ZooScope

Category: Language: English

  • Finding Dory. Dir. Andrew Stanton. Disney Pixar. 2016.

    Dory is the iconic name for the blue tang, (or scientifically known: palette surgeon fish) from the motion picture, Finding Nemo. Much like its predecessor, Finding Dory personifies marine life by animating fish with character and emotions in order to get the audience to engage in a more sympathetic mindset to sea life and overall motivate a movement…

  • 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…

  • The Shape of Water. Dir. Guillermo Del Toro. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2017.

    The Shape of Water is a fantastical love story set during The Cold War about Eliza, a mute cleaner at a government laboratory, who falls in love with a hybrid amphibian-man who was captured from the Amazon by the film’s villain, Colonel Strickland. General Hoyt wishes to exploit the amphibian-man to Western advantage in the Space…

  • 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…

  • Black Swan. Dir. Darren Aronofsky. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2010.

    Black Swan – Dir. Darren Aronofsky – 2010: When you watch certain movies over and over again, they are most probably good. When you have the urge to rewatch a movie right after seeing it for the first time, it is most certainly to be a masterpiece. Such masterpiece was created by Darren Aronofsky in…

  • The King’s Speech. Dir. Tom Hooper. The Weinstein Company. 2011.

    The King’s Speech follows the lives of King George VI and his family in the lead up to his brother’s abdication, and through the transitional phase of becoming King. The immense pressure which the family are under is demonstrated as Elizabeth and her daughters organise toys to be moved to Buckingham Palace. The establishing scene is…

  • Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Dir. Adam McKay. DreamWorks Studios. 2004.

    Anchorman, starring Will Ferrell as the eponymous Ron Burgundy, is a tongue-in-cheek comedy that parodies 1970s American culture through its extremely self-conscious, gross-out style. The absurdity of Ron’s character is epitomized by the heavily exaggerated ‘man’s best friend’ relationship he has with his dog Baxter, whose most significant moment in the film comes when he…

  • White Dog. Dir. Samuel Fuller. Paramount Pictures. 1982.

    Sam Fuller’s final Hollywood film, White Dog (1982), is based on Romain Gary’s 1970 ‘nonfiction’ novel of the same name and tells the story of aspiring actress Julie Sawyer (Kristy McNichol), who after accidentally hitting and injuring him with her car, adopts a seemingly lovable white German shepherd. The plot is complicated when, after two…

  • The Shape of water. Dir. Guillermo del Toro. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2017.

    In this scene, the development of inter-species love between the film’s main characters, Eliza and the amphibian-man, culminates in their under-water embrace as the amphibian-man magically gives Eliza gills. This scene blurs the human-animal distinction as both individuals are now cross-species and it subverts the hierarchical binary between humans and animals through their cross-species love…