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Entries in Peanuts (8)

Wednesday
Dec092020

Showbiz History: Peanuts Special, Dame Judi, and Young Tom Hardy in Prosthetics

5 random things that happened on this day, December 9th, in showbiz history

1965 "A Charlie Brown Christmas" premieres on CBS, the first of many TV specials (and later feature films) based on Charles M Schultz classic comic strip. It went on to receive a Grammy nomination and win the Emmy for Outstanding Children's Programming and the Peabody, too. 

1988 Mississippi Burning (the first of Frances McDormand's three soon-to-be-four appearances in a Best Picture nominee) and two comedies My Stepmother is an Alien and Twins open in movie theaters...

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Sunday
Mar272016

Tim's Toons: Easter animation

Tim here. Easter is upon us, and with it comes the realization that, for a holiday with such prominent iconography and a pre-made adorable talking animal, the movies haven't been able to do much with it. The go-to classic Easter film for generations of TV audiences has been The Ten Commandments, a religious epic that isn't even about the life of Jesus; meanwhile, the secular side of the date has been horribly mangled. Recent attempts at minting new holiday classics include Rise of the Guardians, which devoted all of its energy to pretending to be a Christmas movie instead, and the deeply execrable Hop, a live-action/animation hybrid with James Marsden as the perpetually horrified human companion to an abominable CGI rabbit voiced by Russell Brand.

Dig a little, however, and you can still find some reasonably charming Easter Bunny pictures out in the world. As a public service, may I offer these three Easter-themed shorts, all of them available on the internet.

Funny Little Bunnies (1934)
One of Disney's Silly Symphonies from the middle of that series' life, this is a look at the factory-like process by which a community of rabbits ready the various candies distributed to the Christian American children of the world. Primitive already by the standards of 1934, with its metronome-like repetitions of action and complete lack of a plot, the film nonetheless thrives on account of its gorgeous color palette, blending dreamy springtime pastels with the rich saturation of early Technicolor. Not one of the all-time great Disney cartoons, but at just seven minutes, it goes down nicely. Right up until the split-second blackface gag, anyway, startlingly unnecessary even by the standards of Disney's 1930s infatuation with minstrelsy. (On YouTube)

Two more Easter shorts after the jump!

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Wednesday
Jan132016

Visual Category Madness... and Guild Nominees for Makeup/VES

This just in. Here's a quick Oscar chart update on all the Visual categories... (You can see the index of Oscar Predictions here - we're almost finished -- but of course everything gets taken down and rebuilt tomorrow - whew). I have worked through the sadness as I removed predictions for Carol in no brainer should be easy get categories like Production Design (seriously sometimes Hollywood make-a-me-crazy). The one I left in that I'm very worried about is Cinematography. It's one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. Watch them replace it with something basic like The Hateful Eight or The Martian (sigh). 

MEANWHILE... The Makeup and Hairstylists Guilds and the The Visual Effects Society, which have much larger voting bodies than their correlatives within the Academy released their nominations so we'll share those after the jump if you're interested with a few comments on each...

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Thursday
Nov052015

Tim's Toons: Peanuts at the movies

Tim here. One of the all-time iconic snippets of American pop art returns to movie theaters this weekend: The Peanuts Movie from Blue Sky Studios (of the regrettably deathless Ice Age movies) converts Charles Schulz's comic strip characters to CGI, and the results have been getting surprisingly warm reviews (I haven't seen it yet, and am only now letting myself start to get really optimistic about it). In its honor, and in case it turns out to be bad, let's revisit the animated Peanuts films to have gone before. For even setting aside the God knows how many television specials, this is the fifth Peanuts feature, and while some of them have been weaker than others, there's not a true clinker in the bunch.

A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969)
The first in this case is pretty emphatically the best: based (like all of the movies and TV shorts, ultimately) on a couple of narrative arcs taken from the comic strip, A Boy Named Charlie Brown is the one that gets the essentials most perfectly. It's a story of perpetual loser Charlie Brown finding something he's genuinely terrific at, and coming up short in the end, anyway. The specific thing the film hinges on is a spelling bee, but that's almost beside the point; the film takes its time getting to that point, dwelling on Charlie Brown's keen awareness of his own shortcomings for a good third of the running time before the plot even announce itself in earnest.

It could be mopey, and it sure as hell sounds mopey, but A Boy Named Charlie Brown benefits from having the genuine anguish on display cut with the same sense of wry humor as the comic strip – as well it ought to, being written by Schulz himself (like the other features and basically every Peanuts animation prior to his death in 2000). And there's also the flights into broad comedy on the back of the Snoopy B-plot, to knock the rest of the edge off. It's perfectly bittersweet, funny enough that it's never hard to watch (it is, after all, for children), but deeply felt and never, never willing to join in the general mockery of Charlie Brown himself.

There's a distinct stiffness to the dated and even awful (but Oscar-nominated!) song score, which jangles badly against the terrific instrumental jazz score by Peanuts mainstay Vince Guaraldi, but that's really the worst thing to say against it. The animation is as ambitious as the series ever got, with shifts into an almost experimental mode, the child cast's voice acting is right on point with sharp frustration and melancholy, and the pragmatic moral – "The world didn't come to an end" – is one of the great moments in all of Peanuts.

Three more Peanuts classics below the jump

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Monday
Sep212015

Link Catch-Up, Oscar Warm-Up

Some of these links are a smidge old since I've been away for two weeks in Toronto, others brand new.

Get Peanutized the Peanuts Movie is advertising like Straight Outta Somewhere... by going for an internet meme. You can make yourself into a character. The options are a bit limited so this the best i could do at approximating me. I really wanted to be holding a coffee cup or a laptop
Boy Culture Novelist Jackie Collins, sister of Joan, dies at 77. My favorite memory of her will always be Sandra Bernhard reading a passage from "Rock Star" on David Letterman and then tossing the book aside after "wanna pick a flower you lucky man?"
Dark Horizons Brie Larson to play tennis legend Billie Jean King. Good luck Brie because tennis movies never get good reviews!
The Daily Beast interviews Tom Hardy about Legend, The Revenant, dogs, and that sexuality question that keeps popping up
The Telegraph their excellent film critics rank all Woody Allen movies ranked. Good read/insights even if you quibble with order
NYT "Hooray for Hollywood... No Really" a must-read conversation between the smarty New York Times film critics 
i09 Johnny Depp's six most inexplicable career decisions
MNPP Quote of the Day Paul Bettany vs. Jason Statham. Meowwww

MNPP Do Dump or Marry: The X-Twinks - Ben Hardy, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Tye Sheridan
NYT Jack Larson, aka Jimmy Olsen from TV's original Superman, dies at 87 
Towleroad are these the top ten coming out scenes from TV history?
Empire Amanda Seyfried joining the cast of Twin Peaks Season 3 in a new role
/Film Pulp Fiction original cast wish list? This is so weird to consider 
Film Stage Charlie Kaufman discusses Anomalisa 

You Know Awards Season's Coming When...
The arguments get more heated. THR published a negative piece on Truth and Awards Daily thinks it's a hit job from the Right (with more to come from The Left). And Vulture's already declaring the winner which puts a big target on its back. My goodness. We're starting early this year, huh?! ICYMI I also pitted Truth and Spotlight against each other (for fun... I don't actually think they're after the same thing at all). And finally these two pieces framing this year's Oscar Best Actress race as "Under 30 Contest" and "Women of All Ages" just goes to show you how much framing by the media can count when it comes to narrative / awards shows. 

Yes yes. I'm going to start updating the Oscar charts to reflect Festival Madness. Probably tomorrow.

Today's Watch


Downton Wars Episode 1 Bates & Thomas draw lightsabers on each other... for a good cause. Rob James-Collier, tv's most delicious evil gay butler, filmed this for charity, in the downtime on set. Mashing up Star Wars and Downton is not quite as wonderful as it sounds but both episodes have a few good chuckles.
Downton Wars Episode 2 This one is better if way too slow. The asides to the Downton actors sending up their own characters are wonderful - particularly Daisy, Mrs Patmore, and Lady Mary. Bonus Points: Dowager Countess Jedi... Dame Maggie Smith 4evah !