ZooScope

Tag: Seagull(s)

  • The Cat From Outer Space. Dir. Norman Tokar. Buena Vista Distribution. 1978.

    As we see a feline descend from the tongue-like walkway of a cat-shaped spaceship, Disney’s 1978 film The Cat From Outer Space opens, invoking a science-fiction both familiar and alien. It is difficult to not subscribe to the film’s endearing nature of a developed animal companionship as a bond forms between human and cat that goes beyond…

  • Ring of Bright Water. Dir. Jack Couffer. Cinerama Releasing Corp. 1969.

    “He was boneless, mercurial, sinuous, wonderful… he was an otter in his own element and the most beautiful thing in nature I had ever seen.” [1] The 1960s seems littered with autobiographical accounts of human and animal relations which are, as a result of the popularity of the novel, projected upon the platform of film.…

  • The Birds. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Universal Pictures. 1963.

    The Birds (1963) is undoubtedly a horror film because it contains a deep sense of the uncanny, a term Freud coins as something that is terrifying because it is familiar.[i] The Birds contains many pockets of fear and gruesome imagery throughout the film. Hitchcock’s use of human bodies being pecked at by birds are an example of the…

  • Oliver and Company. Dir. George Scribner. Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. 1988.

    Let’s be honest, most of us will agree that stories can always be improved by the addition of a few adorable animals. It’s understandable then that Disney chose to recreate the classic tale of Oliver Twist using a whole host of cute and quirky quadrupeds in their 1988 animation Oliver and Company. Drawing on its…

  • Earthlings. Dir. Shaun Monson. Nation Earth. 2005.

    Fig. 1 The original release poster for Earthlings, the film’s oft repeated challenge to the viewer to ‘make the connection’ features prominently alongside pictures of plants, animals and the evil emperor Commodus (representing humankind).   ‘How do you know if someone is Vegan? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you’. So proclaims an increasingly popular meme. Type preachy into…

  • Watership Down. Dir. Martin Rosen. Cinema International Corporation. 1978.

    Above left: Film Poster             Richard Adams reading Watership Down in 2008 Far from the fluffy, cotton-tailed animals we think rabbits to be, Watership Down (dir. Martin Rosen, 1978) depicts the brutal world of a political and regimented rabbit hierarchy. Chief rabbits dictate from the top of the hierarchy, whilst the military ‘Owsla’ bring down…