Category: Imaginary Animals: No
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Breakfast and Tiffany’s . Dir. Blake Edwards . Paramount Pictures . 1961.
In Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) Audrey Hepburn performs as Holly Golightly, formerly Lula Mae Barnes. We learn that Holly has moved to New York to reinvent herself. As a consequence, she has changed her name. By destabilising her identity, she demonstrates that she takes control of her life. When Paul Varjak (George Peppard) moves into her apartment…
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The Green Mile. Dir. Frank Darabont. Warner Bros. Pictures. 1999.
Adapted from Stephen King’s novel, The Green Mile tells the story of Paul Edgecomb, a prison guard on Death Row, and his relationship with John Coffey, a convicted of the rape and murder of two young girls. Large and burly in his physique, John arrives at the ‘Green Mile’ as a timid, deeply emotional man who doesn’t…
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Milking the Rhino. Dir. David E. Simpson. Kartemquin Films. 2009.
David E. Simpson’s 2009 documentary Milking the Rhino is a groundbreaking, astonishing story of two cattle farming cultures, the Maasai of Kenya and Ovahimba of Namibia, caught between trying to conserve their ancient traditions amid the growing pressure of modern wildlife conservation. They represent the largely unseen inhabitants of the wildlife documentary, the conveniently ignored…
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A Close Shave. Dir. Nick Park. BBC. 1995.
Following the great success of director Nick Park’s A Grand Day Out in 1990 and 1993’s The Wrong Trousers, eccentric inventor Wallace and his canine companion Gromit returned in 1995 with A Close Shave. The action begins as the duo – now running a window cleaning service – have their breakfast interrupted by Shaun the…
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The Birds. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Universal Pictures. 1963.
The most horrifying horror of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds occurs in a single, fleeting instant. Thrown from the comfort and security of his own bed, we are allowed only a glimpse of the aftermath of a brutal attack by these inscrutable creatures, where what has happened just moments before is almost too awful to imagine. As the…
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The Ugly Dachshund. Dir. Norman Toker . Walt Disney. 1966.
The Ugly Dachshund (1966), adapted from the 1938 novel by Gladys Bonwyn Stern, begins as Mark Garrison (Dean Jones) frantically prepares to drive to the hospital. This tricks us in to thinking that his wife, Fran Garrison (Suzanne Pleshette), is going to give birth when in fact they are taking their Dachshund Danke to the animal…
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Creature Comforts (Series 1, Episode 1). Dir. Richard Goleszowski. ITV. 2003.
Creature Comforts, the ITV series which started life as an Oscar-winning short film in 1989, might, at first glance, best be described as a documentary; its vox pop format providing a platform for the genuine, unscripted opinions of the British public. However, what appears on screen is anything but reality, as these voices are given…
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Fantastic Mr. Fox. Dir. Wes Anderson. 20th Century Fox . 2009.
2009 saw Wes Anderson turn his unique eye for detail and style to stop motion animation, with his adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. The film has a distinct and consistent colour scheme of warm oranges and browns, changing only to show the warehouses and homes of the evil farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean.…
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Hot Fuzz. Dir. Edgar Wright . Universal Pictures/Rouge Pictures. 2007.
Hot Fuzz is an action comedy which follows PC Nicholas Angel’s transfer from the London Metropolitan Police to rural Sandford, where he discovers a string of murders have been committed. Despite being overly violent at times, the film maintains a light-hearted tone through the use of comic conventions, such as the urbane character being a…