When Andrew and I got married we decided that cable TV was a waste of money and subscribed to Netflix. That was almost 20 years ago! We still get the DVDs in the mail with our plan. I'm not joking, they still mail out DVDs, and it's great because a lot of the DVD movies aren't available for streaming. I should also mention ~ in case you didn't know ~ they limit your queue to 500 titles. So when you tell me about a great movie and I say, "I'll add it to the list.", I really do...most of the time. 

The day Ginger died I got a movie in the mail, it was A Street Cat Named Bob. I knew about the movie because Bob was one of my many Facebook famous cat friends and I knew that he died last summer. Needless to say, this DVD sat around my house for six months because it was triggering for me to even look at it, let alone watch it. I knew it was a feel-good movie and based on a best selling book of the same name from 2012. Yesterday I finally was in the right mind set to watch it.

*SPOILER ALERT*

A Street Cat Named Bob is exactly what it's about, but there's more to it than that. It's based on a true story about a young musician named James that is homeless and a recovering drug addict. A social worker sees potential in James and finds him a place to live. One night Bob, the ginger tabby, appears in his apartment after the window was left open. He feeds Bob cereal and milk because it's all he has. (Side note: Cats are lactose intolerant, don't give them milk if you can avoid it.) He asks around and no one claims Bob.

Bob picks James as his person, even though James is in denial throughout the movie and says more than once, "Bob is not my cat". James takes care of Bob and spends the last of his money at the vet (haven't we ALL be there before?) and finally acknowledges that Bob is his cat and best friend. James detoxes from methadone with the help of Bob just being a comfort and emotional support animal. They help each other on their journeys. 

James is a busker and a great musician but is invisible to the general public, BUT once he starts bringing Bob out with him, everyone wants a picture with him and his cat. Bob is the center of attention, his gimmick, a fan knits Bob little scarves, and brings him cat food, and he relieves James' loneliness. They become a team, and even have an article in the local paper written about them. It grabs the attention of a book publisher and they ask him to write his story. It becomes a best seller and in real life James is now a millionaire.

Here's the real owner of Bob.

I will say I cried through the whole second half of the movie. The relationship that they had was charming and heartfelt. It made me miss Ginger. There's lot of close ups of Bob, and camera angles from Bob's perspective...or should I say PURRspective? There's lots of purring in the movie. James' dad is played by Anthony Head (aka Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Bob is played by himself, and his owner that wrote the story is his handler for the movie! (Although I didn't see Bob on the Cinema Cats website.)

I looked up how Bob died, and he got hit by a car. I will repeat this until I'm blue. If you have the capability to keep your cat indoors please do. Cats are killed by cars more often than you think. It's a shame that Bob died like that. Thinking about it upsets me, so I will digress.

I give the movie four and a half cans of tuna out of five.

Here's the trailer

The first half of this year has been a little rough, one of the great loves of my life, my cat Ginger died, and now my other love has been replaced. My 14 year old PT Cruiser with only 63,000mi had to go. You either loved the PTs or hated them, and I was the former. Living in Buffalo, NY rust eats away at cars like a insatiable zombie eating brains. It was just a matter of time before my feet went through the bottom and I was Flinstone-ing it around town. I replaced it with a Honda HRV. One of the last Hondas to have a CD player! (I was so excited about this.) I'm still getting used to it, but so far I like it and there's a ton of room in back because the seats completely fold down and flat. They call them "magic seats" and anyone that's willing to listen, I will show you how fabulous they are.

Bye bye Zippy PT. (His name was Zippy.)

                                                                   

 Hello Honda! His name is Happy Honda.

I just celebrated my birthday too. I'm hoping this new-to-me year will be looking brighter. I worked on my bday (good thing I like my job!) then went out to the movies to see Werewolves Within (2021). It was billed as a horror comedy and I'm all about it! Unfortunately it was more of a who dunnit than horror, but just what I needed after a long day at work.

***Spoiler Alert...sort of***

Werewolves Within is goofy and begins with a animalistic murder of a man outside. All of the attack scenes are a little low budget looking, much of them happen off screen so it's not very gruesome. Cut to 29.5 days later and a new forest ranger, Finn Wheeler, is coming to town in his PT CRUISER! (Yes, I laughed at this and thought about my Zippy. I knew I was at the right movie for my bday.) He's working hard to be more assertive and aggressive listening to self-help recordings on his way into the town of Beaverfield. 

Once he checks in at the Beaverfield Inn you are introduced to half of the cast of characters. One of them is a mail person named Cecily. She takes Wheeler to town and introduces him to the rest of the ensemble cast. All of them have their own idiosyncrasies that are very different from each other. 

The underlying story is that a man wants to build a pipeline in town and he needs a unanimous vote. Some of the residents are for it and some are against it. A perfect set up to pit people against each other. 

A dog does get eaten, you don't see any of it at all, but it's reported to the ranger and everyone else staying at the inn. Then there's a blizzard and the power in the whole town goes out. The generators are purposely mangled and ripped apart. Everyone converges at the inn, not before a dead body is found hidden underneath it.

Tensions are high and everyone accuses the other of killing. Wheeler tries to make an inspiring speech about community and working together Mr. Rogers is referenced throughout this movie, but his speech brings out the worst in everyone and makes them leave the inn, and take out their aggressions by killing. That said, there's only one werewolf in the group and I'm not going to tell you who it is.

Overall it was a fun and "light" movie. Not too gory, not too intense. I was hoping for more comedy, but it had it's moments. I found myself laughing in the theater when no one else was. Some of the side characters acting was over the top and great for their roles. There was a lot of dialog where actors were arguing and talking over each other so I found it hard to catch everything. I give it three missing mail packages out of five.

AND I'm not a gamer so I didn't know it was based on a video game. I found out by watching the credits. Not bad for being based on a game.

Here's the trailer...