A Talking Cat!?! • The Movie: The Blog

The Sound

Phil and his son Chris have a strained relationship. Post-Eric-Robers-voice-over-opening, A Talking Cat!?! begins when Phil returns to his echoey home early.

Jeez, okay. We need to talk about the sound. Aside from the sugary synthesized score of Harry Manfredini, the sound quality is the first truly horrible thing to slap you in the head. As soon as Phil turns the handle of the front door, the reverberations of its metallic clicks shoot back and forth across the cavernous expanse of his spacial entryway.

For the recording of dialogue, a film would normally have a boom operator holding a fluffy microphone over or under an actor’s head to capture their voice and nothing else. The sound effects (such as a door opening or footsteps) would be added later by a foley artist.

But if you’re going to make a film for a million dollars, you need to work with a skeleton crew. And if you can’t find a necromancer to raise up the dead to work for you, you have to use a scaled back crew. That means no boom mics and no foley artist.

What we get is a single mic, probably mounted on top of the camera, capturing every last sound made in a house that doesn’t even have carpeting for sound dampening.

I was going to talk about Phil and Chris in the post, but the sound takes so many missteps from moment one it needs to be brought up.

But here’s a fantastic bit of dialogue, to hold you over until the Phil and Chris update.

Phil: It’s over.
Chris: What’s over?
Phil: The company.

Obviously, Chris, you dummy. What else would Phil be bringing up for the first time ever?

The Actors: Johnny Whitaker

The first non-cat character to appear in the talking-cat-centric movie A Talking Cat!?! is Johnny Whitaker. If you haven’t heard that name in a while (or ever), that’s because Johnny’s last big gig was in 1973 on Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.

Johnny Whitaker!?! The years, especially 30 of them, aren’t kind to anybody. For instance, I was a much more attractive 3-year-old. All dimples and a spirit that hadn’t been crushed by the weight of the world. However, Johnny’s acting chops seem to be stuck in a state of arrested development.

Actually, that’s an unfair statement. I’ve never seen Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. But people tend to get better at things the more they do it. If you think about it, I’m being generous in stating that his acting has stayed at the same level. Because if it hasn’t, that means he was worse in Sigmund and the Sea Monsters than A Talking Cat!?! and my brain can’t handle that possibility.

Johnny Whitaker plays the character of Phil, a man who finds himself retired and lost in the frightening sea of unlimited time and possibilities. On the script, Phil’s character description reads something like “Phil did something with website and now he sold website and has more money than he had before from website.”

Phil will use his spare time to walk from one end of his giant foyer to the other, embarrass his teenage son, stalk a neighbor, and talk to a cat. Not sure how you prepare for a role like this, but it can probably be accomplished by going to the gym and staring at people working out.

Will Phil finally connect with his teenage son? Will all his stalking pay off? Will he ever find a replacement for website that he loved so much? Will he feed a strange cat a mixture of milk and tuna? Stay tuned to find out.

But, actually, yes to all those questions.

A Talking Cat Drinking Game!?!

I’ve been trying to come up with a drinking game based on A Talking Cat!?! but I can’t seem to make one that doesn’t end up with everyone dead of alcohol poisoning.

The Director

A Talking Cat!?! is directed by David DeCoteau, even if the credits say it was directed by the pseudonym of Mary (or Marv, the font for the credits is terrible) Crawford.

Mary Crawford!?!
As stated on David DeCoteau’s IMDB biography, his mentor is famed B movie director Roger Corman. If you needed an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s work filmed in 24 hours, Corman was your man. Corman has also produced films such as Carnosaur, one of the first straight-to-video movie ripoffs (hitting video store shelves before Jurassic Park) that I can remember.

Before we get into David DeCoteau’s credits, let’s look at an excerpt from his mini-biography, which reads like a press release from David DeCoteau.

“His passion lies in the creation of popular genre programming made for world consumption. DeCoteau’s experience in creating content in countries all over the world makes him a proven choice for exceptionally challenging movie projects.”

Of course, most biographies read like someone looking for their next job. I remember this excerpt from Cary Grant’s biography.

“And if you ever need a charming man to be charming and handsome on a moving picture thing, Cary Grant can be reached at…”

I originally became aware of A Talking Cat!?! when David DeCoteau’s Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft appeared on Netflix. This was a straight-to-video movie ripoff of the mainstream Hansel & Gretel movie starring Jeremy Renner. Here is an excerpt from Jeremy Renner’s Biography.

“And if you ever need a handsome man to be handsome and tough on a moving picture thing, Jeremy Renner can be reached at…”

David DeCoteau’s big break was the straight-to-video (are you sensing a pattern here) Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge. Like Corman, David has also directed many terrible adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories.

Most recently, David DeCoteau has fallen into a pattern of three types of movies. The straight-to-video ripoff genre, as represented by Hansel & Gretel. “Family” films, like Christmas Spirit and A Halloween Puppy. And finally, the 1313 sub-genre of LGBT horror B-movie, with titles like 1313: Frankenqueen and 1313: Hercules Unbound!

Of note, the family films and the softcore 1313 films are all filmed in the same house used in A Talking Cat!?! If you see a surface in any of those films, there has probably been an animal and a bare ass on it.

Now, armed with some basic knowledge of David DeCoteau and his work, we’ll explore the inky depths of the pit (and the pendulum) that is A Talking Cat!?!

The Opening

A Talking Cat!?!, a movie about a talking cat, opens with the voice of Eric Roberts. Golden Globe and Academy Award nominee Eric Roberts. Brother of Julia Roberts Eric Roberts. You see, Eric Roberts is the voice of our titular talking cat.

The first thing you’ll notice about A Talking Cat!?! is the sound quality. Or, rather, the lack of sound quality. Eric Roberts sounds like he has been awake for three days straight and is recording his voice over into a tin can in an echoey cave with only one sleeping bear to use as sound dampening.

I wouldn’t say Eric Roberts phoned in his voice work. It would be more appropriate to say he mumbled it into a quarter full bottle of gin while someone struggled to get him into his pajamas.

Did I mention A Talking Cat!?! is a family film?

What are the audience’s eyes treated to during this voice-over catastrophe? Shots of nature and a cat walking and rolling around in it.

A Talking Cat!?! I know what you’re thinking. “Aric (that’s me), I shut my eyes for a few seconds and didn’t see all the nature and all of the cat walking around in nature.” DON’T WORRY! You will see the same shots used over and over throughout the film. Why are you worried about that, anyway?

And now, the content of the voice-over. Eric Roberts is our Puck. The talking cat is a mischievous nymph that leads us by the hand through our story. And what a story!

You see, aside from being our Puckish narrator, the talking cat has the attitude of a reincarnated Andy Rooney. He (or she, I guess) complains about technology and how we’re always looking at our “beeping machines.”

So A Talking Cat!?! is going to be a story about becoming less reliant on technology? NO! I don’t even know what this movie is about and I’ve watched it. We’ll get into that later. But for now, a drunken cat is wandering through the woods while complaining directly to the audience about technology until the opening credits roll.

Too Much To Say

First and foremost, A Talking Cat!?! is everything I hoped it would be. Everything about this movie was amazingly awful in the best way possible. The direction, script, special effects, lighting, sound, actors, editing, plot, character arcs, animal wranglers. Everything.

I’m trying to figure out a way to properly dissect this movie into readable pieces. One item of commentary often leads to a tangent on another aspect of the film. And a rambling monologue isn’t fun to read.

So there is deep analysis of A Talking Cat!?! coming. I just need some color coded note cards to arrange my thoughts. Because there are so very many thoughts.

Guess That Movie

It’s time to play “Guess That Movie!” The stills above are from four different movies. One of them is A Talking Cat!?! Can you guess the other three and label them correctly?

No, you can’t.

Two Cats, Unalike in Dignaty

On the left, the attractive kitten featured on the box art for A Talking Cat!?! On the right, the dull-eyed cat featured in A Talking Cat!?! Scandal!

A Poem or a Warning

Two Chosen Families…
One Magical Cat…
An experience that changes their lives forever…
And Brings them closer together…

All the title cards from the A Talking Cat!?! trailer. Capitalization left as is.

The Trailer: Part Two

When we last met, we were four seconds into the promo trailer for A Talking Cat!?! We learned that this movie takes place in the mountains. Or on the beach. I know I said location was important for understanding the drive behind our main characters. Perhaps the uncertainty in the film’s location mirrors the uncertainty our lead characters will feel when they discover a talking cat.

Sorry, spoiler alert. There’s a talking cat in A Talking Cat!?!

In the trailer, a car takes the viewer up a hill to a house in the woods. Pine tree woods, not palm tree woods. Actually, “palm tree woods” sounds weird. Let’s call them palm tree forests. If we ever see any. After all, we are in pine tree woods.

And then…Comic Sans happens.

Comic Sans

Sorry, I didn’t know how to ease you into that. The title cards for this movie trailer use Comic Sans, the most universally hated font ever. I understand the urge someone might have to use Comic Sans. First off, they don’t want any of that serif shit. But also, A Talking Cat!?! is a family film. The title cards should be in a fun font.

And 0.18 seconds later, Google found 177,000,000 indexed pages pertaining to the phrase “fun font.” If you don’t know how to install and use a font, you shouldn’t be editing movie promos. You should limit yourself to making papier-mâché masks and selling plasma for money.

Or use Helvetica! That font works for everything! Whereas Comic Sans works for nothing!

Then again, maybe the poor font choice is a hint at the poor choices our lead characters will be making in A Talking Cat!?!

You guys! This movie has so many levels!

Next, a tale of two families.