It’s just not the cat’s meow

On screen Cats proves strange, monotonous and furry.

Although Cats became one of the longest running shows in Broadway history, I have to confess that the popular Andrew Lloyd Webber production remains unknown to me.

I understand that Memory, perhaps the musical’s best song, has attained stand-alone status. And for a show to have run that long, it must have struck a chord with those who shelled out to see it.

Now, Cats arrives on screen with a large cast of human actors who have been subjected to a digital process that coats them in fur and gives them tails that can sway as languidly as laundry in a gentle breeze.

I’m sure it’s not true, but something about the way the cats move made me think that the whole production had been filmed in slow motion.

So let me get to the point. Without a frame of reference — i.e., other performances of Cats —- I didn’t quite know what to make of director Tom Hooper’s big-screen version, aside from telling you that once I got past the movie’s major gimmick — singers, dancers and actors covered in fur — I was mostly indifferent.

I do know that Cats derives from a T.S. Eliot poetry collection entitled Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. It seems odd to me that Eliot, author of The Wasteland, would refer to himself as Old Possum, but I don’t believe Wikipedia would lie.

The movie’s high point: Jennifer Hudson’s version of Memory broke through the stuporous spell under which I had fallen. She practically cried the song. Spoiler alert: Hudson plays a cat who is selected to begin a new life that’s better than the one she has been living. She ascends into some sort of cat heaven — or something like that.

I could have lived for another 100 years and not regretted having missed Ian McKellen delivering a monologue as Gus, the Theater Cat. McKellen, of course, nails it, but seeing McKellen in mangy looking cat fur tended to diminish the scale of the theatrical accomplishment — at least fo me.

But the greatest cat transformation award goes to Judi Dench, who plays a character called Old Deuteronomy — or, for short, Old Deut, perhaps the worst nickname ever imagined by anyone for anyone.

With luxurious skeins of fur draping across her shoulders, Old Deut looks like a woman who hasn’t gotten the message. Fur is out, baby. Somehow, though, Dench projects an air of regal authority and dignity, proving that it’s impossible to make Dench look ridiculous no matter how hard one tries.

Other cast members include Idris Elba, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson and James Corden. Elba plays the bad cat who believes he should be selected to ascend into cat heaven. I mention them for want of anything much else to report.

All this takes place in a society of Jellicle Cats. We meet the Jellicles when Victoria (Francesca Hayward), a kitten, is tossed from a car, lands in their company, and provides the movie with its beginning.

Hooper, who directed the screen version of Les Miserables, photographs the dancers stretching and preening with such great care, I wondered if each movement contained secrets that I was being invited to unpack. If so, I missed them.

Evidently, lack of plot is a Lloyd Webber signature. Maybe that’s why Cats doesn’t so much progress as it presents a musical number here, introduces a new character there or wanders about its set.

I suppose all the cat slinking and rubbing is meant to be sexy, but it also seems a bit kinky, like a Halloween party in which everyone wore similar costumes and, late in the evening, started thinking about behaving badly.

So, in conclusion, I say to Old Deut, you have not convinced me. I remain resistant to conversion. I am now and forever, a dog person. Hiss if you will, but to you I say, arf or maybe arf and one half.

A classy but staid 'Danish Girl'

It looks great, the performances are solid, but early story of a transgender heroine doesn't quite connect.

Einar Wegener was as one of the first people to undergo gender-altering surgery. An artist working in Denmark during the 1920s, Wegener transformed himself into Lili Elbe as he gradually changed his style of dress, added wigs to his wardrobe and ultimately elected to have the surgery that would complete his transition.

According to The Danish Girl, a movie that focuses on Lili's struggle, Elbe died of complications resulting from a succession of difficult surgical procedures, namely the one that was intended to give her a vagina.

As directed by Tom Hooper (The King's Speech), The Danish Girl -- a fictionalized account of Lili's life based on a novel by David Ebershoff -- seems to value classy presentation as much as the emotional dynamics of a story that -- by the end -- becomes an anthem for those who regard their biological genders as mistakes.

Fresh from his Oscar-winning turn as Steven Hawking in The Theory of Everything, Eddie Redmayne portrays Einar who, during the course of the movie, becomes Lili. Alicia Vikander portrays Gerda, a lively and spirited artist who's married to Einar and who remains loyal to Einar/Lili throughout.

The movie makes it seem as if Einar discovers his true gender identity almost by chance. Early on, Gerda's seen working on a large painting of a ballet dancer. When one of her models fails to show up, Gerda asks Einar to put on a pair of stockings and serve as her leg model.

We know from the rapturous, trembling expression on Einar's face that he's begun to acknowledge that he's a woman mistakenly lodged in a man's body.

At first, Einar and Gerda have a good time with Einar's fascinations. Gerda even encourages her husband's interests, suggesting he dress as a woman to attend an annual artists' ball. They'll pass Lili off as a visiting cousin.

At this point, both husband and wife treat Einar and Lili as separate characters, one real, the other, an amusing pose.

Hints of discord arise when Gerda sees Lili kissing a young man (Ben Whishaw) at the artists' ball. Doubts suddenly arise about which part of Einer's dual identity is real and which, a sham.

Redmayne's performance involves a lot of whispered dialogue, and intense observation: He frequently watches women to see how they move, trying to teach himself the externalities of the gender to which he believes he truly was born.

Redmayne's concentrated performance has a dual effect. It makes us wonder how much of what we consider "natural" gender behavior is merely an accumulation of learned gestures.

But this approach also focuses our attention on Redmayne's performance as much as it takes us into the psyche of a character named Lili Elbe.

Vikander gives the movie much of its life, particularly as the couple begins to confront a medical world which either wants to cure Einar of his "perversion" or have him committed to an asylum.

When the couple travels to Paris so that Gerda can exhibit her work, a relationship between Gerda and one of Einar's childhood friends (Matthias Schoenaerts) develops: Schoenaerts' Hans Axgil, a Parisian art dealer, offers emotional support to both Gerda and Lili.

Eventually, Lili and Gerda meet a surgeon (Sebastian Koch) who has been experimenting in gender reassignment surgery. He believes that Lili is precisely what she thinks she is: a woman in a man's body. Lili's willing to brave the risks of surgery to achieve her dream.

Beautifully composed and meticulously upholstered with period detail, The Danish Girl feels like three-quarters of a fine movie: Perhaps Hopper tried so hard to keep things under control that he's locked Lili's pain safely in the past.

A dark, melodramatic 'Les Miz'

You may find imperfections, but the big-screen version of Les Miserables ultimately proves stirring.

The voices sometimes seem to be straining. An abundance of extreme close-ups tends to give the movie a feeling of cramped intimacy. Although filmed mostly on sets, the movie steeps itself in gritty 19th century realism. It's a musical with dirt under its fingernails.

I'm talking about Les Miserables, the big-screen adaptation of the much-revered musical that made its debut in Paris in 1980 and seems to have been in production somewhere ever since.

Melodramatic, operatic and seen through cinematographer Danny Cohen's dark lens, Les Miserables bypasses its imperfections, ultimately getting where it needs to go. It's less a story well-told than a production massively mounted, but that may be precisely what the material needs.

Based on an 1862 Victor Hugo novel, Les Miserables thunders its way through nearly three hours of suffering, death and melodrama, frequently miring its cast in mud, muck and -- as the title promises -- the kind of bone-deep misery that might have roused envy even in Dickens, himself no slouch when it came to injustice and suffering.

As directed by Tom Hooper (The King's Speech), Les Miserables is top heavy with marquee names, including Anne Hathaway, who tackles the role of the tormented Fantine in a performance in which emotion seems to spill from her every pore.

I'm not going to provide background for every character in Les Miz, but Fantine, you may recall, is a single mother, a status that caused her to be scorned and persecuted for profligacy in France of the 1800s. And, yes, it might be advisable to bone up on Hugo's story before you go because plot points breeze by as if propelled by wind machines.

The story centers on poor Jean Val Jean (Hugh Jackman), the ex-convict who violates his parole and spends a lifetime fleeing Javert (Russell Crowe), a lawman who applies justice like a lash. Amanda Seyfried turns up as Fantine's daughter, Cosette, a woman who eventually is sheltered by Jean Val Jean.

All of this takes place against a post-revolutionary historical backdrop in which the monarchy has been restored in France, and the people are suffering under the weight of too much regal indifference.

The movie's third act deals with the revolt of 1832, introducing us to Marius (Eddie Redmayne), a revolutionary who's smitten by Cosette. Be assured barricades will be stormed. The spirit of the people will be aroused. You will be stirred.

To heighten the feeling of emotional urgency, Hooper had his actors sing their numbers as the cameras rolled rather than relying on lip-synching. The technique is employed to mixed result.

Jackman, who has a history in musical theater, carries it off convincingly, as does Hathaway. Crowe, who has a background singing with rock bands, is only moderately successful. Trussed up in the costume of a 19th century lawman, Crowe moves around as if encased in plaster. Javert's a rigid guy, but Crowe never seems entirely comfortable playing him.

Hooper doesn't quite suffocate the production, but I wish he had let it breathe some, and I got tired of watching close-ups of the singers. Hooper must have wanted his camera to bring us close to the performances, but the face of a singer -- particularly when grappling with heavy emotion -- isn't always a thing of beauty.

The major numbers in Les Miserables -- At the End of the Day, I Dreamed a Dream and One Day More -- are effectively performed, and there's even a bit of comic relief. Sacha Baron Cohen makes an appropriately despicable and conniving Thénardier, an inn-keeper who for a time takes charge of Cosette. Baron Cohen receives an able assist from Helena Bonham Carter -- now a specialist in playing grotesque-looking women -- as Madame Thénardier. Samantha Barks makes a bit of splash as their daughter, Éponine.

I'm not a particular fan of musicals, and Les Miz involves wall-to-wall singing with almost no spoken dialogue. I can't exactly say that Les Miserables left me humming any of its tunes. But whatever problems the big-screen version has, I mostly enjoyed it and even felt a slight tingling of the spine during its finale. Put another way, Les Miserables has genuine theatrical power.