ZooScope

Tag: HAR: Spectacle

  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Dir. Alfonso Cuarón. Warner Bros. 2004.

    Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Official Trailer [i] In 2004, Warner Bros. unveiled the third Harry Potter instalment, blessing the film franchise with the innovative, ingenious, and cinematically distinctive director Alfonso Cuarón. Back at Hogwarts for their third year, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert…

  • We Bought a Zoo. Dir. Cameron Crowe. 20th Century Fox. 2011.

    We Bought a Zoo is a film loosely based on a memoir of the same name by Benjamin Mee which describes his purchase and restoration of the failing Dartmoor Wildlife Park – subsequently renamed Dartmoor Zoological Park – in preparation for its reopening. In the film, the death of Benjamin’s wife has led to a…

  • Happy Feet. Dir. George Miller. Warner Bros. Pictures. 2006.

    The Warner Bros. Pictures (2006) film Happy Feet tells the heart-warming tale of Mumble (Elijah Wood), a dancing emperor penguin who is a little different from the rest of his kind.[1] Mumble becomes an outcast in his own community because unlike every emperor penguin before him he is unable to sing. His talents lie elsewhere in the form…

  • The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Dir. Wes Anderson. Buena Vista Pictures. 2004.

    Wes Anderson’s fourth full-length film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, details the life of oceanographer and documentarian Steve Zissou following the death of his professional partner and best friend. The film, like many directed by Wes Anderson, ultimately became a cult classic, but not before being met with serious criticism from film critics. The dissonance…

  • Flicka. Dir. Michael Mayer. 20th Century Fox. 2006.

    Flicka is a film partially based on the novel My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara written in the 1940’s. This movie however, is set in the 21st century and the main character is not a boy, but a girl by the name of Katherine “Katy” McLaughlin. This gender change from book to movie could be…

  • Werckmeister Harmonies. Dir. Béla Tarr. Artificial Eye. 2000.

    Béla Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), based on László Krasznahorkai’s 1989 novel The Melancholy of Resistance, sees the arrival of an enormous taxidermy whale in a small Hungarian town. Local postman János, played by the wide-eyed Lars Rudolph, becomes fascinated by the displaced beast, seeing the divine beauty and awe of God’s creation in its rotting…

  • Happy Feet. Dir. George Miller. Warner Bros. Pictures. 2006.

    Happy Feet (Dir. George Miller, 2006) is a film normally associated with the representation of environmental issues, encouraging environmental awareness and consciousness of the animals worldwide affected by human actions. It also presents the theme of individuality, with the main character Mumble shunned for being different but eventually accepted into the penguin community after he is…

  • Free Willy. Dir. Simon Wincer. Warner Bros. Family Entertainment. 1993.

    Famed for its CGI clip of a killer whale jumping over a wall into freedom, family film Free Willy follows a young boy’s transformation from “street kid” to animal activist after forming a bond with hostile orca Willy. 12 year old Jesse’s bond enables him to train and care for the three ton orca, which several trainers…

  • Jaws. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Universal Studios. 1975.

    Jaws, Spielberg’s second major film[1] , released in 1975 is widely recognised as an important piece of cinema, with one of the most memorable and suspense building soundtracks of all time. Despite the creepy and more blood thirsty elements of the film there are also moments of humour, as comedy plays quite a large role in…

  • Milking the Rhino. Dir. David E. Simpson. Kartemquin Films. 2009.

    David E. Simpson’s 2009 documentary Milking the Rhino is a groundbreaking, astonishing story of two cattle farming cultures, the Maasai of Kenya and Ovahimba of Namibia, caught between trying to conserve their ancient traditions amid the growing pressure of modern wildlife conservation. They represent the largely unseen inhabitants of the wildlife documentary, the conveniently ignored…