A few weeks ago, we posted a number of reviews of DVDs featuring the Peanuts gang, but I had one more in the hopper that I’d been holding off on posting until we needed to fill some space during the holidays. I meant to post it earlier, but better late than never, especially since our “Best Of 2008″ feature has been delayed until ol’ Ben gets himself a new computer to replace his old, regrettably fried, unit. He promises us that the replacement model will be one sweet machine, including Blu-ray capability! Every cloud does indeed have a silver lining.

So, here we have a review of yet another Christmas special featuring Charlie Brown and company, the surprisingly good I Want A Dog For Christmas, Charlie Brown. This extra-long special was done in 2003, after Peanuts creator Charles Schulz had already passed away, but the jokes are straight out of the strip and it works out very well. Additionally, there are two shorter specials included as bonuses, specials that were originally made to fill out broadcasts of the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas, including the terrific Making Of A Charlie Brown Christmas, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, with lots of vintage footage of early Peanuts car commercials and more. This disc came out from Paramount back in 2004; so, with Paramount no longer having the Peanuts home video rights, this disc has been discontinued. BUT it’s well worth trying to find this real gem of a DVD.

Additionally, I just happened to find what I thought was a pretty darn neat tie-in with our recent review of Batman: The Complete Animated Series, a doodle of Batman and Snoopy - as you can see in our image top right - that was given to comic book illustrator Carmine Infantino by Charles Schulz himself! Is that cool or what?!? Extremely, I say! I found this while reading a book I picked up at Comic-Con in July, a bargain for 5 bucks! To me, this image alone made that purchase worthwhile.

From all of us here at Animated News & Views, Happy New Year!!!!- Rand.

Merry Christmas from Animated Views! We’ve got a few presents for you this week.

First up is Randall’s exhaustive review of Batman: The Complete Animated Series. Randall came away impressed by the content, packaging, and the extra goodies in this comprehensive set — so consider yourself lucky if Santa leaves it under your tree! Also online is my review of The Tale of Despereaux, a film I was excited to see based on the previews. Sadly, it ended up being very disappointing.

Getting some more tangible gifts coming their way are the winners of our three Christmas contests: Geraldine of Boca Raton FL will receive a copy of The Little Mermaid II: Return To The Sea DVD; Daniel-Jean of Plattsburgh NY will receive a copy of The Nutty Professor on DVD; and Anthony of Trinity FL is the winner of a big The Tale Of Despereaux prize pack.

Finally, we’ve got a huge Best of 2008 article just about ready to go. Unfortunately, some technical difficulties are keeping Ben (your usual Tooning In blogging buddy!) offline, which is holding up our putting some finishing touches on the piece. We hope to get that to you ASAP.

Until then, Happy Holidays! — James.

I still have a big silly smile on my face from a rerun of Road To Rupert, the frankly excellent episode of Family Guy that I saw again last night and which finally tuned me into the series when I first saw it some months ago. When Family Guy gets it right, it gets it really right, and the recreation of the animation and live-action Gene Kelly sequence from Anchors Aweigh, with baby Stewie replacing Jerry the mouse in the celebrated song and dance [right], is surely a series highlight. Big grins all around!

While I’m off riffing, I’ll make a mention of Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog finally coming to DVD in a couple of days, where it will be available exclusively from Amazon.com from December 19. For the uninitiated, Dr Horrible is a hysterically funny webisode series from Joss (Buffy) Whedon about a diabolically twisted super-villain…at least he kind of is in his own mind when he’s not whinging about being foiled or singing about the girl he secretly admires! I counted myself among the uninitiated until I saw the complete edition premiere at this year’s Comic-Con in San Diego, where the insane genius of the show was revealed to me and many others, including James, who was already a big fan. Completely brilliant in a Buffy: Once More With Feeling kind of way, you’ll find more on the project and the extensive list of DVD extras right here - who knows? If we buy big we might get the series all the fans want out of it!

Right…back to business, and it’s DVD Tuesday folks. In true Disney follow-up tradition, new to stores today is a fresh Special Edition of The Little Mermaid II: Return To The Sea, one of the studio’s earliest direct-to-video sequels and one of the titles that earned these films the unfavorable “cheapquel” moniker. We’ll have a review up for the new edition - whose only bonus making this special is a previously unreleased deleted song - shortly, but in the meantime, we’ve a copy to give away to one winning name in our Little Mermaid II contest!

We’ve gone Christmas Contest crazy: also up for grabs today is a copy of the Weinstein Company’s The Nutty Professor computer animated update. Nope, we hadn’t heard of it either, but as the 1960s original remains one of my favorite comedies I was intrigued enough to take a look…again our review will be up in the days to come. Can we expect great things? Well this is a Weinstein release (for all their great live-action pictures the guys just don’t get animation) and it seems it not only skipped theaters but almost went unnoticed on DVD (the disc has been out since November). However, for those like me that can’t resist, our Nutty Professor contest is now open!

Both giveaways come to close this Sunday, 21 December at 11:59pm ET, so be quick to get your entries in, and remember that for our US readers, we still have our Tale Of Despereaux contest open until the same cut off point too. We’ll bring you the winning names for all three giveaways shortly after the deadline, and we’re also working on bringing you a heap of updates to keep you going over the Christmas break, including reviews of Watership Down: 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition and Batman: The Complete Animated Series, plus a couple of really cool interviews and our regular look back on the Best Of The Year!

Stay tooned! - Ben.

Just in time for the weekend we have a packed update for you, and there I was saying that we were starting to slow down for the holidays! A couple of days ago our own James R Whitson posted his take on Disney’s latest, the animated animal adventure Bolt, and seems to have found it something of a return to form for the Studio, remarking that “Disney’s computer animation has come a long way since Chicken Little just three years ago” and praising the “outstanding action sequences” and camera work. John Travolta and Miley Cyrus’ voice work isn’t a high point, but as James says, “it’s great to be able to go to a Disney movie again and know you’re going to have a good time”.

James has been a busy man, also reviewing the just released - and long in the making - Delgo, a feature which unfortunately became something of an easy target when it was closed down, re-financed, started again, and then went all mysteriously quiet. Finally coming to theaters today, James got a sneak peek recently and presents his full Delgo review right here. If I tell you you’re going to be surprised at his comments, that’s kind of giving away his feelings on the movie, right? Well you’d be right: James calls it a “fun, smart and beautiful film”, with some “impressive, epic storytelling on a much more grand scale than we’ve seen in a long time in an animated film”. There are points docked for some elements, but on the whole, “Delgo delivers”. I was interested in seeing the result myself, but now I’m even more intrigued…who’da thunk it!?

Also new today is the first of our Christmas Contests which we’ll be running from now until the holiday break. Coming on December 19 from Universal, The Tale Of Despereaux is a CG animated adaptation of the first of four books that was at one point to be directed by The Triplets Of Belleville’s Sylvain Chomet. Now under the watchful eye of filmmaker Gary Ross, the movie looks to be one of the more magical family entertainments in an otherwise rather uninspiring Christmas period and to celebrate we have one Despereaux pack up for grabs stuffed full of goodies: just follow the link to be in with a chance of winning!

James isn’t the only one to have been to the movies this week: Wednesday evening was a bit of a triple-header for me as I sat through a trio of films, and poor Delgo is unlikely to stand a chance against Klaatu and his giant organic robotic technological friend in the first of them, which of course you’ve guessed is Fox’s reimagining of The Day The Earth Stood Still, featuring Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly. I’m a massive fan of Robert Wise’s film, but was intrigued to see what had been done here: without blasting any spoilers at you, it takes the bare essence of the 1951 original - man, robot being, the Earth coming to a halt - and then throws out the rest, basically coming up with a totally new take on those ingredients.

From its 1920s set opening and first sight of Keanu, anyone that knows the original film will know this is a very different film than what has come before, and indeed it’s not your average sci-fi action blockbuster, being a more thoughtful outing that ties its message into the current environmental issues. The first half is pretty neat, director Scott Derrickson pulling out all the Spielbergian stops and creating a very intriguing new-ish story, but once Klaatu alien Keanu finds himself on the run, the film seems so intent on making itself so different from the original that it eventually runs out of steam, heading off in several directions and not coming to the kind of chilling resolve the original did. It’s still spine tingling, but not all in a good way, in fact its a bit bleak, drawing on a Close Encounters tone instead of a feel-good sci-fi adventure.

Klaatu himself is a bit of a boring character: Keanu is his usual, almost blank self, which is actually perfect for his character but the film desperately needs the warmth and humor that original alien Michael Rennie brought to the role way back when, and the changes in storyline offer us a very different kind of Klaatu than Wise did in 1951; here he’s less the warning of an apocalyptic future and more the instigator. In Sam Jaffe’s professor part, John Cleese is woefully underused (the guy must have a good agent: he gets near top billing for a single scene), as is Kathy (“should’ve bought a squirrel”!) Bates who just gets to strut around as a government official, while Connelly basically reprises her scientist role from Hulk to decent enough effect and her relationship arc with an adopted boy is well resolved.

In other areas, the visual effects are well done; there are moments that you know must have been VFX shots but they’re executed well enough. The big obvious effect is Gort the robot (or not a robot, as the film changes things here, with the military giving him his name) of course, and here he’s a big dollop of quite convincing and underplayed CGI that’s about as good as a tall guy in a suit would have been for the 1950s, with the now kitsch looking flying saucer replaced by another dose of CG in the form of a mysterious glowing globe. It’s not always successful - there’s a major plot hole involving a conveniently connected phone call that makes no sense - but will no doubt Hoover up a lot of money, and it somewhat deserves to, even if it might well leave a bit of a sour taste. Let’s just say The Day The Earth Stood Still 2 isn’t on the cards any time soon.

As a follow-up I found myself enduring Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and wondering what the world is coming to when such commercially minded yuck as this can go out and make so much moolah. Honestly, I thought there was a good film in here but was as if DreamWorks had actually skipped a second film and delivered us the Shrek The Third of Madagascar movies. The story issues were not helped by having to start the movie hopping between Africa (actually Kenya) and back in New York, replaying the first movie plot in seven seconds, and then just throwing any amount of crowd-pleasing jokes and loud music at the screen and seeing what sticks.

Basically it was more of the same, plus more of what we liked first time around: so more penguins, more King Julien (whom I didn’t actually like first time but warmed to more here with his Peter Sellers schtick), more of that really annoying old self-defense lady and a double dose of The Lion King for good measure. I was really surprised to find Alec Baldwin in the cast as the evil uncle, not least because I had felt the voice was weak throughout and wondered why they hadn’t gone all out, acknowledged it more as a straight nod and a wink and gotten a stronger actor in for the role. Baldwin’s usually very good, but he made little impact here, certainly not as much as Bernie Mac - another whom I can’t quite enjoy usually - who was here a very warm and perfectly cast character. But the writing was mostly lazy, being satisfied for Ben Stiller to simply reprise his bolshy “what? how? why? me?” act (I can’t believe they had him repeat his “you wanna piece of that!?” line again) instead of giving his character any of his own dynamics.

In the end, I found it very frustrating…a typical DreamWorks outing that chased the lowest common denominator (the audience I was with loved it and laughed throughout) and forwent a strong story for an episodic plot that felt very, very forced. I don’t have a problem with filmmaking by numbers when it’s done well, but Mad 2 was only interested in one thing: keeping us laughing enough so that we didn’t realize how bad it all was. We should have got it from the title: Madagascar is part of Africa you nuts, and where they actually end up (escaping from one part of the continent to another) is Kenya where, for argument’s sake, that volcano has been extinct for thousands of years… Ahh well, with all the money it’s making and an even poorer third helping in the works, I shouldn’t think they care very much.

Lastly, I caught up with Jason Statham in the latest of his Luc Besson action adventure films. I hadn’t seen the original The Transporter until a week or so ago, when it and its sequel played on TV in the run up to the recent release of Transporter 3 in theaters, but I found it to be great fun. Statham isn’t the sharpest thespian on the block, but that hasn’t ever stopped a good action man, and he is certainly that.

The Transporter films - so called because Statham plays a very experience driver hired to transport often sensitive packages - remind me of the Indiana Joneses…they’re not crude (there’s no nudity) or violent in anything other than a cartoon way, there’s little on screen that’ll give anyone nightmares and the quips come thick and fast (though be warned for limited use of the F-word).

It would also be hard to pick a best of the three - a rarity in itself - since they’re all happy to be different in their approaches and bring a fresh angle each time, even though they’re all ostensibly about a man and his car. The Indy comparison isn’t far off: the first film payed homage to Raiders by having Statham battling a bad guy on the front of a truck, while the second was even more explosive even if it strayed from the driver concept in parts.

In Transporter 3, Statham finds himself back behind the wheel and tied to it via a Speed like contraption that will detonate if he wanders more than 75 feet from the vehicle…leading to all sorts of cliffhangers and near misses as he brings the bad guys to task for their kidnapping plot. With a healthy dose of tongue in cheek humor and top-notch production values, I’d very much suggest giving the Transporter films a test drive, with this latest third ride around easily the most enjoyable of the three films I caught on Wednesday’s screenings.

So there we have it…Transporter 3 and Delgo being our top choices of the moment. Don’tcha just love it when the underdogs win?

Stay tooned! - Ben.

Interesting news in that reports that the Los Angeles Film Critics Association has awarded Pixar’s WALL•E its Best Picture of the year, the first time in its history it has honored an animated film in this way (the second choice was the Batman sequel, The Dark Knight, now available on DVD and Blu-ray). This obviously places curiosity in either or both of these films featuring heavily in the awards season to come, culminating with the Academy Awards, where WALL•E has also been mooted for a Best Picture push.

Since Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King opened the doors to such fantasy fare, the eventual winners of the big prizes have seen a return to the more somber and introspective films the Oscars usually prefer to walk home with, but this could be a very interesting year.

If WALL•E does make it to the Best Picture group, however, I’m afraid I don’t think it would win, leaving the space open for the critically acclaimed animated documentary Waltz With Bashir - which the LAFCA presented with its Best Animated Film award - to take home the honors. This begs the question: is a Best Picture nomination a higher accolade than a Best Animated Feature win? The debate is surely set to continue to rage for a long time to come…

In other news, I’m sorry to hear about the death of Oliver Postage at age 83. He’s a hitherto unknown name in American animation, but was a genuine legendary pioneer of stop-motion in Britain, famous for his many long-running animated series that would inspire the likes of Nick Park and his Aardman Animation collaborators, including Bagpuss, Ivor The Engine and The Clangers, also narrating these hand-crafted short films.

His setting up of Smallfilms with puppeteer Peter Firmin paved the way for many other companies to enter television animation and he remained a go-to name even recently. Ironically he was born only a few minutes drive away from where I used to live, and ended up in a seaside resort that I still often visit, though I sadly never looked him up. A further twist is that Postgate was the cousin of none other than Mrs Potts herself, Angela Lansbury!

In 1957, Postgate found himself at a commercial TV company and reasoned that he could do better with the low budgets, writing Alexander The Mouse as a 26 episode live-to-air program! The Journey Of Master Ho was next, shot on film in pantomimed stop-motion to reduce costs as well as appeal to deaf children. Its success led to Smallfilms, with Firmin producing artwork and models, Postgate writing scripts, providing the stop-motion and many of the voices; Postage produced two-minutes of movement a day, creating the films on a 16mm camera frame by frame with his home made clicker. Ivor The Engine arrived in 1959 (later remade in color in the 1970s), followed by Noggin The Nog and others before the huge success of The Clangers from 1969.

Postage continued to make films and series until 1987, when he then began a long gestating project to remaster and protect the Smallfilms library. This year, Bagpuss was named favorite British character, with the creation and many of Postgate’s others being sold to media company Coolabi in a three-quarters of a million dollars deal. As always, the ever reliable Guardian Online has a heap of articles on the man himself, and you’ll easily see from the titles and comments how fondly he’ll be remembered in the UK. Today’s print edition of the paper also includes a g2 supplement remembering Oliver Postgate by a number of leading broadcasters and fans.

Finally today, time enough to slip in a mention of the just-announced Sesame Street: Follow That Bird 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition from Warners. It’s about time this overlooked Muppet feature, the first such film to star the Sesame Street characters, came to disc in a decent version, and hopefully this is it. We’ll know for sure when it is released on March 24 for $19.97, with extras promising a “new featurette”.

James has also just let me know that his animated view on Bolt should be making its way to the Toon Review line-up sometime today, so stay tooned! - Ben.

As we slide into the holiday period, you’ll probably notice things slow down around here, as we catch up on the last few reviews we have in the Animated News & Views bag and get ready for the year ahead. But there’s still a bit of news floating out and about there, so be sure to keep checking back at Animated News for the latest headlines!

On the disc front, Video Business is reporting that Lost could be the first major television series to find all of its complete seasons to debut on Blu-ray: during a roundtable discussion last week, creators Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindeloff let slip that when the show ends in 2009 that a full six-seasn BD set would be on the cards for 2010 - the earliest fans would also see the first two seasons on the HD discs, which may only be available in the complete set. The blurb states that “to date no primetime series has been released in full form on Blu-ray”, though I’m not sure where that leaves Heroes, which has had all its current seasons come to BD as available. The mammoth price tag is already being debated…!

In other news, I’m surprised to read that Universal Pictures, just as they set up shop with Steven Spielberg’s re-energized DreamWorks Pictures, is not going to renew their deal with Spielberg’s producing duo of choice, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy. The husband and wife team, under their Kennedy/Marshall Company banner, have been responsible for several of Universal’s biggest recent successes, including the Bourne films, the fourth of which is in development (hey, didn’t he work out who he was? Didn’y Matt Damon say no? Didn’t they run out of books?). Kennedy/Marshall began laying off staff last week, though will remain involved in the untitled Bourne 4 and the long-gestating Jurassic Park IV, obviously under Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment. Just goes to show that even the big hitters are feeling the crunch, even if I think they’ll be well taken care of with Spielberg finding himself lock, stock and barrel back in his rightful home at…Universal Studios!

We’ll be back during the week with a few more updates, and don’t forget that the discussions continue all the time in the Animated News & Views Forum - it’s easy to sign up and add your own animated views!

Stay tooned! - Ben.

Congratulations to the winner of our Narnia: Prince Caspian contest: Phil Anderson, Grand Rapids MI, who’ll be back in the Narnian world thanks to Disney Home Video very soon!

Elsewhere on the site, it’s one of our occasional live-action days, as I take a quick look at a couple of recent releases, both Paramount titles and both of which take a look at the flipside of the Hollywood movie business. You’ll find comments on Sunset Boulevard: Centennial Collection and Tropic Thunder: Unrated Director’s Cut - both of which are well recommended - right at the end of this post.

Have a great weekend, and stay tooned! - Ben. [ More… ]