Many thanks to everyone for your patience during our hiatus. In January of this year my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and came home to hospice care. It was necessary to put everything else on hold while my sister and I cared for him. He passed away on March 5th with both of us by his side.
Both my mother (who passed in 2019) and father were huge supporters of this website and would get as excited as I would when we spotted a cat in a television show or movie. But it was really Dad who instilled the love of movies in both my sister and I from an early age. Growing up during the Depression era, movies were his escape from a childhood of broken homes. As the years went on, he embraced movies from all around the world and from all genres. His favorite movie, Champion (not a cat movie, unfortunately), was one he saw as he was about to be shipped to Korea and as a boxing fan it remained his favorite, not in a small part because of composer Dimitri Tiomkin’s memorable score and Kirk Douglas’ intense performance. We watched it again just weeks before he passed.
It was Dad who insisted I see Lawrence of Arabia in the theater at a revival screening. It was Dad who said I had to see Amadeus and even bought loge seats for an even more amazing experience. He encouraged me to attend screenings of the Bond films and knew I would love them as much as he did. When he said I had to see Master and Commander: Far Side of the World in the theater I didn’t even question him, and he was right. It is still one of my favorite movies of all time. Together we discovered Priscilla: Queen of the Desert (Terence Stamp was one of his favorite actors and I told him nothing about the movie before taking him; he just adored it!), Why Shoot the Teacher?, Brazil and so many more.
We went to revival theaters to see such films as Harold and Maude, The King of Hearts and The Silent Partner, not once but many times. He took my sister and I to see not only Fantasia but Allegro non Troppo any time it ran nearby. He sat through the Beatles movies with us more times than I can count and was as much in love with Give My Regards to Broad Street as I was (while we both acknowledged it was definitely a guilty pleasure). Most memorably we attended a screening of the uncut version of Caligula, not really knowing what we were getting into. While it was definitely an awkward experience, we sat through the whole thing and laughed about it for years afterward.
When I started Cinema Cats, Dad watched most of the movies with me, helping me keep an eye out for kitties. He read every review and would point out typos and grammatical errors.
His passing leaves a great big hole in our hearts. This site is now dedicated to him, and every time I spot a cat in a film I know somewhere he will be smiling.
We plan to return to posting sometime in April. Looking forward to bringing you more cat movies then.