A Quiet Place: Day One – Pain In The Bud

We’re Snowed In, And Buddy Doesn’t Like It!

“Turn the snow off, human! What do you mean you don’t control the weather? I want the warm!”

It’s a frigid nine degrees out right now — down to one degree with wind chill — the storm arrived earlier than expected, and we’re already getting buried.

The exact numbers change depending on the forecaster, but the National Weather Service predicts eight to 14 inches for the New York City area.

That’s actually not bad compared to some places that will be in the heart of the storm when it passes, and it’s actually warmer than yesterday, if you can believe it.

Buddy, however, is having none of it.

He’s alternating between sitting on the radiator to soak up heat and staring at the accumulating snow through the sliding glass doors, occasionally turning to meow at me in protest as if I control the weather.

“I don’t like this, human!” he seems to be telling me. “Fix it! I want lots of warm, sunshine, leaves on the trees, and crickets!”

Meanwhile, my brother and his cat, Twix, are kickin’ it in 80 degree weather in Italy.

We hope our fellow ‘Mericans are safe at home with plenty of supplies for the next two days, that your feline masters are inside and warm, and that you avoid power outages. This storm is supposed to touch 40 states, which is remarkable, and it’s expected to dump snow on places that rarely see it.

If you’re looking for something to read, here’s a story about the recent string of movies that have featured cats as protagonists or significant characters. It notes that while CGI makes it easier to digitally include felines — and the surprise hit Flow famously featured a digitally animated cat — directors like Michael Sarnoski (A Quiet Place: Day One) have opted for real kitties, favoring their expressiveness and cuteness.

It mentions Bring Her Back, which was an exceptional and disturbing horror film in its own right. It’s also the only one on the list in which the cat doesn’t survive, so heads up on that. (Horror fans will note Bring Her Back was made by the same writer/director team that debuted with the exceptional Talk To Me. Those guys know horror.)

If you ever wondered what happened to Ser Pounce from Game of Thrones, the story also details how the showrunners cut the kitty’s role for being a “diva” on set. Poor King Tommen.

While you’re snowed in and bored, check out this short video of a “red Burmese,” which is a ginger cat without stripes except for faint lines on the back of his front legs. Maybe cats like this aren’t as rare as they seem, but I can’t recall seeing an orange cat who wasn’t a tabby:

@chestertthecat
Replying to @flavor I love his colouring but I never knew it was rare! #catsoftiktok #fyp #crosseyedcat #catmom #cute
♬ Little Sparrow – Paul Alan Morris

And finally, Ursula K. Le Guin is best known as a prolific science fiction writer who published for more than half a century, winning Hugos, Nebulas and every other award in the genre, but you don’t need to be a science fiction fan to appreciate Ursula K. Le Guin’s Book of Cats.

The posthumous collection includes Le Guin’s observations about our feline friends, meditations on what human society can learn from them, and lots of stories about the cats in her life.

You can check out a review here if you’d like to know more, and read community reviews on Goodreads here.

That’s all for now. I may blog intermittently throughout the storm if we really get buried here. We’re prepared to hunker down, with a full cupboard of yums for Bud and the excellent Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 beckoning me with its strange adventures. Bud is also more attached to me than usual as he tries to soak up as much heat as he can.

In the meantime, stay safe and stay warm!

Apocalypse Z: A Man And His Cat Fight For Survival

As the world ends, Manel doesn’t lose sight of his most important priorities: making sure his cat is safe and well-fed.

Shhhh, don’t meow!

With A Quiet Place: Day One and Apocalypse Z: The Beginning Of The End, it looks like the “protagonist and cat surviving the world’s end” thing might be a growing subgenre.

While Day One lit up theaters in spring and early summer, Apocalypse Z is a zombie flick out of Spain, currently sitting atop Amazon’s Prime Video charts as a major crossover hit.

It stars Francisco Ortiz as Manel, the owner of a small solar power business and servant of a talkative cat named Luculo. Manel’s brother-in-law works for the Spanish military, and as reports of a deadly and spreading virus hit the news, his sister relays privileged information from her husband warning Manel to hide during mandatory evacuation and find a way to join the family on the Canary Islands, where Spain’s military and civil leaders have fled.

After weathering the initial wave of the virus by huddling in his apartment in Galicia, Manel seeks out a way to make the 2,400km (about 1,500 mile) journey to safety.

One thing I loved about this movie was Manel’s absolute devotion to Luculo. When he tries to stock up at a store being ransacked by panicked locals, the first thing he does is grab cat food. When he finds a set of wheels at one point — a sporty motorcycle — he straps Luculo’s carrier securely to the back of the seat.

No matter how impractical, no matter how much danger it puts him in, Manel refuses to abandon his pal, even though the little guy can’t keep his mouth shut.

Apocalypse Z — Manel with Luculo the cat in his carrier, strapped to the back of the motorcycle.

While watching Day One, all I could think about was how conveniently silent Sam the cat was, and how dead I’d be trying to survive with Bud in the same situation.

Luculo is incapable of being quiet, although he’s not as loud or insistent as Bud is. He’s named after the Roman statesman and conqueror Lucinius Lucullus, described as “the greatest glutton of antiquity, who stunned Rome with his lavish feasts” and his dedication to bringing recipes for the tastiest dishes from the provinces back to the capital.

“He came, he ate, he conquered” might be an appropriate motto for Lucullus, and his feline namesake is similarly food-obsessed, often seen scarfing down yums as if the apocalypse is just a minor obstacle between meals.

Apocalypse Z isn’t a walk in the park, given the genre, but it’s significantly less gory than The Walking Dead, The Last of Us or even Zombieland. The film’s infected are Danny Boyle-style zombies, the terrifyingly fast baddies from 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, rather than the slow shufflers of Romero-influenced productions. Accordingly, they’re much more dangerous and enable more intense action sequences.

Finally, because this is a cat blog and I’ll most certainly get emails and comments if I don’t address the tabby in the room: nothing terrible happens to Luculo. His greatest ordeal is having too many admirers, who are shocked to see a guy who’s survived so long with his pet cat.

Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End is the first part of a bigger story, as the title suggests. It rocketed to the top as the most-streamed movie in more than 90 countries, so we should be hearing news about a sequel soon.

If you’re a fan of genre movies and escapism, Apocalypse Z is a fun way to spend a few hours.

Apocalypse Z is available now to stream on Amazon Prime Video. The stream will default to an overdubbed version, but we highly recommend enabling English subtitles and switching the audio track to its original Spanish.