ZooScope

Tag: Video

  • Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World. Dir. Tom Ellery and Bradley Raymond. Walt Disney Home Video. 1998.

    In Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, Pocahontas voyages to England with John Rolfe, an English diplomat. She must stop the villainous Governor Ratcliffe’s manipulation of King James and prevent the King from declaring war on the Native Americans. As expected in a Disney film, she just happens to fall in love with Rolfe…

  • Penguin Bloom. Dir. Glendyn Ivin. Netflix, Inc. 2021.

    Penguin Bloom. Dir. Glendyn Ivin. Netflix, Inc. 2021.

    Inspired by true events, Penguin Bloom tells the story of Sam Bloom, a mother and wife who became paralysed after a serious accident.  As she struggles through a difficult recovery, a small miracle occurs, a magpie called Penguin enters the Bloom family, changing the course of their lives forever. This scruffy looking creature builds an…

  • Life Doesn’t Frighten Me. Dir. Stephen Dunn. LDFM Films. 2012.

    Stephen Dunn’s 2012 Canadian short film, Life Doesn’t Frighten Me, presents viewers with a campy peek into the life of thirteen-year old Esther as she embarks upon her journey into womanhood. Taking place over the course of her thirteenth birthday, the film primarily revolves around Esther’s apprehensive feelings towards her imperfect appearance and her newly…

  • 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…

  • Animals: Friend or Food?. Dir. Jason Young . National Film Board of Canada. 2003.

    Animals, a documentary film directed by Jason Young, follows a young couple’s journey through a year-long experiment in raising their own livestock on a farm in Nova Scotia. The re-birth of the abandoned farm the couple takes over mirrors his re-birth as he changes from urbanite to farmer. After questioning their relationship with animals, the two…

  • The Grand Seduction. Dir. Don McKellar. Entertainment One. 2014.

    Don McKellar’s 2013 film The Grand Seduction, delves into the lives of those living in the small fishing town of Tickle Head, Newfoundland. The film follows the life of Murray French, a lifelong resident of Tickle Head who is determined to reinvigorate and restore his once esteemed town. When Murray was but a young boy, the…

  • 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…

  • Planet of the Apes. Dir. Franklin J. Schaffner. Twentieth Century Fox. 1968.

    Planet of the Apes is a story that takes a look at what the world would be like if Apes filled the role of humans, and vice-versa. What the film manages to do is not only point out how humans perceive animals as wild, and something that should be locked up and studied, but also…

  • Grizzly Man. Dir. Werner Herzog. Lions Gate Films. 2005.

    Grizzly Man, Dir. Werner Herzog, (2005). Grizzly Man, directed by Werner Herzog, presents a mixture of actual footage collected from Timothy Treadwell’s archive as well as interviews with his friends and family, conducted by Herzog. Treadwell’s relationship with the Bears and other wildlife is problematic as although he champions conservation he is also arguably interfering…

  • Bringing Up Baby . Dir. Howard Hawks. RKO. 1938.

    In the romantic comedy Bringing Up Baby (1938) Hawks explores the association between animalism (behaviours or feelings associated with animals) and chaos. The comedy emerges out of the interactions between the unlikely pair: Susan (Catherine Hepburn) and David (Cary Grant). This is because Susan is an eccentric, chaotic and a law evading romantic and David is a…