Blog Archive

The Reviews:
A.O Scott: A Mystery Looming Larger Than Rosebud
“The Cat’s Meow,” his first movie in eight years, is a modest, restrained picture, as small and satisfying as one of Woody Allen’s better recent efforts. There is little to distinguish it visually from a made-for-cable historical drama. We observe the events from a polite distance, rather than being plunged into the swirl of decadent Jazz Age high life. The suave camera movements never quite dispel the feeling that we are watching a filmed play.
But Mr. Bogdanovich, who started in the theater and at the moment is perhaps most widely recognized for his recurring role on “The Sopranos,” shows his mastery in his work with the actors, who turn dusty Tinseltown lore into a spry and touching entertainment.

James Bowman: “Peter Bogdanovich is one of those directors who is always coming back, though back from where it is never quite clear. Flopsville, I guess. If so, his latest comeback, The Cat’s Meow, may at last make him commercial again. It is just about bad enough . . . In fact there is a very Hearstian sensibility to the whole enterprise. The filmmakers want to shock us with the secret depravity and corruption of the rich and powerful — particularly if they are dead and unable to exercise any power to the detriment of the filmmakers — because, well, because that is how we really want to believe that the rich and powerful are. Like an American version of Gosford Park — accordingly, the servants here are invisible — the movie not only supplies us with voyeuristic thrills, it also gives us an excuse for our jealousy and dislike of our social superiors. There is behind it, moreover, the urge of all Hollywood insiders to believe that the real insiders are much worse than they are, and to rip the veil off and show how awful, how outrageous, the whole movie industry is. Deliciously awful, in fact.”