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Image Description: A illustration of a scene from Mulan Oh, glorious CGI! We are a slave to your technicolour dreamscapes, your larger-than-life monsters. It seems remarkable to me to re-watch the first Harry Potter film and realise that I am expected to be gripped by terror, watching that magnificent blue troll before me. It looks, […]
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Image description: Picasso exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum When I was around ten years old my parents took me to an Yves Klein exhibition – as I gazed into the large, blue paintings, my dad explained that I was looking at “Klein’s blue”, and that using this particular blue without the artists’ authorization was illegal […]
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Image Credit: Walterlan Papetti (CC BY-SA 4.0) This summer has seen Disney cross another major milestone in its journey to put characters from across the LGBT spectrum on the big screen. The upcoming Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson film, Jungle Cruise, is set to feature Jack Whitehall as the gay brother of the film’s leading lady. […]
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Six years after On Stranger Tides, Disney has rebooted the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise again. Dead Men Tell No Tales – the fifth film in the series – is an improvement to On Stranger Tides but not by much. Dead Men Tell No Tales begins with drumbeats and a rendition of “He’s a Pirate”, […]
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When it comes to TV, I’m not a particularly emotional person. I’m not saying I don’t appreciate a show with emotional depth or enjoy a moving moment, but I’m never the sort to cry at stuff on screen. So it was quite surprising to me the other day that, upon reaching the series finale of […]
Continue Reading“Rediscover a tale as old as time,” ran the tagline of the extensive marketing campaign which accompanied this remake’s release. From the start, Disney have been aware of the sanctity of their source material; few animated films are so beloved or well-remembered as The Beauty and the Beast. The original is still the only animated […]
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If you’ve heard anything about Zootropolis (Zootopia in the U.S.), you’ve probably heard how ‘timely’ it is. In the wake of #BlackLivesMatter, Disney has released a kid-friendly film addressing racial profiling, pseudo-scientific racism and other issues of racial – or ‘species-ist’ – bias. Although I’m not sure what these critics would call an ‘untimely’ time […]
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Fantasia. It’s the movie snob’s Disney film of choice, featuring some of the most imaginative and gorgeous animation the studio’s ever produced, set to beautiful classical music. It’s iconic, artistic and groundbreaking in demonstrating the scope of what animation could do and the potential of Disney as a film studio. For me? It taught me […]
Continue ReadingAs violins soar, arching high across the rest of the orchestra, you know nothing but to expect that wide-eyes closed, story-stopping kiss; the one that graces the lips of every Disney Princess and her beloved prince, undoubtedly embodying all that we associate with a Disney Princess movie. The tableaux image epitomizes values of true love, […]
Continue ReadingLike so many others, I viewed Disney’s trailers for the new winter hit, Frozen, with considerable scepticism. What could the legendary company churn out for the Christmas film market, other than a festive cheese-fest? I’m unashamed to say, Frozen is undoubtedly one of Disney’s best modern creations, destroying my preconceptions within a matter of minutes, and captivating the […]
Continue ReadingOnce upon a time, not too long ago, mere mention the name ‘Disney’ evoked blissful memories and rapturous emotion for viewers young and old. Films like Bambi and Dumbo have forever etched their names into the lore of immortal cinema, and the company’s entire enterprise is a great example of an utterly cornered market. Granted, […]
Continue ReadingWell. I’ve got a very bad feeling about this. On October 30th, the news came that George Lucas had sold LucasFilm, the company behind such classics as Star Wars IV-VI and India Jones 1, 2 and 3, to Disney for $4.02bn. So, uh, trick or treat? A forgivable gut reaction for any serious Star Wars […]
Continue ReadingHow does one go about creating a silicone puppet with a metallic skeleton? It’s not a question I ever envisaged asking myself, but as I sit opposite Ian MacKinnon and Peter Saunders in London’s Corinthia Hotel, I’m about to find out. The pair are veteran puppet-makers, having worked on projects from Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. […]
Continue Readingby Phosile Mashinkila The pretty dresses,the handsome princes, the happy endings and the memorable Oscar winning songs. I know I’m not the only one that gets a warm, fuzzy feeling inside at the memory of those Disney films: that moment when you sat down at the cue of the fairytale castle and the magical opening […]
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