- Cake update! The Mindful Baking cake was not as big of a hit as the Pie, Pie My Darling cake, but I think that’s because of the flavor we chose – cookie dough. In my mind it was going to be cookie dough flavored cake, but there was legit cookie dough in there and it was SUPER sweet. Good flavors, but the change between the two textures wasn’t doing it for me (that could also be because I ate a ton of chili before I tried it). Don’t worry, I still had a slice each day!
- Last Saturday, 10/10/20, was the ten year anniversary of my first marathon! I had a post drafted about it and my 9 following marathons but I tend to stay off my computer when I’m traveling and it was not published (obviously).
- I found the holiday card I want to order this year! I just need to take a photo of the garage with brick and siding to put on it (when that is all hopefully done in late October), then it will be ready to order.
- Ugh. The siding. It’s being delivered today, and Menards just called yesterday to say they don’t have all the pieces we ordered and need to special order them. We placed this order many weeks ago to have it delivered in mid October. WHY are they just checking stock now? Disappointing.
- We tried to watch the Cats movie last night and just couldn’t do it! The acting is bad, the CGI is atrocious and creepy, and the story makes no freaking sense. It would be one thing if the story was interesting and I liked the music but NOPE. I can see why everyone hated it when it came out!
- I just finished a super depressing (but interesting) memoir last night and am so glad to be done with it. I was curious to see if the author was ever not suffering tragedy after tragedy (nope) so I stuck with it, but it was weighing so heavily on me!
OMG, that cake looks SO decadent! 😮
I heard the Cats movie was terrible…that’s such a shame because the musical is good and the poetry it’s based on is really good. “Macavity the Mystery Cat” was one of my favorite things to read to the kids when they were little. I guess some things just don’t translate to the big screen well and I guess that is why I am usually wary of going to see movies based on books I really enjoyed.
Are you going to blog about that memoir? You make me curious!
Thanks for commenting on my blog, BTW! 😉 Been a long time since I posted so I really appreciate it, Kim!
It definitely was!
I was looking into “Jellicle cat” to try to figure out what the hell it was and saw it was based on poetry! The movie being so horrible makes me wonder how the theater version was? People must have liked it since it was on state for years?! The movie (what we saw) just seemed ridiculous. I think I had a look of awe/horror on my face for all of the 20 mins we watched.
Yes! I have it drafted! I just need to finish one more book to hit publish! (Somehow I got on a 3 book review schedule – I wonder if I will keep that for 2021. I definitely want to change the title of those posts.)
You are welcome!!! <3 I am excited to read about your hikes!!!
Here is the Macavity poem – best read aloud 😉
https://poets.org/poem/macavity-mystery-cat
Wow, look at that cake! 😉
You’re early on your holiday cards – good for you. I can’t even think about this yet, but I know they’re here before we know it.
Thanks! We’ve only done them for a few years but I feel better when I have them ordered in Oct and sent right after Thanksgiving. I think I won’t be able to order until November this year though since I am waiting on a garage pic.
Gah, the holidays are going to be here so soon! CRAZY!
Cats! It’s so creepy, right? Did you get to the part with the sparkly catnip exploding out of a moon that the Taylor Swift cat is riding? Oh, it’s so, so bad. Why do they have human teeth and bulges??
I need to start looking for holiday cards. Usually, I buy them in store, but I guess not this year! Thanks for the reminder.
It is! We did not make it that far. We stopped right after Rebel Wilson’s scene. We just couldn’t do it!
Are you going to look online for some to order? You’re welcome! 🙂
Ooh, I can see how that cookie dough cake would be too sweet! Those are huge layers of cookie dough! Bummer.
Kudos for finishing that memoir, and now I hope you can move on to something more fun and light-hearted!
It really was! I was joking we should take some out and try to bake it.
I did! I tried to read Transcendent Kingdom and couldn’t do it, but Happy & You Know It perked me right up!
I’m so behind on commenting and was just going to cut my losses and get back into it with today’s post, but I MUST comment on the Cats situation!
So, I’m a big fan of musicals, yes? Going to see musicals has been my main live entertainment probably since 2016 or so, and even before then, I was usually going to at least one Broadway in Chicago show per year. Point is, I’d like to think I know my way around musical theater, more or less. We went to see Cats last summer when it was in Chicago because I knew a movie version was coming out, and it felt like one of those musicals that anyone who thinks they’re a fan of musicals should see, right? I didn’t really have any expectations going into the show. I figured it’d be good, but I wasn’t expecting, like, Hamilton or something. I was BLOWN AWAY. It was easily, EASILY one of my top three favorite shows I’ve ever seen–and I’ve seen a pretty good number of shows. The staging and dancing in particular was just totally phenomenal and left me speechless.
I still wanted to see the movie, but I had very low expectations for the movie, primarily because Tom Hooper directed it. Tom Hooper directed the Les Miserables movie in 2012, which is an abomination to musical theater if ever there were one–and most people actually LIKE the Les Mis movie! I looooove the Les Mis show, but I HATED the movie. Like it literally made me angry, I thought it was so poorly done. I finally saw Cats (the movie) in March, and it was definitely as disappointing as I expected it to be.
Here’s the big thing about Cats (the musical): it doesn’t really have a plot. It’s mostly just a collection of songs. There’s a couple loose threads that continue throughout the show that you could kind of say is the “story,” but that’s not really the point of the musical. The point of the musical are the individual songs, which teach you about each of the cats’ lives. In fact, Andrew Lloyd Weber originally wrote the music to Cats with the intention of it truly being a collection of songs, not a musical. Unsurprisingly, most people going into Cats (the movie) had no idea that Cats (the musical) doesn’t have a plot, so when the reviews came out and were like, “This is the worst movie of all time!!!!!! There’s no plot!!!!!!” I was like, “…and?” I still think that’s not a valid criticism of the movie, because the work it’s based on doesn’t have a plot, either. But if you don’t know that, obviously it could be really confusing and off-putting. Same with the look. Like, no one is wearing people clothes in Cats (the musical). They’re wearing Spandex cat outfits, with cat makeup and cat wigs. So again, when people were like, “Why do the actors look like cats?!?! It’s so weird!!!!” I was once again like, “…and?”
THAT being said, while I don’t think the criticisms of Cats (the movie) that complain about fundamental elements of Cats (the musical) are fair, I still think Cats (the movie) is awful. For one thing, the ~magic~ of stage shows doesn’t really translate well to the screen, if you ask me, so you lose a lot of that by it being a movie rather than a musical. It’s very different watching real people do a show in real life than it is watching recorded people do something that took who knows how many takes. For another thing, some of the most magical moments of Cats (the music), inexplicably, didn’t make it into the movie. It sounds like you didn’t make it that far, but Magical Mr. Mistoffelees is easily one of the most breathtaking numbers of the show, particularly with the dancing and lighting tricks they use. None of that was included in the movie. The Jellicle Ball is another just stunning moment in the show–it’s like 10 straight minutes of dancing–and that doesn’t come across in the movie at all. On top of that, they tried to impose a plot on the movie that doesn’t exist in the show, which was bizarre, and there was a totally unnecessary romance between Victoria and Mr. Mistoffelees that doesn’t exist in the show, either. Translating Cats to the screen was always going to be difficult, and I feel like the people who made the movie took a hard task and instead of rising to it, took a bunch of shortcuts that made Cats as a movie even worse than it was inevitably going to be.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Ha! That is quite the TED Talk! Thank you for sharing it! I am glad you got to see it in theater pre-COVID and that you loved it! Did you research it before you went, so you would enjoy it more, or go in cold, not knowing anything? Just watching the movie, I was like, this has to be way better on stage. I agree that most things do NOT translate. I have only seen one show on Broadway (Once) and remember watching the movie and being like… wtf. There are so many movies I try to watch and am like, nope, this is supposed to be seen on stage.
I know I would appreciate the songs/stories more seeing it in person. But I apparently do expect a movie to have a (related?) plot… I struggle when it doesn’t! And I love singing and dancing, but the CGI and costumes were so freaky that I just could not watch it (I liked the stage costumes much more from what I saw online – I wish they were just wearing suits in this instead of the weird CGI combo!). And… what they were singing about just seemed stupid (sorry, LOL). Or maybe it was the dancing cockroaches with faces that did it for me.
That sucks they took out the best parts and tried to make a plot and add story when there isn’t one. I bet it would have been better if they just stuck to the original source material. Because by changing it they pissed off the purists, and potentially made it even more confusing. We only made it to the end (if even?) of Rebel Wilson’s scene. I couldn’t stand to look at it and could not understand it (even with subtitles) so it was a no for me. I’d go see it on stage though 😉 And I really wanted to at least see what Memories was all about after knowing it for years but having never seen the show!
I think I did some research pre-show – I might’ve read the Wikipedia page? I knew that there wasn’t going to be much of a plot, and that it was all taken from T.S. Eliot’s poems – and I also know enough from getting an English degree that if it was taken from T.S. Eliot’s poems, it probably wasn’t going to be the *most* straightforward thing I’ve ever encountered, even if they are poems he wrote for children rather than adults. I’m sure going into it with that knowledge helped set my expectations appropriately and enjoy the show a lot more than I would have had I gone in expecting something more traditional.
Ugh, the cockroaches! I thought that was so off-putting, too! Like to the point where I didn’t remember it even being in the musical (it is, but clearly not nearly as…weird). I really don’t know who this movie was made for, because it obviously wasn’t made for diehard fans of the stage show, and it definitely wasn’t made to be accessible to the general public either. It really probably shouldn’t have been made at all!
Yeah, that would have helped me too! Before I watched I knew I thought it as about cats auditioning to go go heaven or something. I did not know it was based on poems!
WHY DID THEY HAVE TO GIVE THEM FACES?! LOL. I agree it should not have been made. They thought they were gonna make $$$. I wonder if it tanked!