James' World 2

Loving Vincent is a 2017 experimental animated biographical drama about the life of painter Vincent van Gogh, and in particular, the circumstances of his death. Loving Vincent is written and directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman and is the first fully painted animated feature film. Every frame is hand oil painted on canvas, which has never been done before making Loving Vincent the most unique animated film. It took a team of 125 painters to achieve its visual master piece.

One year after Vincent van Gogh’s (Robert Gulaczyk) suicide, Postman Joseph Roulin (Chris O’Dowd) asks his son Armand (Douglas Booth) to deliver Van Gogh’s last letter to his brother, Theodorus “Theo” van Gogh (Bartlomiej Sroka). Roulin finds Vincent’s death suspicious, as merely weeks earlier Van Gogh claimed through letters that his mood was calm and normal. Armand reluctantly agrees and heads off for Paris.

Père Tanguy (John Sessions),

Ferdinand is a 3D computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Blue Sky Studios, Davis Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Animation. The film was based on Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson’s children’s book, The Story of Ferdinand, written by Robert L. Baird, Tim Federle and Brad Copeland and directed by Carlos Saldanha.  Ferdinand is another animated movie I was obligated to see because of the Oscars.  Ferdinand is also another animated movie I was happy to have seen because it was excellent with a beautiful message.  I must say, animation story telling is getting better and better.

Ferdinand opens in Spain on a ranch owned by Moreno (Raúl Esparza) called Casa del Toro that trains bulls for bullfighting.  There is where a bull calf named Ferdinand (Colin H. Murphy)lives.  He is ridiculed by his fellow calves, Bones (Nile Diaz), Guapo (Jet Jurgensmeyer), and Valiente (Jack Gore) for…

The Breadwinner is an animated drama film by Cartoon Saloon. It is directed by Nora Twomey and executive produced by Mimi Polk Gitlin and Angelina Jolie. Based on the best-selling novel by Deborah Ellis, the film is an international co-production between Canada, Ireland, and Luxembourg. Being animated is not my favorite type of movie, however The Breadwinner is one of the best animated films I’ve seen. First I saw Coco and it was my pick for the Oscar, but after seeing The Breadwinner, I changed my vote. Welcome to the real world with an animated feature that was significant and profound — it has a real message!

Parvana is a young girl living in Kabul, Afghanistan, under control of the Taliban. Her father Nurullah, who is a teacher handicapped during The Soviet–Afghan War and turned a hawker, is unjustly arrested after a volatile young member of the Taliban, Idrees…

A Quiet Place is a horror film directed by John Krasinski and produced by Michael Bay’s company, Platinum Dunes, which is also run by Andrew Form and Bradley Fuller. The screenplay was written by Krasinski, Bryan Woods, and Scott Beck, based on a story by Woods and Beck.  In A Quiet Place, a family must live life in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt exclusively by sound. While I don’t like horror movies, I opted to see this one because I was told it was a different kind of horror film that didn’t involve anything demonic, wicked, nor the usual teenagers screaming and scheming in the woods.  My information was good and I enjoyed A Quiet Place.

Over a three month period in 2020, most of Earth’s human population has been wiped out by sightless creatures with hypersensitive hearing and a seemingly impenetrable armored shell that attacks…

Avengers: Infinity War is a Superhero film based on the Marvel Comics Superhero team, the Avengers.  It’s produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Motion Picture Studios. It is the nineteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It’s the sequel to 2012’s The Avengers and 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, while also picking up plot points from many other MCU movies, most notably Captain America: Civil War, Thor: Ragnarok, Doctor Strange, and the two Guardians of the Galaxy films. Infinity War is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and features an ensemble cast.

Avengers: Infinity War opens with Thanos and his henchmen (Ebony Maw, Cull Obsidian, Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive), intercepting the ship carrying survivors of Asgard’s destruction.  Thor, Loki, Heimdall and Hulk are powerless to prevent the extraction of the Space Stone from…

Mudbound is an American period drama directed by Dee Rees and written by Rees and Virgil Williams, based on the novel of the same name by Hillary Jordan. Mudbound is a Netflix Original production. The film depicts two World War II veterans – one white, one black – who return to rural Mississippi each to address racism and PTSD in his own way. I never really wanted to see this movie because it just stirs up painful issues of yesterday, which I’ve seen enough of.  However, I found Mudbound different from what I’m use to seeing — all history albeit redundant is significant, so I watched it, especially because Mudbound is Oscar nominated.

Henry McAllan (Jason Clarke) and his brother Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) struggle to bury their recently deceased father, Pappy (Jonathan Banks) during a rainstorm. When the coffin proves too heavy for the two of them, Henry flags the…

Beauty and the Beast is a musical romantic fantasy directed by Bill Condon from a screenplay written by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos, and co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Mandeville Films. The film is a live-action adaptation of Disney’s 1991 animated film of the same name, itself an adaptation of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s eighteenth-century fairy tale. While Beauty and the Beast is a timeless film and story is hasn’t lost it’s appeal.  Every time it’s remade, it gets better and better.  I’m so glad I decided to see it once again.

In Rococo-era France, a beautiful enchantress disguised as an old beggar woman (Hattie Morahan) arrives at a castle during a ball and offers the host, a cruel and selfish prince (Dan Stevens), a rose in return for shelter from the storm. When he refuses, she reveals her identity. To punish the prince for his selfishness, the…

Blade Runner 2049 is an American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green. Blade Runner 2049 is a sequel to the 1982 film Blade Runner, which was a big hit receiving 8.2 on IMDB. 2049 is set thirty years after the first film. A blade runner uncovers a secret that threatens to instigate a war between humans and replicants. I didn’t like this sequel as much as the first film but still thought it was good.

The original Blade Runner was set between 1982 and 2019.  The sequel’s timeline is set just 2 years after its release date in 2017.  All the technological advancements of the original were adopted but many of the actual developments of the era were disregarded, for example;  flat-panel displays, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Pan Am.

In 2049, replicants (described as…