These photos are from the film being made by Stephen Speilberg. I had wondered if he'd stick with using the puppets and use a more graphic style, but it looks like it's real-life all the way.
I couldn't get to the photos what with all the commercials etc. that the site threw at me, but I'll go track them down again after. I didn't know they were making "War Horse" into a film--I agree, definitely a box of Kleenex will be in order. I am curious about the "Secretariat" film coming out--I saw a trailer on the Disney channel the other day and am filled with fear. I was about 12 when Secretariat swept the Triple Crown and have vivid memories of that saga--and they do not include one scene that flashed briefly by on the screen: it definitely looked as if the dignified Mrs. Tweedy, the trainer, the jockey and the groom were boogying as they stood around the horse hosing him down. Scary prospect.
Yes, hankies all round I think. What browser do you use Moggypie? I use Google Chrome and didn't get any adverts, or maybe I screened them out when I set up my anti-virus... what unaccustomed forethought! I hadn't heard about the Secretariat film coming out. Will investigate.
I've been meaning to write about this all week, but reading the exclusive in Horse and Hound about the controversy tipped me over the edge. For my non-horsy readers, rollkur is a training/warming up technique used by some dressage riders. It basically involves riding the horse with its jaw pulled in virtually to its chest, in order to increase suppleness. Patrik Kittel , a Swedish competitor in Odense was videoed riding his horse in this way. If you watch the video , you'll see the horse's tongue hanging out - blue. It takes a while before the rider notices this. When he does, he stops, puts the horse's tongue back in, and carries on. There are two things which bother me about this. Firstly, I am fully aware large sections of the dressage world, and some of its brighest stars, consider rollkur perfectly ok, but the FEI guidelines state this practice should only be for short periods, allowing the horse to rest. Patrick Kittel apparently rode the horse for two hou...
My friend Louise sent me this picture today. It's from a children's book with the rather wince-making title For The Wee Ones. I thought, when I read that (because I read the message before I looked at the picture) that the picture was going to be a typical winsome production from the school of artists who think (or who are paid to think) that the child is a thing sent from God and a blissful thing. They had obviously never met a child, and certainly not mine. I should have known Louise better. The artist responsible for Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes slipped this one past the editors. Just look at the poor, broken Mother Rabbit. She knows she has not the faintest chance of being listened to, and poor thing, she is stooped in the way of a mother to whom this is just the lastest in a long line of horror; with nothing good to come. And Archibald is obviously the spawn of the Devil. Just look at those eyes. He'll have the bed after he's finished the bedclothes...
Here's a clip of Dick Sparrow driving 40 horses. It's an amazing sight, particularly when the shot changes to show the team from the rear and you get the great incongruity of modern American corporate architecture as a background to the wagon and horses. I love the anticipation in the video: the sense of something amazing being just round the corner is palpable. Thanks to Christina Wilsdon for telling me about this world record 46 Percheron hitch (alas just stills) but you get the idea.
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