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Film Cat's Meow

Cat's Meow
Rating: 1 fist of feces
imdb record
Reviewed April 29, 2002
Released 2001

I give this movie one fist of feces because although it has some nice
moments, it is mostly just a big ball of pain. And boredom. And really
bad fucken lighting.

The plot concerns the most powerful man in the world and the most
influential actor in the world both vying for the same woman. These three, along with several others, are on a yacht for the weekend. Passions flare.

A man is murdered. And every passenger on board is forced to live with the events of this weekend for the rest of their lives.
Sounds exciting, huh? Well, it‚s not. How they took such a promising
premise and turned into a snooze fest to rival 1492 is beyond me.
Highlights: Edward Herrmann is great. His take on Hearst is quite a bit different than what I expected. I expected to see a grandiose performance of a man drunk on power and confident in his god-like authority over the world. Instead, Hearst looks more like a frightened child struggling to hold on to what power he has just fallen into. His devotion to Marion Davies is absolute. When he tells her that his whole world centers around her, I believe him. And when the tragic murder finally does occur, his wildly fluctuating emotions are all very well done and very believable.

Kirsten Dunst puts in her first adult performance. This is the first time
I have seen her as anything other than a child. She regresses to her
standard cute high school girl shtick from time to time, but there are
moments where you get to see the adult actress I hope she one day becomes.

And Joanna Lumley (of AbFab fame) is great. She has very little to do, but what she does she does well. And without a hint of Patsy Stone.

Some of the scenes play out fairly well. You get a kick ass tracking shot of unbelievable complexity in the first Charleston scene and you get a nice moment where ol‚ Jennifer Tilly turns from a total social buffoon into a hard core 'I'm getting what I want and the rest of you can fuck off' power suit lady, but aside from that, the movie just kills.
My least favorite thing about this flick is the lighting and shot composition. In her first scene, you can‚t even see Jennifer Tilly's face.

Totally obscured by her hat. For, like, two minutes. And then in several more scenes, the lighting is so bad that you can‚t make out any damn face in the scene. My favorite is one where the lights were focused on the actors‚ waists. Bright ass light on their waists, darkness on their faces.

This problem shows up constantly.

Another thing I hated was the dialogue. They were obviously going for some Altman-style conversational wit but instead wind up with some obviously forced, stilted boring mess. I cannot stress how boring most of these conversations are. I kept praying for the movie to get to the good stuff.

But, of course, it never does.

And JESUS! Could they telegraph that fucken note discovery any more? The moment Chaplin tosses it in the garbage you know it's coming back later. How disappointing when you find out you're right.
This is one of those movies that sticks with you for a while. Keeps you wondering long after you've gone home and gone to bed just why oh why did you spend $7.75 on this instead of Wayne's World or Joe Dirt or something?

Reviews by Brandon Salinas

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