Tag: Chicken(s)

The Wizard of Oz. Dir. Victor Fleming, King Vidor, George Cukor, Richard Thorpe, Norman Taurog. MGM. 1939.

The Wizard of Oz showcases, through its many varying forms of animal representation, the ways in which filmmakers deal with the challenge of creating animal characters, and how these different methods are used to craft personality traits such as the moral essence of the character. We can see this with regards to the flying monkeys, particularly…

12th December 2018
Cinderella. Dir. Sir Kenneth Branagh . Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2015.

During Ella’s journey from a happy, sweet child, to the mourning servant of her stepfamily, to cherished wife of the King, her fundamental characteristics are consistent. Her mother tells her to ‘have courage and be kind’. The message is not subtle: this exact phrase is repeated another 9 times in the film. For the sceptics…

12th December 2018
Hannah Montana: The Movie. Dir. Peter Chelsom. Walt Disney Pictures. 2009.

Hannah Montana: The Movie is about Miley Stewart, a secret pop sensation known as Hannah Montana, getting caught up in the perks of her famous life. Her fed-up father, Robby Ray, forces Miley to visit her family on her hometown farm in Crowley Corners, Tennessee. Robby Ray threatens to take away Hannah Montana forever if Miley…

2nd June 2018
Mulan. Dir. Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook. Buena Vista Pictures. 1998.

Disney’s Mulan (1998) takes on a Chinese folktale of a woman who takes the place of her father in the fight against the Huns who have recently invaded China. The film follows the adventures and troubles of Mulan, a young woman who breaks the stereotypes of Disney’s classic princess, as well as the expectations which…

21st May 2018
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…

20th May 2018
Animal Farm. Dir. John Halas, Joy Batchelor. Pathe, Universal, RKO . 1954.

Halas and Batchelor’s 1954 Animal Farm holds a firm place in cinematic history as Britain’s second animated feature. The film is based on the 1945 novella by George Orwell and is often read as an allegory for communism and Stalinism. The unrest of the animals and desire for revolution also has echoes of Marxist ideas about the…

18th January 2017
Racing Stripes. Dir. Frederik Du Chau. Warner Bros. 2005.

Racing stripes (Frederik Du Chau 2005) is an American sports comedy which centres on the glamourous and wealthy sport of horseracing in Kentucky. However the film does this through a comedic twist. The film has a bildungsroman performance narrative and follows the journey of a young girl and her unconventional mount Stripes, a zebra. After a…

18th January 2017
Baraka. Dir. Ron Frike. The Samuel Goldwyn Company. 1992.

Ron Fricke’s 1992 documentary film Baraka highlights the darker side of human-animal relations through a sequence comparing two very similar visual images. One scene depicts a crowded subway while another shows new-born chicks on a conveyor belt, presumably being sexed and arranged for meat or egg production.

16th January 2017
Aladdin. Dir. Ron Clements and John Musker. Disney Studios. 1992.

Ron Clements’ and John Muskers’, Aladdin (1992) [1] follows the life of a poor street dweller and his sidekick monkey, Abu in the fictional city of Agrabah. After being coerced into entering the subterranean ‘cave of wonders’ by the villain Jafar and his accomplice parrot, Iago, Aladdin retrieves a magic lamp containing a genie. With the…

16th January 2017
Two Brothers . Dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud. Universal Studios. 2004.

ean-Jacques Annaud transports us to the richly beautiful Cambodian jungle in the early 1920s , where two tiger cubs, Sangha and Kumal, are born to their stable and loving family unit. Their playful brotherly bond creates many adventures until violence and greed removes the two from the wild and forces them into the human domain…

16th January 2017