Category: Distributor: Columbia Pictures
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Labyrinth. Dir Jim Henson. Warner Bros., Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures, TriStar Pictures, FilmFlex, EMI Films. 1986.
Teaching a Teen, Canine Companions, and the First CGI Animal in Movie History The last Jim Henson release, Labyrinth, a cinema flop but since a cult classic, follows a teenage Jennifer Connelly (Sarah) trying to rescue her baby brother from David Bowie (Jareth) by making her way through a Labyrinth “where everything seems possible and…
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Open Season. Dir. Roger Allers. Sony Pictures Animation, Columbia Pictures. 2006
Staging an Attack Open Season (2006) uses light composition and visual design to critique dominant ideologies concerning hunter-and-hunted relationships and to reflect and shape particular cultural tensions relating to the protection of animals against violence. In a scene in which, misconceptions lead to a crowd panicking when it appears Boog is killing Elliot backstage, emphasis is placed…
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Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!. Dir. By. Peter Lord. Columbia Pictures. 2012.
Aardman never shy away from the ludicrous. So when a crew of incompetent pirates endeavour for protagonist The Pirate Captain to win the Pirate of the Year Award by relying on the commercial value of his prized dodo companion Polly (who should have been extinct for 150 years and is believed to be a parrot)…
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Surf’s Up. Dir. Ash Brannon & Chris Buck. Columbia Pictures. 2007.
Released in 2007, during the surge of penguin movies, Surf’s Up is a unique animated mockumentary exploring how penguins are the ‘real’ inventors of the worldwide sport, surfing. A documentary crew (ironically, Brannon and Buck cast themselves) follow the journey of Cody Maverick (Shia LaBeouf), a Rockhopper penguin from Antarctica who dreams of becoming a…
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Blade Runner 2049. Dir. Denis Villeneuve. Alcon Entertainment. 2017.
Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 (2017) transports us to a dystopian earth, where humans and replicants, bio-engineered humans used for slave labour, live side by side. There is a clear dichotomy within the dystopia since replicants’ entire existence is based on the premise that they are genetically coded to obey orders, rendering them docile slaves,…
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Snatch. Dir. Guy Ritchie. Columbia Pictures. 2000.
– “Okay, I reckon the hare gets fucked” – “What? Proper fucked?” In Guy Ritchie’s comedic crime thriller Snatch, he uses this hare coursing scene to draw parallels between the animality of the dogs and the gangsters, whilst also simultaneously using the mise-en-scene to create a contrast between the agility of animals alongside the clumsiness…
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The Craft. Dir. Andrew Fleming. Columbia Pictures. 1996.
The Craft is a 1996 supernatural teen horror film, in which animals feature heavily as a representation of the otherness felt by four teenage girls who possess extraordinary powers. The film presents witchcraft and magic as something that is inextricable from nature and animals, in line with Neo-Pagan traditions. This scene is particularly striking, as…
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The Shallows. Dir. Jaume Collet-Serra. Columbia Pictures. 2016.
The Shallows uses the tale of Nancy (Blake Lively), a surfer alone and vulnerable in the picturesque coasts of Mexico only to be aggressively hunted by a great white shark with a taste for skinny blonde models (shock). Since Jaws, sharks have become a symbol of fear – an immediate indication of danger within the cinematic…