Fan Review by Mari, July 19, 2010
I did see this one back when it was released, but I was so ill at that time that I really couldn't get into it. I rented it again the other day and liked it a lot more this time. Filmed or videotaped by an experienced DOP and editor named Susan Emerson, it is the adventure of an indoor cat who ventures outside while his owner is out of town. It was made over, if I heard the commentary right, a six year period, wow! The camerawork does look like a typical home video, but that kind of adds to its charm. The movie is also produced by someone named Paul Williams, though I'm not sure if it's the Paul Williams of '70s music fame.
Marcello, an adorable black and white cat with a heart shaped nose, breaks out of the house to meet his neighbor, an outdoor cat named Jujube. He doesn't have much fun though, when a girl on rollerskates grabs him off the street in hopes of earning easy reward money. Marcello manages to get free of the catnapper, but is lost from his own neighborhood, which wasn't very familiar in the first place, since he was an indoor cat.
In his two-day travels, Marcello meets lots of cool cats (my favorite is Blackie) and other creatures such as birds and squirrels, all who are trying to assist him to reach home before his mom comes back. He even gets to know a caterpillar or two (the big yellow mechanical kind, that is!)
Because the cats and the other animals were allowed to just do their thing, this is pretty much cinema verite. It's a must for anyone who adores cats as much as I do, and it should be noted that all of the actors who did the voices came to do them because they love and/or own cats!
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CAST OF CATS:
Troy Garrity as MARCELLO
Michelle Rodriguez as JUJUBE
Jeremy Piven as BLACKIE
Shannon Conlon as PINKIE
Dominique Swain as MARCELLO'S MOM
Jeremy Sisto as JIMINY SQUIRREL
Serena Scott-Thomas as SERENA
Glenn Shaddix as CROWBAR
and Lee Purcell as PUFF
