Purr-fect casting: is Orangey the most important movie cat ever?

A new retrospective celebrates the work of the cat credited with roles in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Comedy of Terrors and Rhubarb In the midst of Oscar season, it becomes evident just how much work it takes to win an Academy Award, both in on-screen work and off-screen campaigning. Consider, however, that multiple actors have won more than one Oscar. (Emma Stone, one of this year’s best actress nominees, won twice in the past decade.) Only a single cat, meanwhile, has twice won the Patsy – the Picture Animal Top Star of the Year. (The award, given by the American Humane Association, not to be confused with the Humane Society, was discontinued in 1986.) That cat is Orangey, the subject of a small retrospective at New York City’s Metrograph cinema. Plenty of rep houses will play a movie like Breakfast at Tiffany’s around Valentine’s Day; the Metrograph is going deeper into the Orangey catalogue for a wider variety of titles and genres. Breakfast at Tiffany’s does offer Orangey his mo...

Deadland review – melancholy horror smuggles deep themes across the US-Mexico border

Lance Larson’s feature debut uses horror tropes to tackle themes of racism, immigration and post-traumatic stress disorder

Screened at SXSW last year but still relevant given the ongoing debate about immigration in the US, an especially live issue in election year, this offers a border-set ghost story that’s haunting in more ways than one. For a start, it’s not especially gory or scary; the tone is more melancholy and guilt-freighted, offering a study of masculine and, in particular, paternal anxiety that’s aggravated by divided loyalties. The main protagonist is Angel Waters (Roberto Urbina), a Mexican-American border guard who is the head of his small patrol unit not far from El Paso.

The son of a Mexican father he never knew and a white American woman who has recently died, Angel is now devoted to his pregnant wife Hannah (Kendal Rae, achieving a lot with a thinly written part); he only wants to do the best he can for the people who cross the border every day, even if he’s seldom thanked for sometimes saving their lives. For example, one day he shouts warnings in Spanish that the river isn’t safe to a lone stranger (Julio Cesar Cedillo) he spots trying to cross, and minutes later the man is swept away.

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