Tag: HAR: Pet Keeping
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Open Season. Dir. Roger Allers. Sony Pictures Animation, Columbia Pictures. 2006
Staging an Attack Open Season (2006) uses light composition and visual design to critique dominant ideologies concerning hunter-and-hunted relationships and to reflect and shape particular cultural tensions relating to the protection of animals against violence. In a scene in which, misconceptions lead to a crowd panicking when it appears Boog is killing Elliot backstage, emphasis is placed…
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Hotel for Dogs. Dir. Thor Freudenthal. Dreamworks. 2009.
Animals, a cutesy love story and the rise of underdogs… literally. What more could you want in a film? Well, ‘Hotel for Dogs’ (Thor Freudenthal/ 2009) covers a multitude of heart-wrenching topics which are compacted within a fun-loving Nickelodeon film. W.C. Fields stated ‘never work with children or animals’;[1] Thor Freudenthal the director ignores this…
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The Banshees of Inisherin. Dir. Martin McDonagh. Searchlight Pictures. 2015
“Do you think God gives a damn about miniature donkeys, Colm?” “I fear he doesn’t. And I fear that’s where it’s all gone wrong.” Martin McDonagh’s, “The Banshees of Inisherin” (2022), is a Tolstoyan tragicomedy combined with macabre naturalism which works to present the asperity and invaluableness of life and friendship. One significant friendship occurs between…
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Paddington Bear. Dir. Paul King. S. 2014
Paddington, directed by Paul King, captures the life of an orphaned bear who travels from Peru to London sponsored by his Aunt Lucy to seek a better life the mythic aspirations of most immigrants. As a young bear club Paddington is presented as a wilful, yet kind hearted character who exhibits dignity despite being faced…
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The Little Prince. Dir. Mark Osborne. Paramount Pictures. 2015
“One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” In The Little Prince the depiction of foxes defies conventional animality as they generally symbolise perfidy. But The Fox here is characterised as holding pragmatic intellectual power. He is a teacher but does not hold any other forms of power,…
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Anastasia. Dir. Don Bluth, Gary Goldman. 20th Century Fox. 1997.
Oh great! A dog wants me to go to St. Petersburg. Anastasia. 1997. An adventure with strangers and a new puppy! Twentieth Century Fox’s whimsically animated Anastasia follows an orphaned Russian princess, who befriends a scruffy puppy, Pooka. The real journey begins once Pooka is introduced, winning the audience’s heart with his doe eyed, emotive…
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Mr Popper’s Penguins. Dir. Mark Waters. 20th Century Fox. 2011.
Jim Carrey and Penguins. It does not get any better. Think Beethoven but with Penguins. Try to spot the difference between the CGI penguins and the real ones. Grab the popcorn. As you can surmise from the title, the film details Mr Popper who is played by Jim Carrey and his hijinks with the penguin…
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I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Dir. Charlie Kaufman. Netflix. 2020.
“There’s just something… ineffable. Profoundly, unutterably, unfixably wrong here.”
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Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Dir. Jake Kasdan. Sony Pictures Releasing. 2017.
Trapped in a tropical jungle with wild animals and no allergy spray; what could possibly go wrong? Oh, and also, you are now in a different body and have to save the world. Have I mentioned the mosquitoes? The unofficial sequel to the 1955 Jumanji, titled Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle follows four children in…
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Barking Dogs Never Bite. Dir. Bong Joon-ho. Cinema Service. 2000.
Barking Dogs Never Bite is a dark comedy film directed by Bong Joon-ho, who has received critical praise for his recent filmography, in the same genre, Parasite. This film deals with a seemingly small incident about the disappearance of dogs in one apartment complex, but it raises questions about social morality and justice problems prevalent…