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All The Little Animals. Dir. Jeremy Thomas. Lionsgate. 1999.
Bobby Platt is twenty-four with learning difficulties due to a car accident from his childhood which he refers to as “the most important thing about me”. Bobby’s stepfather, “The Fat” is the archetypal bully: aggressive and unsympathetic even at the death of Bobby’s mother. After her funeral The Fat instructs Bobby to sign over the…
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Blackfish. Dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite. Magnolia Pictures. 2013.
Blackfish is a documentary which focuses on the danger of keeping killer whales in captivity. The documentary film argues that this danger affects, not just the human trainers of these highly intelligent animals, but also the marine creatures themselves. Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite focuses on one whale in particular; Tilikum a 6 ton bull orca, who…
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Up. Dir. Peter Docter. Disney Pixar. 2009.
Pixar’s 2009 film Up tells the astonishing tale of Carl, a 78 year old who wishes to fulfil his and his late wife’s dream of reaching Paradise Falls in South America. From meeting as kids, Ellie and Carl dream of being adventurers, and share a passion for the explorer C.F. Muntz and his ‘Spirit of…
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Best in Show. Dir. Christopher Guest. Castle Rock Entertainment. 2000.
Get 3,000 show dogs in a room and you’ll have a lot of personality. But get the five show dog owners of Best in Show to the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show and you’ll have more personality than 3,000 dogs could ever provide. Cameras follow these handlers’ journeys before, after and during their pursuit of the top…
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Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. Dir. Lasse Hallström. Stage 6. 2009.
As the tale goes Akitas are one of the most loyal and loving breeds of dog in the world. You do not choose an Akita an Akita must choose you. Sent from a monastery in Japan an Akita puppy finds himself alone on a train station platform in America, when his shipping crate falls off…
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Ratatouille. Dir. Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava. Disney Pixar. 2007.
When Remy the rat (Patton Oswalt) discovers his heightened sense of taste and smell, he develops a passion for cooking: sneaking into a human kitchen and watching cookery programmes. However, when his family is lost he travels into Paris and finds a gourmet kitchen, Gusteau’s. With the help of Linguini (Lou Romano), a hapless garbage…
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Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Dir. Rupert Wyatt. 20th Century Fox. 2011.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Photo credit: Wikipedia) An exploration of ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ is a thrilling science fiction film created as a prequel to Franklin Schaffner’s 1968 original film ‘Planet of the Apes’. Rupert Wyatt uses the story of one man…
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The Beach. Dir. Danny Boyle. 20th Century Fox. 2000.
In Danny Boyle’s adaptation of Alex Garland’s adventure novel ‘The Beach’ Richard (a young Leonardo DiCaprio) who, dissatisfied with western attitudes, visits Bangkok to seek an exotic new perspective. He learns of an island heralded as paradise and subsequently acquires a map. Richard and an European couple find the island and the small community which lives there governed…
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Black Beauty. Dir. Carol Thompson. Warner Bros. 1994.
Good Places, Make Good Horses Black Beauty (1994), directed by Carol Thompson is a film adaption of the 1877 Anna Sewell children’s novel of the same name. The film follows the life of Victorian black stallion Black Beauty and his companions after he leaves his idyllic first home to serve new owners both kind and…
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The Aristocats. Dir. Wolfgang Reitherman.. Disney. 1970.
Disney’s The Aristocats[1] follows a family of pet cats who are stolen from the house of Madame Bonfamille, a Parisian aristocrat, when her butler, Edgar, discovers that they will inherit the estate before him. Edgar drugs and abandons the cats in the countryside outside of Paris, presuming that they will be lost forever; however he doesn’t count…
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