ZooScope

Tag: Cats

  • A Whisker Away. Dir. Junichi Sato & Tomotaka Shibayama. Studio Colorido, Netflix. 2020.

    In A Whisker Away, the 14-year-old Miyo Sasaki takes extreme measures in order to be close to her school crush Kento Hinode, even accepting a cat mask from a dubious mask seller to be able to transform into a cat. Upon closer examination, it quickly becomes apparent that Junichi Sato & Tomotaka Shibayama tackle much…

  • The Grand Budapest Hotel. Dir Wes Anderson. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2014

    “Did he just throw my cat out the window?” The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014) uses the death of a domestic animal to drive the dark comedic elements within the film, without accentuating sinister undertones that the audience would expect to accompany the death of a beloved animal. Anderson transforms the cat into a…

  • A Street Cat Named Bob. Dir. Roger Spottiswoode. Sony Pictures Releasing. 2016.

    [1]A Street Cat Named Bob is a 2016 biographical drama directed by Roger Spottiswoode. The film is based on an memoir of the same name, which narrates the true story of James Bowen, a British man who struggled with homelessness and heroin addiction, who attributes his recovery to a stray cat he named Bob. According…

  • A Dog’s Journey. Dir. Gail Mancuso. Universal Pictures. 2019.

    They say that dogs are man’s best friend, but what if that best friend who with you from birth stayed longer than a lifetime? Two years after A Dog’s Purpose (2017), we follow again the paw prints of Bailey (voiced by Josh Gad), whose purpose in life is not yet over. In this sequel, Ethan…

  • The Secret of NIMH. Dir. Don Bluth. MGM/UA Entertainment Company. 1982.

    “We can no longer live as rats. We know too much.” The Secret of NIMH is remembered by many as a dark, creepy, and disturbing film, with retrospectives published in recent years referring to it as leaving basically every kid who sees it with a lingering dread. Don Bluth’s directorial debut after leaving the Walt…

  • Can You Ever Forgive Me? Dir. Marielle Heller. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2018.

    Hellers’ biopic Can You Ever Forgive Me (1) is about struggling writer Lee Israel who, to finance her cat’s vet bills, becomes a master forger of literary letters. Impersonating figures such as Noël Coward and Dorothy Parker, Lee earns herself a pretty penny and, eventually, a criminal record. Protagonist Lee, played by Melissa McCarthy, is…

  • Pet Sematary. Dir. Mary Lambert. Paramount Pictures. 1989.

    Mary Lambert’s 1989 adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary is a horror film that supplants the blood-thirsty killer with a household pet – one which becomes increasingly unfamiliar as the film progresses. Aided by a combination of practical and special effects, the Creeds’ ghostly cat Church transitions into an object of the uncanny, and thus…

  • Coraline. Dir. Henry Selick. Focus Features. 2009.

    Coraline is a stop-motion animated movie, based on Neil Geiman’s novel with the same title, featuring mice, rats, insects, dogs and a cat. Of all these animals, the nameless black cat (Keith David) is most intriguing. One could say that the cat plays such a role in the story that we could extrapolate it to…

  • Carnage. Dir. Simon Amstell. BBC. 2017.

    What would the world be like if everybody was vegan? According to Simon Amstell’s vision of the future in Carnage, it’s a peaceful utopia in which the young vegans of tomorrow frolic in fields and enjoy food much more, knowing that nothing was taken from an animal, albeit one in which the older generations of ex-meat-eaters…

  • Mary and the Witch’s Flower. Dir. Hiromasa Yonebayashi. Toho. 2017.

    Mary and the Witch’s Flower is a 2017 animated film, directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi and produced by Studio Ponoc (founded by the former lead film producer at Studio Ghibli). The film tells the story of Mary, a little girl, who moves in with her Great Aunt Charlotte whilst her parents are abroad. When Mary is…