Dana Stevens on the Melancholy Beauty of the Charlie Brown Specials

Posted on November 8, 2008 at 5:47 pm

Slate’s Dana Stevens has a lovely essay on “Why I love the melancholy Peanuts holiday specials,” in honor of a new holiday collection dvd set.

Those specials–at least the big three: the Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas shows that were recently released in a “deluxe holiday collection” by Warner Bros.–have a mood unlike any animated film for children made before or since. For one thing, they’re really, really slow–slow not just by our ADD-addled contemporary standards but also next to the programming of their own time. Just compare the meandering pace of A Charlie Brown Christmas
(in which Charlie tries, and fails, to direct a single rehearsal of a Christmas play) with the generation-spanning epic crammed into Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
(1964). But what really sets the Peanuts specials apart is their sadness. Even digitally remastered, with the background colors restored to their original vivid crispness, the Peanuts holiday specials have a faded quality, like artifacts from a lost civilization. As Linus observes of the wan, drooping pine sprig Charlie Brown eventually rescues from a huge lot of pink aluminum Christmas trees, “This doesn’t seem to fit the modern spirit.”

My favorite is this beautiful scene with the children skating to the bittersweet music of Vince Guaraldi.

Stevens talks about the insights from the extras on the new DVD set, which reveal that it was Schultz who insisted that there be no laugh track and that real children provide the voices. But the highlight of the piece is her lyrical descriptions of what made those early specials so, well, special.

Here I could write an epic poem detailing the multiple felicities of the Peanuts specials: the van Gogh-esque night sky that dwarfs Linus and Sally as they wait in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin, Linus’ stirring reading from the Gospel of Luke at the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas, the impossibly hip “Little Birdie” song that plays in the background as Snoopy and Woodstock prep for their Thanksgiving feast.

Tribute: Michael Crichton

Posted on November 5, 2008 at 8:18 pm

I was very sorry to hear about the loss of author/director Michael Crichton. He was a man of astonishing range and accomplishment. He wrote best-selling novels, including Jurassic Park and the The Andromeda Strain. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, he created the television show ER. He became an accomplished director. One of my favorite of his films was the period heist story The Great Train Robbery. I am also a fan of his non-fiction book Travels, in part because his tireless curiosity and imagination were so engaging. His 1993 essay on the future of media was recently recognized in Slate as stunningly prescient. He was master of entertainment and a fresh and provocative thinker and will be much missed.

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David Thomson’s top 1000 Films

Posted on November 5, 2008 at 8:00 am

David Thomson is one writer whose appraisals are as riveting and entertaining as the films and performances he describes. His The New Biographical Dictionary of Film is one of the dozen or so indispensable reference works every film fan needs.

His latest book is “Have You Seen . . . ?”: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. He does not waste time trying to be too specific or consistent about his guidelines (okay, so “Monty Python” and “The Sopranos” are television programs, not movies, they’re still must watching) and thank goodness he does not try to rank anything. That does not mean you won’t find something to argue with. But it does mean that the arguments it sparks will be a lot of fun. Critics are cranky. But crankiness can be a lot of fun. Whether he included or dissed your favorites, it cannot be denied that every movie on his list is worth seeing and every entry in this book is worth reading.

Alice Upside Down

Posted on November 3, 2008 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Reference to sad death and illness
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters

Based on the popular series of books by Phylis Reynolds Naylor, this understated but sensitive and warm-hearted film is funny, touching, and wise.

Middle school is miserable enough, but for Alice (Alyson Stoner) there are complications that are even more horrifying. She is brand new in town because her father (Luke Perry)
has just bought a music store in Silver Spring, Maryland, so they have moved away from everyone they know. She has gotten off on the wrong foot with just about everyone — a neighbor who is in her class in school (a muddy handshake and un-gracious rejection of her family’s gift of a meatloaf dinner), a boy from school (she accidentally opened the door to the changing room at the store and saw him in his boxers), and her terrifying new teacher, Mrs. Plotkin (Penny Marshall, in a welcome return to performing) by insisting that she was supposed to be moved to another class. But the most important reason she feels out of place (aside from being 11 years old) is that she misses her mother, who died when she was little, and her father does not want to talk about her.

Naylor and screenwriters Meghan Heritage and Sandy Tung have ably evoked the tumultuousness of 6th grade as Alice swings back and forth from misery to ecstasy and from over-confidence to utter humiliation and back again. When Miss Cole (Ashley Drane), the teacher she idealizes, directs the school play, Alice thinks all of her problems will be solved. All she needs to do is get the lead and fix the teacher up with her father so they can unite in marriage and in recognizing Alice as the fabulously talented, confident, and popular girl she knows she is destined to be.

Of course, that isn’t the way it all works out. Alice lapses into daydreams, forgets to do her homework, and finds that she did not inherit her mother’s gift for singing. But she also discovers that she can learn from her mistakes and that everyone deserves a second chance.

Stoner is an appealingly sincere young actress with a gift for comedy and “High School Musical’s” Lucas Grabeel is terrific as her older brother. Co-screenwriter Tung directs with enough respect for his characters and the audience that he lets everyone learn some lessons without having a sit-com resolution to every situation. It’s a fine family film, enthusiastically received when I introduced it at the Tallgrass Film Festival and I was delighted when it came in second for the festival’s audience award.

List: Election Documentaries

Posted on October 31, 2008 at 8:00 am

In honor of one of the most exciting elections in American history, here is a list of ten classic documentaries about elections and politics.

1. Primary This pioneering political documentary from Robert Drew, the first in a trilogy, shows candidate John F. Kennedy running against Hubert Humphrey in the Wisconsin primary in 1960. Elbert Ventura wrote in Slate:

Stacked up against today’s documentaries, which tend toward overweening subjectivity and strident polemics, Drew’s movies seem like relics. Here, it seems, was the first gaze–the audience granted an intimate glimpse of their leaders, the subjects not yet trained to play to the cameras. Ironically, Drew’s innovations would end up killing the very spontaneity he captured. The ubiquity of portable cameras, whose development Drew helped speed along, would eventually usher in the era of media-trained politicians.

2. The War Room “It’s the economy, stupid,” was the mantra of campaign specialists James Carville and George Stephanopoulos as they and their colleagues took a young Governor from Arkansas to the White House.

3. Our Brand Is Crisis Carville attempted to export his skill at marketing candidates to Bolivia and the result is a tale of American hubris — soon to be remade as a feature film starring George Clooney.

4. A Perfect Candidate Two very high profile Virginia candidates for the Senate, former Governor (and Lyndon Johnson son-in-law) Charles Robb and Iran-Contra figure Oliver North compete for votes in 1994 in one of the state’s most tumultuous elections.

5. Journeys With George The daughter of the first woman Speaker of the House made this up-close-and-very-personal documentary about the campaign of George W. Bush that is as much about the way media covers the candidate as about the candidate himself.

6. Anytown, USA Candidates for mayor of Bogota, New Jersey — two legally blind, one ill, in a race that proves that not only is all politics local politics but that local politics are just as brutal and unpredictable as national elections.

7. See How They Run Even by San Francisco standards, this race is a wild one. The ever-popular wheeler-dealer Willie Brown is challenged by a baker’s dozen of colorful characters.

8. The Delegate Most documentaries focus on the candidates, their top aides, or the press. This one looks at a 21-year-old delegate to the GOP convention.

9. Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story The late former Chairman of the Republican National Committee who engineered Ronald Reagan’s election is profiled in this current theatrical release.

10. Unprecedented – The 2000 Presidential Election Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman takes the viewers on a journey through the turbulent 2000 election with stops at the Republican and Democratic conventions and conversations with activists from all sides.