Tag: HAR: Spectacle
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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…
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Duma. Dir. Caroll Ballard. Warner Bros Pictures. 2005.
Duma. Dir. Caroll Ballard. Warner Bros. Pictures. 2005. Duma follows the narrative of a young boy named Xan embarking on an epic adventure to release his pet cheetah, Duma, to the wild. The ever-looming inevitability of Xan and Duma’s separation is the emotional core of the film, and Ballard’s depiction of their perilous journey together explores…
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Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Dir. Edgar Wright. Universal. 2010.
Joseph MackayMonday 16 January 2017 Scott Pilgrim vs The World, a film based on Bryan Lee O’ Malley’s six graphic novel series of the same name, is about the titular Scott attempting to win the heart of a girl named Romana Flowers – to accomplish this, he must defeat her ‘seven evil exes’. As the…
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Weekend. Dir. Jean-Luc Godard. Athos Films. 1967.
Weekend (1967), dir. Jean-Luc Godard (watch the full film with English subtitles here) Jean-Luc Godard’s 1967 film Weekend follows the distinctly middle-class experience of Roland and Corinne as they take a trip to Corinne’s family home in the country to secure her inheritance from her father, which, as we will find out, they will acquire by any means necessary.…
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Jurassic World. Dir. Colin Trevorrow. Universal Pictures. 2015.
Welcome to Jurassic World – the planet’s most amazing theme park! Take a vehicle tour through Gallimimus Valley and run with the fabulous flocks, or roll around in the gyroscope to get up close to your favourite docile dinos. If you’re looking for a fright, check out the wow-tastic Mosasaurus feeding shows! And new for…
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Dir. Garth Jennings. Touchstone Pictures, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2005.
Garth Jennings’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy introduces its science fiction narrative by destabilizing the assumption that human intelligence is greater than that of all other animals by conceptualizing that they are in fact only “the third most intelligent creature on the planet” and dolphins are the second. A satirical image entitled ‘Why Dolphins are the…
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Wir sind im Zoo. Dir. Bruno Kleberg. Progress Film-Verleih. 1953.
We are at the zoo is an 1953 Film about a class of pioneers visiting the Leipziger Zoo in the German Democratic Republic. On their visit the class is being accompanied by an Off-Speaker, who comments on the action and introduces the animals while the pioneers walk through the park. In most cases this is…
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Water for Elephants. Dir. Francis Lawrence. 20th Century Fox. 2011.
Water for Elephants (Dir. Francis Lawrence, 2011), based on the novel of the same name, is a story about a young man Jacob (Robert Pattinson) who joins a travelling circus and is unsurprisingly about confinement and freedom. It’s brimming with animals from horses to lions to the star of the show, Rosie the elephant, all of…
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Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Dir. Robert Zemeckis. Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc.. 1988.
Robert Zemeckis’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) is set in the ‘Toon’-dominated animated film industry of Hollywood in 1947, 40 years previous to the film’s actual release. [1] Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins), [2] a private investigator and the film’s human protagonist, ends his hiatus from sleuthing, caused by his brother: his professional partner’s Toon-related death, after receiving a…
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Chicken Run. Dir. Peter Lord and Nick Park. Pathe Distribution Ltd.. 2000.
I must have first seen Aardman Animation’s Chicken Run (2000) around the age of seven, not long after its initial release, and I remember frequently quoting it after that. But the film’s self-consciousness about its family audience, manifested in the wonderful attention to detail, has meant that I have kept enjoying, noticing and learning new…