Tag: reviews

Book Review: The Complete Peanuts, 1950-1952

When I bought The Complete Peanuts, 1950-1952 last year, I knew that I would enjoy it.

Unfortunately, for some contractual reason, the reruns of the Peanuts strip that appear in newspapers these days are limited to the 1960s or 1990s. I’ve pretty much stopped looking at them. Now, if they were allowed to go back to the very beginnings of the strip, THEN I’d start reading them again.

The problem for the syndicator, from a pure marketing point of view, is that the characters were still evolving, not at all as familiar as some of them would become. The key characters in the early days were Charlie Brown; Patty, not to be confused with the much later Peppermint Patty; Shermy, who’d end up in the background by the 1960s; and Snoopy, who was seen walking more on four legs than two. Violet, who ended up in the background, too, entered some seven months later; it was she, not Lucy, who held the first football that Charlie Brown missed.

Schroeder, the piano prodigy practically from birth, and needier than crabby Lucy were introduced as much younger characters than the other children. It was only later than the strips covered in this first volume that they, and baby Linus, aged to where we would most recognize them.

When I bought The Complete Peanuts, 1950-1952 last year, I knew that I would enjoy it. In fact, I like it more than the “classic” period of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Among other things, Charlie Brown wasn’t always so put upon. He was a bit of a scamp, who initiated mischief, compelling his friends to chase after him. He had moxie. No wonder Shermy felt as he did in the very first strip, shown below.

I recommend this book, in which we see the evolution of these beloved, and in some cases, largely forgotten characters.

MOVIE REVIEW: Hugo

Once all the parts are finally in place, it becomes not just a fabulous adventure, but a wonderful piece of history of movies.

I went to the Madison Theatre in Albany Saturday. While it was not on the newspaper listings, my wife told me that Moneyball was back at the cinema according to the theater’s website. Having disappointingly missed it before, I thought I’d finally go see it. Alas, it was not there. But I’d heard some decent stuff about Hugo, so I opted for that.

Ostensibly, Hugo is about a 12-year-old orphan (Asa Butterfield) who lives in the walls of a Paris train station in 1930, taking care of the clocks there in lieu of his MIA uncle (Ray Winstone), while trying to stay out of the way of the station inspector (a surprisingly effective Sacha Baron Cohen). His single link to his late father (Jude Law) is a mysterious mechanical device that the boy tries to get to work, stealing parts from a grumpy old man who sells tinker toys (Ben Kingsley). From all of that, the plot, also involving the old man’s goddaughter (Chloë Grace Moretz), departs.

Much of this I knew. And to tell the truth, it was a little too long getting through the early exposition; maybe a lot too long, and I struggled to see the point of it all. But once all the parts are finally in place, it becomes not just a fabulous adventure, but a wonderful piece of history of the movies. I read one suggestion that it was not marketed that well, and I can’t disagree, but I don’t quite know how to describe it myself without giving away key plot elements that ought to be experienced first hand. I will reveal that there are lots of “tips of the hat” to other filmmakers, such as Harold Lloyd (see the poster).

I think people will watch it on video, see that it is visually stunning, but will be bored and not bother to finish it; that would be a mistake. It turns out to be a lovely and moving essay on loss and discovery, and of film itself.

I should note that I saw the 3D version, and while I generally hate 3D – it reminds me of the Viewfinder I used to play with as a kid – it was well utilized by director Martin Scorcese, making his first family-friendly film, one his tween daughter can see, in lieu of Goodfellas, for instance.

The Year, Sort Of, In Review

Incidentally, the name of the charts of music generally associated with African-Americans has changed several times, from rhythm & blues (or R&B) to soul to black, back to R&B to R&B/hip-hop.

 

For the past several years, I have gone to the random number generator and taken a random line from a random post each month. It is not exactly representative of the year, but it does hit on some significant points.

January: I mean, I look at the synopses [of Night Gallery] and say, “Oh, yeah, right.” [Answering Gordon’s question]
February: The week before my mother died, I had nothing on any credit cards, save for any recurring expenditures, such as the newspaper. [That soon changed.]
March: Someone told me a long time ago that the number of keys one has related to how important they were. [ABC Wednesday]
April: This specific song [Help] my daughter knows all the lyrics to, without either encouragement or prompting from me. [My Beatles countdown]
May: I specifically remember him [my friend Steve] going on and on about this great singer/guitarist named Bonnie Raitt, who I had never heard of, but who he had seen perform in the area; her debut album would come out later that year. [This was my first 40 years ago entry]
June: Somehow, it seems as though he [my father] became a bit more real to her [my daughter]. [My Father’s Day post]
July: Maverick was on either Saturday or Sunday afternoon. [100 TV memories]
August: Incidentally, the name of the charts of music generally associated with African-Americans has changed several times, from rhythm & blues (or R&B) to soul to black, back to R&B to R&B/hip-hop.
September: It’s not a belief system; it’s not an “either, or,” it’s a fact, Jack. [Part of Amy’s question to me re: global warming.]
October: He [Glen Campbell] shared the fact that the favorite of his songs was Wichita Lineman, as he noted his favorite lyrics.
November: Media being as diffused as it is, a Real Housewife of Schenectady might be well known in certain circles but totally invisible by lots of others. [Re: the late Andy Rooney]
December: One [boycotted product] was for a drink mix from Pillsbury called Funny Face, targeted to compete with Kool Aid. [My more-or-less weekly question]

MOVIE REVIEW: Mary Poppins

The highlight for me was the dancing of the chimney sweeps to Step In Time; incredible!

 

The day after Christmas, the Palace Theatre, a once-and-again-classic Albany movie theater from the 1930s with a fascinating past, was showing the 1964 movie Mary Poppins at 3 p.m., preceded by activities for children. We pretty much missed the activities, such as posing with a young woman dressed as Ms. Poppins, because I was still moving slowly from whatever bug was paining me.

My wife decided that we should go up to the balcony, which I thought was an intriguing idea; it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a film from there. At some point, Ms. Poppins took the stage and announced the winners of a couple of drawings. Then there was a 10-minute drive-in movie theater intermission countdown that looked EXACTLY like this, only the full 600 minutes long. Then we got a short, Pecos Pest, a Tom and Jerry cartoon about the mouse’s guitar-playing Uncle Pecos terrorizing the feline.

Then our feature began. This was DEFINITELY a film, as opposed to some digital version. For one thing, there were three or four pops/skips, a couple of which unfortunately appeared during songs early on. For another, the second reel was much more orange-tinted than the prior or subsequent part of the film. Rather than annoyed, I found it oddly charming.

Speaking of odd, this was the first I had actually seen the movie. Oh, I’d viewed various segments over time. And I had read book adaptations to the Daughter. But I was unaware of the subplot involving women’s suffrage that Mrs. Banks (Glynis Johns, who I remember from a short-lived CBS fall 1963 sitcom called Glynis) was involved with. The guy with the cannon on a neighboring roof? New to me. But I must have seen the end of the film on TV, for I clearly recall the anagrammed name of the old banker changing to the actor who actually played him.

Julie Andrews was wonderful in this, of course, though Mary Poppins is sterner than I would have suspected. The songs by the Sherman brothers were infectious, especially, for the Daughter, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. The first song A British Bank, though, reminded me greatly of the With a Little Bit of Luck from My Fair Lady by Lerner and Loewe from about a decade earlier.

But the highlight for me was the dancing of the chimney sweeps to Step In Time; incredible! Indeed, my admiration for Dick van Dyke, already quite high, increased greatly.

One last bit: the tickets cost $5 each for The Wife and me, $3 for the Daughter, purchased at the box office. But, had we bought them online, it would have cost $23 more!

A good time.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Descendants

“If you think being in Hawaii all of the time is paradise, then you’re an idiot; no one’s immune to heartbreak and illness.”

So now it begins. The Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe nominations came out last week, and I usually look at the film choices that I’ve already missed (e.g., Ides of March, Moneyball), ones that haven’t made it here yet (War Horse, The Artist, et al.), and what’s currently available. Having three other choices (Hugo, My Week with Marilyn, Melancholia), I opted to see the film set in Hawaii at the Spectrum Theatre Sunday, while the Wife and Daughter went to a children’s dance recital.

The descendants of the title are a bunch of cousins some generations removed from Hawaiian royalty and missionaries, who own this pristine coastal property, but that, by law, they must sell. Matt King (George Clooney) is wrestling with that decision, while, at the same time dealing with his wife’s boating accident and his sometimes strained relationship with his two daughters. Directed and co-written by Alexander Payne, who created the well-received films Sideways, About Schmidt, and Election, the movie is a sad and occasionally funny tale of betrayal, loss, and reunion.

I was initially annoyed by the seemingly endless voiceover at the beginning of the film; I guess I like my story shown, not told. But the information contained therein 1) was important to the plot and 2) made me think. There was a specific line, which I don’t remember exactly, but it was something like, “If you think being in Hawaii all of the time is paradise, then you’re an idiot; no one’s immune to heartbreak and illness.”

Ultimately, I bought into the characters in the film, stopped thinking, “Hey, there’s George Clooney.” Figuring out fatherhood CAN be difficult. There were a number of strong performances, including Beau Bridges as a cousin, Robert Forster as Matt’s father-in-law, Judy Greer as a woman with something in common with Matt, and Shailene Woodley as the elder daughter. If the movie was a tad pat at times, it may have been the fault of the generally appealing screenplay, rather than the performers.

Still, I was moved by the story – quite a bit, truth be told – and would definitely recommend it.

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