The Big Picture Magazine
Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) revolves around Mr. Fox (George Clooney), a cunning, somewhat egotistical bird thief. The film is a dry, witty comedy suitable for both children and adults; however, it’s greatest interest is the portrayal of a morally gray character. Anderson sets up expectations for Mr. Fox’s character in the opening scene, […]
The sprightliness of the reimagined story of Little Red Riding Hood. A dark, atmospheric cautionary tale set in the slumps of Louisiana on the jazzy score of Adrien Chevalier. A little mouse who lives among books and their extraordinary adventures and who, when the candle burns out and he runs out of matches, must take […]
Childhood sweets are happy memories. They’re treats from loving parents, for being good, for being loved. It’s wartime in Grave of the Fireflies, but a tin of sweets cherished by a little girl is an image that transcends culture and time. That the sweets are later replaced by her ashes remains one of cinema’s cruellest, […]
Simply scrolling onto The Congress’ official website gives a very accurate depiction of Ari Folman’s feature. One is presented with an outlandish, gyrating mosaic of film clips; enough to make anyone recoil at its unrelenting visual assault. The colours are all too vibrant and little sense can be made of the story being told. The […]
Cleaver Patterson and Kieron Moore pull out their binoculars for a close-up look at some of the movies where the animal kingdom takes centre stage. NATIONAL VELVET (1944) Dir. Clarence Brown When young horse fanatic Velvet Brown first sets eyes upon a magnificent gelding she calls The Pie, she falls in love and dreams of […]
A cautionary metaphor for the dangers of unchecked power, or just a slice of Japanimation at its most ass-kickingly spectacular? Whichever way you look at it, the influence of Akira, the 1988 anime cult favourite, endures persistently. A nightmarish sci-fi yarn of motorcycle gangs and child psychics, of terrorists and telekinesis, amidst an imposing post-apocalyptic […]
I can’t help thinking that, for anyone born in the 1980s and subsequently raised exclusively on a diet of post-Jurassic Park creature realisation, the cinematic work of stop-motion maestro Ray Harryhausen must seem as archaic as Victorian magic lantern shows. What then would they make of Go-Motion, the near-forgotten transitional fossil of animation techniques that […]