a talking cat

Welcome to the Tumblr page dedicated to observations and analysis of the 2013 direct to video smash hit (assumedly smash hit, how could it not be a smash hit) film, A Talking Cat!?!

You might think I’m being overgenerous with my punctuation, but you are the one who is mistaken. The title of the film includes a !, a ?, and then, after all of that, another !.

Because when you come upon a talking cat, you’re pretty excited. I mean, it’s a talking cat! Just like the singing and dancing frog from the old Warner Brothers cartoons. Except it doesn’t dance or sing, and it’s a cat. Pretty swell.

Hold up. Cats can’t talk, can they? You seem to remember cats not talking previously. But now that you’re in the moment, you find your memories misleading. Maybe cats are talking all the time.

No! Cats can’t talk, you finally remember after several harrowing minutes of confusion! That makes this a special cat. Magical, perhaps! Exclamation point!

A Talking Cat!?! has been released and is streaming online.

You should actually watch the official(?) A Talking Cat!?! trailer before we go any further. We’ll go over this miniature masterpiece with a fine tooth comb in future updates. But you need to experience what makes this movie so special before we get into it.

Remember where you are right now, because you’ll be telling your grandchildren about where you were when you first saw the A Talking Cat!?! promo trailer.

Now that we’ve all experienced the A Talking Cat!?! trailer, which contains more mysteries than the entire Lilian Jackson Braun catalog, let’s dig deep and feel around in the dripping guts of this family film.

The first image we, as the audience, are treated to is a glowing green time stamp. This time stamp stays on the screen for the entire trailer.

Right from the first breath, we have a mystery! Why is there a time stamp on a movie promo? Why does it start an hour in? Where did that hour go? Are we to assume that this movie perpetually takes place one hour from now, no matter where we are in time and space? Was the trailer originally an hour, one minute, and forty-eight seconds long, but they decided to use just the last minute forthy-eight?

Or maybe someone changed the settings on Final Cut Pro and the editor didn’t know how to change it back. It was almost quitting time anyway.

NEXT! Establishing shots! We need to know where this movie takes place if we’re going to have any hope of sympathizing with and understanding the main characters.

We open on a foggy mountain landscape filled with pine trees and brush. The cool morning lingers as the air bites with the mossy scent of spring’s return.

We cut to a peaceful woodland waterfall. Its gentle morning mist greeting any visitors who choose to stop and meditate by the pool it forever fills with cool mountain water.

We cut to a warm afternoon on beach filled with palm trees swaying in the turbulent breeze of a tropical climate.

So, we’re in Mainewaii. You know, the state created when Maine was lifted out of the ground by giant space monsters from the future and thrown at Hawaii? I mean, if I were A Talking Cat!?!, Mainewaii would be my first destination. It’s the only place to get authentic lobster poi.

According to the time stamp, we’re only four second in to the trailer. And we’re already having continuity issues.

What else does the A Talking Cat!?! trailer have in store? Don’t worry, it gets better.

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 at 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.

Sorry, I didn’t know how to ease you into that. The title cards for this preview 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.