Everyone needs to be a cat.
Properly, that assertion might have taken a sizeable blow because the movie adaptation (learn: cinematic dumpsterfire) of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, however Roots drummer and Oscar-winner Questlove is searching for to make issues proper.
After his Oscar win in 2022 for his gorgeous documentary Summer season of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Might Not Be Televised) concerning the 1969 Harlem Cultural Competition and its ties to the Civil Rights Motion, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson has lined up his subsequent directing mission: a remake of the Disney basic (and, let’s face it, one of many biggest Disneys) The Aristocats.
Questlove will direct, govt produce, and oversee the music for the brand new movie, which is being billed as a "live-action hybrid reimagining."
There is not any phrase but on whether or not this implies the cats will seem like CGI updates of their animated origins or if the brand new Aristocats will probably be much like latest Disney remake The Woman and the Tramp, which blended CGI animals with reside human actors. Or might it's one other eye-rolling uncanny valley deal like Disney's remake of The Lion King?
At this level, something however Cats will probably be a mercy.
Staying paw-sitive
The information isn’t precisely a shock contemplating Disney has been remaking its total animated catalogue with miserable predictability.
To this point, the studio has launched live-action remakes of movies like Alice in Wonderland (go away), Magnificence and the Beast (nope – however the robes had been beautiful), Cinderella (sigh), The Lion King (why would anybody waste their time once they could possibly be watching the unique, and who thought it was a good suggestion to get Beyoncé to voice Nala??), Dumbo (the worst offender on this checklist) and final 12 months’s Pinocchio (which made you actively root for the whale). Solely Mulan and Aladdin nearly managed to entertain - even when they totally tousled Jafar.
Regardless of these middling outcomes and blended vital reception, a lot of the remakes have been main industrial successes in theatres. Disney's final theatrical live-action remake, The Lion King, remodeled $1.6 billion worldwide, regardless of its lack of originality as an almost shot-for-shot adaptation of the far superior 1994 unique animated movie.
Nonetheless, this Aristocats + Questlove seems like a match made in catnip heaven.
Launched in 1970, the unique The Aristocats follows a household of pampered Parisian felines - Duchess and her three kittens, Berlioz, Marie, and Toulouse - who're catnapped by their rich proprietor’s jealous butler and be part of forces with alley cat Thomas O'Malley to search out their method residence. It has arguably one of many biggest soundtracks, together with songs like 'Thomas O'Malley Cat' and 'Ev'rybody Desires to be a Cat'. And this alone must be supply of pleasure, as Questlove will put his spin on these basic tunes in a movie that lives and dies by its music.
In a press release shared with the publication Pitchfork, Questlove mentioned:
"Throughout these first months of the pandemic again in 2020, I allowed my interior 9-year-old to have a voice he wouldn’ta had again in 1980. I made area for myself day-after-day to get pleasure from an hour or two of enjoyable. (Ultimately, it became extra work: books, nightly DJ units, movies. But it surely began as enjoyable.) What grew out of that, partly, was nightly viewings of outdated Disney classics from my childhood. The Aristocats was one in every of them. Having been concerned in Soul that 12 months, I used to be in a position to see so-called children’ artwork with new eyes, was in a position to join with a sure feeling. I don’t assume I might have been totally capable of finding inspiration in these films if I wasn’t pressured by circumstance to take a seat silent. I wanted that pause. (Additionally, full confession, The Aristocats was how my mother made jazz appear fascinating to me again then.) There’s nothing extra rewarding than persevering with down that very same artistic path, taking part of my previous and making it a part of my future."
Bought.
Warranted fears however no racist cari-cat-ure
Granted, Will Gluck (Peter Rabbit) and Keith Bunin (Onward) are writing the script, which could possibly be a minor trigger for concern contemplating these bracketed movies, and “You’ve acquired to be kitten me” cynicism is greater than warranted at this level contemplating Disney’s remake monitor file.
Nonetheless, The Aristocats might work as an replace, musically and by way of one specific scene which has grow to be notorious for its insensitive portrayal of cultural stereotypes.
In case you’re not conversant in this phase, the scene in query occurs throughout a superb jazz sequence set to the tune ‘Ev’rybody Desires to be a Cat’ – a standout quantity which reportedly impressed Quentin Tarantino, who claimed that Duchess’ dance strikes impressed his course of Uma Thurman within the now-iconic Mia-Vincent dance sequence in Pulp Fiction.
At one level, there's a clear racist depiction of Asian stereotypes, with a Siamese cat, Shun Gon, modeled after Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's (already an infamously problematic instance of yellowface when the character was carried out by Mickey Rooney) who performs the piano with chopsticks and sings lyrics that could possibly be mentioned to mock the Chinese language language and tradition.
This insensitive caricature landed the movie on Disney’s blacklist not too way back, when the Home of Mouse eliminated it from Disney+, earlier than placing it again on the platform with an un-skippable content material warning that acknowledges the movie's adverse depictions and / or mistreatment of individuals or cultures.
No matter your ideas on these practices - simply be glad they didn’t reduce the scene altogether in a cack-handed instance of historic revisionism and back-slapping whitewashing - that racist cat second will certainly not make it into the brand new model.
So, whereas the Aristocats remake might but have us screaming “GET YOUR FILTHY PAWS OFF OUR CHILDHOOD FAVOURITES” in Disney’s course as soon as extra, pleading for them to lastly cease remaking their classics for nothing greater than industrial positive aspects quite than inventive worth, cool cat Questlove looks as if a canny selection for the mission. We could possibly be in for one thing particular.
Earlier than we discover out (no launch date has but been introduced), we’ve acquired Peter Lowrey’s Peter Pan & Wendy dropping on Disney+ subsequent month and The Little Mermaid to look ahead to on 26 Might. Then there’s a Snow White movie with Rachel Zegler that's anticipated for 2024, and a prequel to the 2019 Lion King remake from Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, If Beale Avenue Might Speak) can be on the best way…
Can we simply skip forward to the cats, please?
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