*This blog post was started on February 2, 2022.
Lily C.A.T. - An #Anime Ode to John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon
I have been just trying to hang in there. That includes putting my scheduled time at the retail gig despite the snow storm. Perhaps it is wrong to mention my day's events. Some would consider that a breach of confidentiality. If someone were to take an inventory of what businesses were open in Savoy/Champaign/Urbana (S.C.U.) today and my employer's reputation is at risk.
With that said, you can tell I am still bitter with my recent income changes. In all likelihood, IDES will probably being call me tomorrow expecting an interview, per chance a debate with my former primary job, about my appeal regardless that there is no way the mail to advise me of that could have arrived. Since I offered my latest prospective employer a start date of next Monday, a chance to work at my retail job is not certain. Likely, but I hate dealing with hypotheticals.
Like having to stay THC-free in anticipation of a drug test. Fuck the Republican Party and their need to control the suffering of the lower and middle classes. I doubt the employer I hope to be working for takes issue with my appreciation of this state's recreational laws, but other interviewers have.
There is obviously a need to remain hopeful. So the goods from the last few days, I got to work when many others had to stay home. Aviator Gin is a damn fine spirit. And former wrestling world champion, Raven, approves of my podcast efforts. Take the wins when you can get them.
Like last week with my review for "Iczer Girl: Iczelion", it was great knowing my VCR still works well. Also, I gained a new perspective on a tape that I watched sparingly. The point of my actions was to provide "Russ's Remnants of Anime" a title that starts with "I", thus allowing that blog to be an A to Z(ed) in regards to the theme. Of course, this meant I dug for a tape from my closet instead of just pulling "Iria: Zeiram the Animation" from my living room shelf.
I suppose if I want to be lazy, all of my "Iria" expertise is on my portable hard drive with my "Windows 95" era files. If only I could remember the name of that offshoot to "The Bus's Transit of Anime Realities" dedicated to badass anime heroines. There are Geocities archives and sometimes, my stuff is still out there.
Lazy is not my thing, so it took digging through four streamers, but I found an installment for the letter "L". "Legend of Crystania" was on my shelf, but that may also fit the parameters of "NinetyForChill.com: The Website". My obsessive compulsive nature will not allow me to have more posts there than "MainEventOfTheDead.com".
This leads us to "Lily C.A.T.", a spaceship in peril feature with box art that makes it look like a slick detective feature. At least it delivers us a cat named Lily, so cannot complain too much about the poster confusion.
Lily C.A.T. (1987)
It all seems like an ordinary deep space exploratory mission. Spend 20 years in deep sleep, arrive at an uncharted planet to set up a mine for the world's resources, and make the 20-year trip back to Earth. Captain Hamilton and his crew are use to escorting Syncam Corporation explorers, but this is a stranger lot. Why Nancy, the daughter of the corporation's president, and her cat Lily making this trip?
And what about the message they receive upon waking from the first round of hyper sleep? The corporation informs Hamilton and his crew that two of the explorers are not with Syncam. They are more than likely fugitives who are trying to disappear for 40 years and return to a home that will have all but forgotten them. However, these frauds are the least of their concerns after the tough guy from the Syncam suddenly dies of what appears to be Legionnaires' disease.
While they were in deep sleep, the ship seemed to have intercepted a foreign body. In that was a bacteria. The doctor on board soon passes to this disease and then two crew members who are investigating the occurrence die while the Syncam members are trying to find who the frauds are. Things only become more confusing when the bodies seemingly disappear leaving only their unscathed clothes.
They might have a lead once Lily had been attacked by the bacteria from a wall that seems to have been dissolved by the bacteria. Too bad they will not have the time to make sense of this. The ship suddenly starts ejecting portions of the craft along with the crew members in those sections to seemingly stop the spread of the bacteria. When the crew tries to stop it, they find that something is blocking their access to the ship's functions.
It is up to the survivors to figure out what is controlling the ship, why the ship is self destructing, and does the fraudulent agents have anything to do with this. Hopefully, they do not concern themselves with what will kill them first: the bacteria, the ship, or themselves.
There is a lot that is going on in "Lily C.A.T.'s" 67-minute runtime. It pulls from John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon's student film "Dark Star", O'Bannon's "Alien" and Carpenter's "The Thing". It soon becomes fun to spot everything this feature takes from these legendary works which may take away from the story itself.
For the time, the animation is solid and the soundtrack is fun. Perhaps the classics that it takes from could have benefited from a few pop songs. The C.A.T. is a nice twist on treacherous synthetics O'Bannon relied on. Unfortunately the animation fails to hold a candle to the special effects that guaranteed the originals would be memorable.
What makes the feature its own is the motivation of the characters. I cannot say that they do anything exceptional, but it is fun to see how all the pieces fit together. More importantly, it allows the film to investigate what movies involving the effects on time that space travel results in. "Aliens" had a scene to explain everything Ripley missed during her extended deep sleep, but that was removed from the theatrical cut. "Lily C.A.T." ends up being about these effects. You cannot help but enjoy the pettiness that can motivate people to effectively time travel.
At 67-minutes, you would be missing out not to find "Lily C.A.T." on Tubi or Prime Video. There may not be anything exceptional from a technical standpoint, but rarely do we see any kind of feature that address elements the best science fiction could care less about addressing. And it kind of revolves around cats, so that is a plus to.
If you get beyond counting the direct references to American sci-fi directors, you should get something positive from it. If you cannot, you will still enjoy being the Leonardo DiCaprio "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" meme. It is going to be fun either way.
On a side note, when is the appropriate age to introduce a kid to "The Great Gatsby", "Django Unchained" and "Once Upon a Time..."? They need to understand the context of the memes. Am I wrong?
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