The Peanuts Movie Review

As a lifelong aficionado of the the world of Charlie Brown (in a fit of gratuitous self-promotion, allow me to link to an essay I wrote over the comic in honors of its 50th anniversary), in theory, a 21st century theatrical feature based on these characters should be something I despise. No doubt such a film updates individuals like Lucy and Linus by giving them cell phones, Vine accounts and other necessities of modern day existence. But a remarkable amount of restraint is shown by the filmmakers responsible for The Peanuts Movie, with the feature refraining from up giving Snoopy a "Poochie" like update in favor of retaining his personality that has managed to work OK for 65 years now.

Snoopy's Christmas Reiterates How Well Peanuts And Christmas Work Together

Here's another exciting entry in this Holiday themed column, 25 Days Of Christmas Pop Culture! From now until Christmas Eve, I'll be tackling one piece of Christmas pop culture! It could be a book, movie, TV special, song....so long as it's festive for this time of the year, it'll be checked out in this daily column!

Don't worry folks, I'll be getting to A Charlie Brown Christmas towards the end of this series, but there's another piece of pop culture that proves how much high quality emerges when Charles M. Schulz creations collide with Christmas. This time, it's a song, Snoopy's Christmas, instead of a television special, with this one focusing on Snoopy's World War I flying ace persona as he takes on The Red Baron on Christmas Eve.

It's A New Trailer For Your New Movie Charlie Brown!

The forthcoming The Peanuts Movie should be an abomination. It should be a film that takes certain beloved cartoon characters and turns them into freaky, overly realistic CGI concoctions solely to make a buck and spew fart gags (think of those hideous Scooby-Doo movies from 2002 and 2004). Instead though, it actually looks great. The characters have been translated to CGI animation in a successful manner that retains their distinctive hand-drawn look, creating a new kind of style I've never seen in a CGI-animated feature.