Meow. It’s been a long time.
However, I feel that when there is snow outside, it is absolutely imperative that I do NOTHING. I have to preserve my precious body heat. I’m a cat, not a snow leopard!
Speaking of snow leopards.
While in the great state of Idaho with my humans, we visited the zoo. It sounds like a great plan until you realize that January in Idaho means SNOW. And COLD. Most animals in zoos don’t like that.
Except the snow leopards.
Two baby snow leopards and their dad snow leopard were out in FULL FORCE. The baby snow leopards were running, playing, punching, chewing, and thoroughly irritating their dad snow leopard. It was glorious. I told my humans that I thought I might be part snow leopard and that they should permit me to join this herd. They told me that I was the size of these snow leopard’s paws. I stood down.
BABY SNOW LEOPARD
Speaking of snow leopards, my humans and I just saw The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Why is this related? Well, to not give too much away, there is a scene that has a snow leopard.
I must admit that the trailers for Walter Mitty got me all aflutter. I love cool music when it plays alongside hyper-realistic and creative running and jumping. Yet a whole movie can’t just be that, and this one isn’t, which is almost too bad.
The basic plot is this: Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) is the photo editor for TIME magazine. As a kid, he dreamed of traveling the world, but instead has worked a bunch of boring jobs and lived a super boring life. At the start of the movie, new management, led by Ted (Adam Scott), takes over TIME and announces that it will publish its final issue before transitioning to an only-online version. The cover of that final issue will be a photograph by famous photographer Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn). Unfortunately, in the roll of negatives O’Connell sent to Walter, that photo’s negative is missing. This begins Walter’s epic journey of self-discovery and world travel, where he learns that life is crazier than daydreams!
Oh, there’s also a love story with Kristen Wiig, but it’s not that important.
The good: the music is great, there are some gorgeous vistas of Iceland, Greenland, and the Himalayas, and there are a lot of sweet moments. Unfortunately, on the whole, Walter Mitty fails to coalesce into the sweet, magical movie it wants to be. It’s neither as funny nor as romantic as it thinks it wants to be. This is disappointing. Ben Stiller is a consummate actor, though, and he’s so easy to watch and love that, on the whole, Walter Mitty is a really enjoyable way to spend two hours.
The snow leopard is the sole cat in the film, but considering my current snow leopard obsession (I WILL JOIN MY PEOPLE), it was a highlight. Below is the PawPrint Plot. I gave it a generous score of 20 points. Not great, but SNOW LEOPARD.
Stay warm out there, fellow snow leopards!
xoxo
Franny
Franny's Feline Film Forum 
Snow leopards are very beautiful! I haven’t seen Walter Mitty yet, but I remember loving the book back in high school. I thought that Ben Stiller was an interesting choice of actor to play him when I saw the trailers. He’s a good actor, but he doesn’t really have the sort of “innocence” that I imagined in the character.
He was charming and did his usual thing. 🙂 I’ve never read the short story but now I want to! Meow!
Mom says that it’s love at first sight. She says she has seen snow leopards at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. but never any babies or juveniles. She also says the best day she ever had at that zoo was when it was cold and snowy. No one was at the zoo, and the keeper of the Giant Pandas took them into the back of the Panda House so they were no more than a couple inches and a wire fence between them and the Pandas. Thanks for sharing. Purrs and paw-pats, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo.
Meow! That’s so close to the pandas!
This same day at the zoo we really enjoyed the red panda, which is not that related to the panda at all.