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By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

We happened to stumble upon this film a few evenings ago and I have been haunted by Ron Holiday's hair ever since. While this film is in many ways sad and poignant, it's greatest asset is that it is an unintentional comedic masterpiece. Had the credits rolled and I saw that it was directed by Christopher Guest I wouldn't have been surprised. Cod pieces, extended ass-shots, and the precursors to Sigfried and Roy--Will Ferrell couldn't have done a better job himself."Excuse me..." "No you're not excused" will go down in the history books (for the uninformed that is the line that snowballed into the greatest menage a trois of all time.)

I just watched this documentary, and found it haunting. Ron Holiday, a former professional dancer, with his wife, Joy, began performing with live big cats back in the late 1960s - an uncommon career choice, to be sure. But the Holidays were uncommon people. Now (in the documentary) coming up on his 70th birthday, Ron tells the story of their lives, which became intertwined with that of fellow performer Chuck Lizza and a number of big cats. It's an unorthodox story of love, showmanship, tragedy and, finally, loneliness.Having been extremely successful for many years with golden tigers and other big cats, the Cat Dancers realized that rare white tigers were what the crowds really wanted to see. The decision to add a white tiger to their show was, by Ron's admission, made through his urging. The end results of that decision were devastating. I doubt that any caustic or condemning remarks made by others who have viewed or reviewed this film can possibly make this man feel any worse about what happened.Ron Holiday is a survivor, but he by his own admission has not healed from the tragedies described in Cat Dancers. He states he never will. I believe him. He is a showman, donning a variety of wigs during the documentary, as he steps out to face one audience or another. But he also shows us his true self. He is a risk-taker, revealing truths about the unconventional life he shared with Joy and Chuck, truths that some may find uncomfortable. He is a lone storyteller, chronicling a shared life that certainly had many magical moments that were all too fleeting.My main complaint with this film is that no expanded explanation was given regarding the euthanasia of the last tigers. Ron stated that he had made a pact with Joy and Chuck that if anything happened to them, the animals would not end up in "a compound." For those unfamiliar with exotic animal rescues, they are compounds. They have to be. They require extensive and expensive confinement and security measures, and even the very best of them cannot give the intensive, one-on-one daily attention the Holiday tigers had known their whole lives. Keeping an animal alive in a miserable situation is not humane, and it is certain that tigers which had been raised in a decidedly pet-like environment would be miserable in a new place without the person who had cared for them all their lives. I feel that the decision to euthanize his cats was a quality of life issue, and perhaps an acknowledgment that Ron, at 70, simply could not provide the quality of life to which the animals had been so long accustomed. Tigers are not house cats, no matter how they have been raised, so finding a facility that would take them isn't an easy task anyway.I recorded this documentary with the intention of deleting it once I had watched it. Having seen it, I have decided to keep it. And I will hope, for Ron's sake, that he is able to follow through with the plans he describes for his 80th birthday.

I'm so glad that I stumbled across this documentary without having seen any of the advertising for it.At first I was a little put off by the strange appearance and the sexually-charged comments of Ron Holiday, but ultimately they contributed to what makes this story so interesting. This isn't a story about Hollywood-perfect people living scripted lives but very real, very unique people.I won't give away any spoilers but only say that there is an air of foreboding throughout the film that lets you know all did not end well with the trio of performers who were the Cat Dancers.The filmmaker and editors did a fabulous job with the old footage. A lot of post production houses only wish they could make video look like that, and the soundtrack was perfect.I didn't cry until the end credits when the song "I want to be a lion tamer" (I think it was) began.I hope to see more by this newcomer!

I happened to catch this documentary this morning while I was getting ready to go to work. The archival footage isn't of the greatest quality, but as most of it is home movies, that's to be expected. I love cats of all sizes, so I really enjoyed seeing the video of the cats performing as well as hanging out at home.As anyone watching this will figure out long before the end, two of the three main characters in this documentary are no longer with us. That leaves just one to tell their story. It's interesting, but I found myself so distracted by Mr. Holiday's hair and plastic surgery that I couldn't really pay attention to what he was saying some of the time.The main problem I had with this documentary isn't its style or quality -- it is the actions of Mr. Holiday. At the end, a screen card comes up saying that the place where he boarded his last two tigers evicted everyone, so rather than turn them over to a refuge or investigate other boarding places, he had them put to sleep. These were older animals, yes, but they appeared to be in good health. After listening to Holiday talk for an hour about how much he supposedly loved the cats, I found it horrible that he chose this option for them. Animals should never be put to sleep unless they are a danger to others or are very sick. That wasn't the case with these two. I found it jarring and unexplainable, and immediately lost any sympathy I might have felt for Holiday.