Something to watch tonight: Thursday 18 July

Puss in Boots (Miller, 2011)

Time to light­en the mood. This review was in the Capital Times in December 2011:

So. Much. Fun. Soooo. Much. Fun. As one of the smart Embassy staff poin­ted out to me after­wards, Puss (Antonio Banderas) has been basic­ally single-pawedly keep­ing the Shrek fran­chise alive for a while so a spin-off was not only likely but neces­sary. And welcome.

A dash­ing feline hero – egot­ist­ic­al, nar­ciss­ist­ic but with a heart of gold – Puss roams the coun­tryside get­ting in to trouble with own­ers of shiny things and own­ers of lady cats. But he has a dark secret, a shad­ow, a bur­den to carry: a tra­gic mis­car­riage of justice back in his home town has made him a fugit­ive determ­ined to clear his name. A chance meet­ing with child­hood best friend Humpty Alexander Dumpty (Zack Galifianakis) offers him a shot at redemp­tion – along with some magic beans that could lead to golden eggs in a castle in the sky.

Full of witty dia­logue, cat jokes, visu­al puns and immacu­late com­ic tim­ing, Puss in Boots is a must-see for cat lov­ers of all ages. If you are more of a dog per­son then stay tuned, there’s some­thing for you later on. Before I leave Puss, though, I want to pose you a ques­tion. If tra­di­tion­al anim­at­ors can do such amaz­ing and amus­ing work with only their mice to work with, why do we need all that new-fangled per­form­ance cap­ture tech­no­logy? Seems increas­ingly like a solu­tion look­ing for a prob­lem to me.

The sequel is, if it were pos­sible, even bet­ter (but we’ll come to that anoth­er day).

Also in that Capital Times column: Irish dan­cing doc­u­ment­ary Jig, Aussie tear­jerker Red Dog, and Celine Sciamma’s “quiet little puzzle” Tomboy.

Where to watch Puss in Boots

Aotearoa: Streaming on TVNZ+ (free with ads)

Australia and Canada: Streaming on Paramount+

Ireland and UK: Streaming on Prime Video

USA: Digital rental

Comment of the day

Thanks to read­er NoWrongAnswer for going ahead and watch­ing Greta last night: “You were right. I have just watched it on your recom­mend­a­tion. Top shelf hor­ror. It doesn’t put a foot wrong. Thx”