James' Movie Blog

  In the 1960s, the Walt Disney company was trying to experiment with a lot of things. One of these projects was cutting down on their animation, and thanks to the xerography process, it made their 1961 feature “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” easier to animate. And while the animation is good for that film, it's not what people remember. What people do remember about that film is the villain: Cruella de Vil. And Disney took notice. The company managed to take the central image of that character, and make it one of the key selling points of the movie. And, naturally, Disney experimented by turning the character into live action. In 1996, they tried with somewhat disastrous results, but now, we have a full-blown movie dedicated to the character. So, how does “Cruella” stand out? It's good. Not great, but good enough to watch on the big screen. True, there are some moments that don't add up, but as a whole, the movie is quite good. “Cruella” is an interesting character study,...

  Trying to make an animated film contain the subject of war, is very difficult. This is why war films are made in live action; they can be believable. Everything is recreated so that way, the people who survived can have some sort of memory of what happened. Plus, it gives out a good deal of entertainment value for everyone to enjoy. However, going back to animation, making a war film using the medium, can usually lead to some sort of misdirection. Just look at 2005's “Valiant”, an interesting movie, which is hindered greatly by a wide variety of factors. One of which is the presentation. It just doesn't bring out the entertainment value a lot of war films handle. While the film has good intentions, the end product is not pleasing to the eyes. And in the case of the acting, the ears as well. “Valiant” doesn't evoke or inspire, and instead, does not bring out the message of war to the fullest potential. The story is set in 1944 in England during the height of World War II....