FUR A FEW COLLARS MORE
3RD FELINE FILM FESTIVAL OFFERS COMEDY, DRAMA, SPOOKINESS AND ART
This is what internet cat videos have come to: compilations. Compilations of haphazard clips, fraudulently promising in capital letters to make you a) laugh your head off, b) laugh out loud or c) laugh until you cry. Compilations of cats falling or things falling on them; jumping at people or jumping at dogs or jumping at children; knocking things over or being knocked over. Many of them are old, old, old.
This is not that.
The third annual Feline Film Festival, titled this year “The Good, the Bad and the Cuddly” with an image of a tabby wearing Clint Eastwood’s flat-brimmed cowboy hat, is Animal Humane New Mexico’s fundraising tribute to cat behavior, cat beauty, cat drama, cat art.
Also, cat comedy. No feline film festival is a genuine cinematic cat celebration without the comedy, the kittens in the bathroom with the toilet paper.
Ten entries, all original, vie for the top $1,000 prize.
In homage to the festival’s theme, “A Cat Western” recreates the bathtub scene in “The Good, The Bad,” the etc., with a good cat, a bad cat and a cuddly cat, and with less bloodshed.
Likewise, the production of “CAT” is accompanied by Ennio Morricone’s iconic theme of the original and explores the good/bad/ cuddly nature of the eponymous creature.
For pure drama, there’s “Benji the Dog,” in which Benji has an identity issue — “Nurture overpowered nature,” we’re told, and he has “zero interest” in being a cat. But that doesn’t stop him from slipping out of his harness as he was about to go on a walk with the household dogs and getting lost.
For heartwrenching drama, there’s “Rescue,” an artfully filmed essay on the question of who rescues whom.
And for pure spookiness, “Paranormal Cativity” makes eerie use of found footage. That’s what they always call it when hauntings are recorded. Found footage.
Want a cop buddy adventure in crime fighting? We give you “Muffin Hands.”
In “Beth is Not a Cat,” we have intraspecies jealousies and a test of affections.
Less plot driven is “Faces,” which is a ... compilation ... of feline faces, all of them reminding us why we are driven to celebrate these endearing little predators, and “New Project,” which as it unfolds shows us how art is created and where it finds its purpose.
And finally, “Heart of a Lion,” a kind of tick-the-boxes of behaviors learned from the kings and queens of the savannahs, especially in food acquisition.
Not a fraudulent promise in the bunch.