A Street Cat Named Bob

Dir: Roger Spottiswoode

2016

*

A Street Cat Named Bob is Marley & Me all over again. It's a lovely, uplifting story based on a book telling the true story of one man's struggle with homelessness and drug addiction and how a little Ginger Tom helped him overcome his problems. The book did well because it's a wonderful story but where there is a good book, there is a soulless film studio waiting around the corner looking to profit from it without truly respecting the real story. Okay, so Bob and partner James Bowen both agreed to it and also appear but even when I take my cynical hat off, this is nothing but a shameless cash in - done badly. Maybe not as bad as Marley & Me in terms of changing facts and tone to suit a family film but it skips over important issues regarding homelessness and is very lazy in how it deals with drug addiction. Bob the cat, who plays himself, is by far the best actor in the film and gives the best performance.  Luke Treadaway is awful, and Ruta Gedmintas and Joanne Froggatt aren't much better. It's like watching a group of RADA rejects putting on an am dram production of Trainspotting, but with a cat, directed by a dog. That may sound harsh but I'm not sorry, this is a shamelessly lazy adaptation with only money in mind, the sort of film that gets green lit by producers without them actually reading the book first. Roger Spottiswoode was the worst choice of director. i'm guessing he was hired because he was cheap and had some animal experience (Turner & Hooch). His cat's eye view direction was horrible to sit through and the man just doesn't know when to cut a scene. I'm not sure he's ever made a truly great film but he has many years’ experience, he should have been able to come up with something better than this. It's amateurish, not even good enough for very late night TV. The producers made out it was a Christmas film in the run up to its November release when it couldn't be further from a Christmas film. There is a Christmas scene in the film, shot in the sunshine with bright green leaves on trees in the background. Continuity wasn't considered at all. When the dialogue ran out, the camera just followed Bob, who just sat there for much of the film. It's one of the most contrived pieces of nonsense I have ever seen. I've seen James and Bob many times around Covent Garden, I like James's songs, although he was always more popular as a Big Issue seller. You don't see many cats in central London, so Bob was something of a novelty, but I wouldn't say people flocked to see him as suggested in the film. I'm very happy for James, but there is nothing unique about his story, other than most homeless people (and it should be said James didn't sleep on the streets for very long) don't have cats. Many have dogs but aren't seen as novelty. James is now a millionaire, and good for him, but take away the cat and it’s an age old story. There are many homeless people living rough out there who aren't given the opportunity, that don't have cats, and I'm afraid my cynical hat is back on my head. All that aside, the film is badly written and badly made in all ways. I recommend the book but certainly not the film.

Tomorrow Never Dies
Dir: Roger Spottiswoode
1997
***
Roger Spottiswoode was an odd choice of director for Tomorrow Never Dies, the eighteenth Bond film of the franchise. He had made some great films before 1997 including Straw Dogs and 48 Hrs but he'd also made Turner & Hooch, Shoot to Kill and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, none of which would suggest he was suitable for the job. His direction is adequate at best, without anything in particular that really makes the film stand out. Every Bond film to this point had something memorable about it, whether you liked the film or not, it would have a stunt, a line of dialogue or a certain character you'd remember but with Tomorrow Never Dies you have to give it some thought. However, Tomorrow Never Dies has what is probably the best Bond villain ever written. Elliot Carver is a powerful media mogul who controls politics and world events through his media outlets. He's basically Rupert Murdoch, although the producers try to make it as clear as possible that he is actually based on Robert Maxwell, but I don't believe a word of it. So how does such a great character make it into a rather dull story with a forgettable script? Elliot Carver and his idea of world domination was written by the brilliant Nicholas Meyer, everything else was written by Donald E. Westlake (a brilliant writer but totally wrong for Bond) and Bruce Feirstein (completely wrong for Bond, although his script for The World is Not Enough is pretty good). It's a case of inappropriately different styles of writing coming together and not working. Meyer's intelligent ideas are clear, Westlake's take on Bond doesn't quite fit his writing style, as brilliant as it is, it just didn't work here and many of the actors voiced their disappointment when reading the script. Feirstein's humor is also obvious and often falls flat, although the scene featuring the assassin Dr. Kaufman (played by the late great Vincent Schiavelli) is clearly his work and is one of the highlights of the film. Some of the worst elements of the film come from the fact that the Bond girls are so poorly written. I feel sorry for both Michelle Yeoh and Teri Hatcher as neither had great scripts or characters they could do anything with, it seems that the producers merely relied on their popularity at the time to win the audiences over, which is such a shame given the advance of female roles seen in GoldenEye. As much as I like him, I'm not sure Jonathan Pryce was right for his character either and to me it seemed that Brosnan was still trying to work out how he wanted to portray Bond and still not quite getting it right. Gotz Otto's henchman Richard Stamper is almost a carbon copy of Andreas Wisniewski's Necros seen in The Living Daylights, which in my opinion only highlights my belief that Timothy Dalton's first film had reinvented the franchise and Brosnan's had taken the characters films back two steps and it was now treading water. I did love the theme music though and I think Sheryl Crow's song is the last great original 007 song, everything since sounding forcibly Bondish. A key opportunity the new producers had to really make their mark on the film was in the title. All of Ian Flemming's titles had been used, it was decided that, in reference to the newspaper Carver owns in the film (Tomorrow) and also inspired by the Beatles song 'Tomorrow Never Knows', that Tomorrow Never Lies would be the best title. It makes sense and I think it works. However, there was a typo on a fax sent to MGM and even though they knew about the mistake, they decided to go with it anyway, even though it makes no sense, they thought it sounded better. This lack of thought runs through the whole film and shows the ugly side of what a franchise really is, uncreative producers trying their best to make money.

Shoot To Kill (AKA Deadly Pursuit)
Dir: Roger Spottiswoode
1988
***
Shoot to Kill was celebrated at the time as the film that brought Sidney Poitier out of retirement. He hadn't actually retired though, he directed three films between 1977 and 1988, one being one of the greatest comedies of all time 'Stir Crazy'. He still had it though, even when some of the worst attempts at comedy are thrown at him he does a good job. Shoot To Kill is pure 80's cheese. The action scenes are spoiled by the poor attempts at humour, that I have already mentioned, and the performances, apart from Mr Poitier's, are nothing short of lame. In its defense though and putting aside the rather dated and frankly unbelievable hostage scenarios, the suspense is spot on, edge of your seat stuff! As a whole it's not very good at all but there is something about that 80's synth music and electronic drum beat that make it hard to dislike and impossible to switch off.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
Dir: Roger Spottiswoode
1992
*
You don't really need me (the last person to have actually seen Stop or my Mom will shoot) to tell you how not very good it is but I have to say it annoys me how Sylvester Stallone has openly stated a number of times how much he regrets making the film, slating it as the worst he's ever been in. He is the reason it is so bad and quite frankly he's not exactly making great films today. Bullet to the Head was awful. He was lucky to have had the honour of working with the late great Estelle Getty in my opinion. It always makes me sad when I realise that, at the point of writing this review, there is only one Golden Girl left.