Tag: Crime

One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Dir. Wolfgang Reitherman, Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske. Buena Vista Distribution. 1961.

One hundred and one Dalmatians, ninety-nine of which are puppies, in a terraced house in London. How wonderful! The perfect Disney dream ending. Or in the realms of reality, a deluge of responsibility that is only going to increase if Roger and Anita, the owners, don’t begin to take spaying and neutering seriously. It is,…

4th February 2022
The Silence of the Lambs. Dir. Jonathan Demme. Orion Pictures. 1991.

Alongside terrific and terrifying characters such as Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling, there is another sinister dramatis persona evoked in Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs – that of the ‘Death’s Head Hawk-Moth’ and Buffalo Bill’s relation to them. It is unsurprising that the moth in this scene invokes dread in Clarice and the audience,…

18th January 2022
Batman Begins. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Warner Bros. 2005.

Why does Batman dress like a bat? In the words of Batman himself, “bats frighten me. It’s time my enemies shared my dread.” In Batman Begins, the boundaries between human and animal are psychologically breached through Bruce’s lifelong phobia of bats. This all-consuming dread leads to Bruce’s attempt to confront this fear through exposure therapy.…

8th January 2022
Ernest and Celestine. Dir. Benjamin Renner. StudioCanal. 2012

Ernest and Celestine[2] (2012) is a French animated film that presents the unorthodox relationship between a bear and a mouse. Introduced as a struggling musician, Ernest is starving and on the hunt for food; Celestine is on the hunt for teeth when they form an unlikely pairing to help one another. Due to societal constraints and animal…

2nd June 2020
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…

29th May 2020

Tag: Crime

One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Dir. Wolfgang Reitherman, Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske. Buena Vista Distribution. 1961.

The Silence of the Lambs. Dir. Jonathan Demme. Orion Pictures. 1991.

Batman Begins. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Warner Bros. 2005.

Ernest and Celestine. Dir. Benjamin Renner. StudioCanal. 2012

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