ZooScope

Category: Country: US

  • Brigsby Bear. Dir. Dave McCary. Sony Pictures Classics. 2017.

    Brigsby Bear is about a young man named James Pope. James is a fanatic of a show called Brigsby Bear Adventures. James’ world changes one day when the police find him and take him away from his family. He discovers that what he thought were his parents were his kidnappers, and the police reunite him with his…

  • I am David. Dir. Paul Feig. Lion’s Gate Films. 2003.

    I am David (2003) is a film adaptation of a children’s book of the same name by Anne Holm. The protagonist David must journey north alone after escaping a Bulgarian prison camp, in order to reach Denmark which he has been told is safe. As he is walking through a vineyard in Italy, he is startled…

  • James and the Giant Peach. Dir. Henry Selick. Buena Vista Pictures. 1996.

    Overcoming Stereotypes and Nightmares: How You can Find Help from the Smallest of Friends Based on the children’s book by Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach focuses on a boy named James Trotter. James is first introduced with his parents, dreaming of one day heading over to New York City from England. But tragedy strikes when…

  • Shrek 2. Dir. Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury, and Conrad Vernon. DreamWorks. 2004.

    The second film in the Shrek franchise, Shrek 2 focuses on a pair of ogres, Shrek and Fiona, and their life as newlyweds: it’s time to meet the in-laws. Fiona’s human parents, King Harold and Queen Lilian, are unpleasantly surprised by the fact their daughter and her husband are ogres, and their marriage has a few magical…

  • The Witch. Dir. Robert Eggers. A24. 2015.

    Robert Eggers’s 2015 independent horror film The Witch encounters human-animal relations in reference to a manmade issue – religion and the occult. I argue that such a representation of humans living alongside animals in the context of a restricted, puritanical environment of their own making exists because of how the characters decide to build their own isolation.…

  • Noah. Dir. Darren Aronofsky. Paramount Pictures. 2014.

    God says to Noah: Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.…

  • Zootopia. Dir. Byron Howard and Rich Moore. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2016.

    Dreams can be powerful things; and to Judy Hopps, no dream is greater than becoming Zootopia’s first rabbit police officer. After years of chasing her goal however, Judy discovers that maybe her dream isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Finding herself in a world dominated by bigger, stronger animals; Judy faces discrimination as she…

  • Zootopia. Dir. Byron Howard and Rich Moore. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2016.

    Zootopia [1] presents a story about the first rabbit police officer teaming up with a fox confidence trickster to stop their city descending into anarchy. The film is a modern take on a classic animal fable, using Aesopian tropes of animals representing certain personalities alongside a technology rich, modern setting.

  • The Wild. Dir. Steve ‘Spaz’ Williams. Buena Vista Pictures. 2006.

    The Wild YouTube video of the film’s theatrical trailer: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE3mEgqqlCM> ‘Start spreading the newspaper.’ Disney’s 2006 animation, The Wild, by first-time director and ex-special effects artist Steve ‘Spaz’ Williams, is a family comedy film centred on a group of zoo animals: Samson the lion, Bridget the giraffe, Nigel the koala and Larry the anaconda. Along with their…

  • The Wild. Dir. Steve ‘Spaz’ Williams. Buena Vista Pictures. 2006.

    ZooScope ZOOM: The Wild  Above: ‘This isn’t Happiness’ – 07/04/2014 front cover illustration of The New Yorker by Peter DeSeve shows a vegetarian lion eating salad whilst looking distractedly at a zebra. Living in a world of cultural ethics clearly has its difficulties for a wild predator. Image from https://uk.pinterest.com/kmeyer/peter-deseve/ ‘The core paradigm of many narratives engaging…