Inside Llewyn Davis (2013 Joel & Ethan Coen)

It's 1961, Greenwich Village, and this monocular study of Llewyn Davis (played by Oscar Isaac) shows a singer who's having a hard time (without a winter coat) trying to make it as a folk singer, just as Bob Dylan (and that's presumably him at the end) is about to make it big. There's a great cat, possibly two -- my conjecture is that the second one is Holly Golightly's.... The first is called 'Odysseus', which is funny...

With six weeks to prep five rescue cats — two were fired prior to shooting for “temperament” issues — [Dawn] Barkan played to the strengths of the remaining trio. Tigger, a female, was the “holding” cat, the one Llewyn Davis carries around everywhere. Jerry was the “action” cat because he proved adept at “patterning” — a series of behaviors rewarded with a treat, like chicken. And Daryl was “the laid-back dude who could be put in hairier situations,” says Barkan. So that’s Jerry in the more sedate subway scenes, and Daryl whenever the subway stations and cars are overcrowded or too thunderous. At one point, Barkan says, even the usually chill Daryl got spooked by the noise and jostling, and clipped Isaac in the face. “For weeks, I said it wasn’t a good idea to shoot in a live subway station,” she says. “An actor getting scratched, I don’t ever want that to happen.”

http://www.vulture.com/2013/12/ulysses-cat-inside-llewyn-davis-trainer.html

Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman, F Murray Abraham, Ethan Phillips (cat owner), Max Casella (bar owner), Adam Driver (from Girls) and Garett Hedlund (taciturn driver) are in support. Typically wry material (he realises he has a two year old child; signs away royalties on amusing hit song about Kennedy) shot in a very Melvilleish palette by Bruno Delbonnel (Deakins was doing Skyfall).

Some reviewer has just done my head in by saying the scene where the guy beats him up in the alley isn't the same scene twice, but a different one.............