A Street Cat Named Bob/Tiger

I went to the cinema the other day and saw a great little movie called, 'A Street Cat Named Bob'.
I'd never heard anything about the background of this movie until the day I saw it and the main reason I went to see it was because it was about a homeless guy who befriends a stray ginger cat.

My first cat, or I should say my family's first cat was also a stray ginger tom that my sister and I talked my mum into keeping.

Me with Tiger and my sister's dog Hadie about 30 years ago

My sister and I named him Tiger and he was as smart as the cat in the movie and had very much the same temperament, too. 
While Tiger wasn't just my cat, I treated him like he was, and we were good friends until he passed away.
After hanging around him I could understand why the Egyptians put cats in such high esteem.

The movie is said to be based on a true story, but when I did a bit of digging around, I was disappointed to find out it was based on a bit of BS as well.

James Bowen and Bob the cat

After seeing the movie, I wanted to know more about the girl he befriended in the movie and who had apparently given Bob his name by telling James that Bob is the name the cat wanted to be called, as if she was some kind of cat whisperer.
But according to the Wikipedia page about James Bowen, "Concerned that the cat had nowhere else to go, Bowen took him in on a permanent basis, naming him Bob after a character from the television drama Twin Peaks."

Killer Bob from 'Twin Peaks'

It appears the movie is not what it seems, to put it in a 'Twin Peaks' kind of way.
It seems that Betty, Bowen's animal loving neighbour and James' love interest in the movie were just made up for the film, as far as I can tell, never having read Jame's book that the movie was based on.
Being a bit of a 'Twin Peaks' fan myself I was surprised that 'Twin Peaks' premiered on April 8, 1990, on ABC, as April 8th was my dad's birthday and the day his mother passed away on (although in a different year).

I was also surprised that the link to the IMDB site for the 'A Street Cat Named Bob' movie ends in 888, as my Nan bought me and my brother a peddle car that had 888 on the numberplate.

I was also surprised that in the movie following his parents’ divorce, he moved to Melbourne, Australia with his mother and the day I was looking up about James on the net I see this story in the local Australian news -
Heroin deaths prompt renewed calls for Victorian safe injecting rooms

Overall, though, I liked this movie on a lot of levels, even if his girlfriend wasn't real.

It's a great movie and I hear that there might be a sequel in the works, as well.

I also found it rather synchy that Joanne Froggatt, who plays Val in the movie was voicing a character named Wendy in the 'Bob the Builder' TV show before making this movie, and played a serial killer named Mary Ann Cotton in a TV series named, 'Dark Angel'.

And on the subject of murderers, Joanne Froggatt played Joanne Lees in the TV movie, 'Murder in the Outback' the true story about Joanne Lees's partner missing presumed murdered in the Australian outback.

I also thought it amusing that Luke Treadaway, who plays James in 'A Street Cat Named Bob' voiced a character in an animated movie named, 'Ethel & Ernest' before making the cat movie, because my Nan's name was Ethel.

I also found the above trivia fact at the IMDB site interesting, as 67 out of 67 people found that piece of trivia interesting, mainly because the team I have followed in the NRL were founded in '67.   

The Sharks finally winning the grand final
 last year with me in the front row

At James' book signing at the end of the film, one of the people getting his book signed is the real James Bowen himself, so life and art are good imitators of themselves it would seem, and you never know where they can take you.