

Thank you for reading - Sorry it was so negative xx

You can Buy Cats by CLICKING HERE

   

Comments

  1. I really wanted to see this as I never got to see the stage show ,which by the way my granddaughter said was fantastic, then I saw poor reviews and wondered if it was actually worth a trip to the cinema so now I've decided I'll pass on 'Cats' and trot off to see 'Little Women' one of my favourite books/ films from childhood .

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for reading Sue. I really hope you enjoy Little Women. It's very sad that Cats does not live up to the hype xx

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment